206 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. V. 



vocabulary of the Tungus dialects, alongside the native kiltoj'a ; or 

 tilj'kan, day, with tirgani ; or haniiltu, to give, with oinuli ; or antonger, 

 to go, with genigar ; or dellm, green, with tshurin ; or tulkun, red, with 

 fulachun. Some words in the two groups are quite irreconcilable, the 

 result, in some cases, of borrowing, on the part of the Tungus from 

 the Mongols and Koriaks, and on that of the D6nes from surrounding 

 American tribes, although their dialects exhibit distinct traces of Koriak 

 influence in an Asiatic habitat. The argument for the original unity of 

 the Denes and the Tungus is as convincing as that which joins the 

 Indo-Europeans or Aryans in one family. 



THE OTHOMIS OF MEXICO THE MOST ANCIENT TUNGUSIAN 

 COLONISTS OF AMERICA. 



The identification of the l!)enes with the Tungusic stock has led to an 

 important discovery, to wit, that the Othomis, supposed to be one of the 

 oldest peoples of Mexico, are of the same family. Anthropologists have 

 long called attention to their almost monosyllabic speech, and have 

 compared it with the Chinese. In a few features of grammar and 

 vocabulary the Othomi exhibits traces of Huastec- Maya-Quiche 

 influence, but in very few. I subjoin a comparative vocabulary of over 

 a hundred and fifty words of different syntactical value, in which the 

 Othomi is placed opposite Tungus and Dene equivalents, to its complete 

 identification with these tongues. In the Othomi, therefore, we have the 

 simplest and oldest extant form of Tungusic speech, as its primitive 

 forms plainly indicate, and, at the same time, the language employed by 

 Attila and his Huns in the middle of the fifth century. In one of the 

 dated tablets from the Mounds, which I had the honour to submit to 

 the Institute in December, 1894, that namely of Davenport, Iowa, the 

 first authentic American record of the Othomis is found. It relates that 

 Maka-Wala, or Wala-Maka, for both forms are given, was king of 

 Atempa, and that he was overthrown in battle by Mashima, king of 

 Tolaka, in 793 A.D. Now, the capital of the Othomis in Mexico was 

 Otompan, and its American prototype was Atempa or Otempa, at 

 present Ottumwa in Iowa. Otomo, or Odomo, was the name of a 

 Japanese clan, the chiefs of which are conspicuous in the annals of the 

 empire, some of them being at times found in revolt and punished with 

 expatriation. The course of the Iowa moundbuilders must, judging by 

 the purity of their Japanese record, have been from the Japanese Islands 

 by sea to British Columbia, and thence to the Saskatchewan. This 

 journey they might easily have accomplished within the century, so that 



