1892-93.] NOTES ON THK WESTERN DENES. 21 



Again, the folk-lore of the North-Western Denes greatly differs from 

 that of their immediate Eastern neighbours and congeners, while there is 

 no point of affinity between that of either divisions and the mythology 

 of the Navajos. 



How is it then that tribes of aborigines occupying so widely separated 

 territories and so utterly dissimilar from a psychological, technological, 

 sociological and mythological standpoint can be classed under one single 

 denomination as Denes? The answer is in every mouth: this is owing 

 to linguistic analogy. Language, therefore, is the trait-d'union which 

 unites into one homogeneous body such apparently heterogeneous ele- 

 ments. Through it we are certain that the same blood flows in their 

 veins, and that they are the children of a common father, whoever he 

 may have been. If any stronger argument can be adduced in support of 

 the paramount importance of Philology as an ethnological criterion, I am 

 at a loss to discover what it can be. 



Hence it will be seen that my initial remarks concerning that class of 

 modern scientists who lay so much stress on the physical structure of 

 man to the detriment of his special characteristic as a distinct genus, 

 thinking and speaking, were not unwarranted. \i evQW Xhc ensemble oi 

 the peculiarities which differentiate him into a rational, social being 

 cannot lawfully claim the first place in the ethnologist's estimation, a 

 fortiori this cannot be granted to those features which he possesses in 

 common with non-human animals. In the words of Horatio Hale, "the 

 grand characteristic which distinguishes man from all mundane beings 

 is articu)ate speech. It is language alone which entitles anthropology to 

 its claim to be deerhed a distinct department of science." * One needs 

 not be a scientist to see the correctness of this view, and it is a long time 

 since Quintilian said : " When the Creator distinguished us from the 

 animals it was especially by the gift of language.... Reason is our 

 portion, and seems to associate us with the immortals ; but how weak 

 would reason be without the faculty to express our thoughts by words, 

 which faithfully interpret them ! This the animals want, and this is 

 worth more than the intelligence of which, we must say, they are abso- 

 lutely deprived." f 



I have not so far been fortunate enough to come across any vocabu- 

 lary of a southern Dene dialect, and the only continuous Navajo texts I 

 have ever seen are those of the '* Mountam Chant " published by Dr. W. 



* Language as a Test of Mental Capacity, by H. Hale; Transact. R.S.C., Vol. ix., p. 77, 

 1891. 



t Quintilian, translated by La Harpe, Dijon, 1820. 



