142 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x 



twenty-two years ago a vocabulary of root words representing almost 

 two dozen D6ne dialects, with a view to suscitating among philologists 

 investigations which I fondly hoped would result in genuine identifica- 

 tions with Old World counterparts of the same.^ Although some corre- 

 spondents qualified for such work kindly endeavoured to make my 

 self-imposed task productive of some fruit, I must to-day confess that 

 the results have proved futile. A few consonant synonyms cannot be 

 regarded as a sufficient basis for ethnic assimilations. 



But even though comparative philology does refuse its aid to the 

 solution of the problem of our Indians' origin, some there are, no doubt, 

 who will see in this nothing but a negative proof. If, they will remark, 

 the tribes have left no cognates or agnates in Asia, it does not necessarily 

 follow that they have not originated there, notwithstanding Lord Kaimes' 

 contention to the contrary.^ A whole tribe, or nation, pressed by 

 powerful enemies or impelled by any other stimulus, crossing into the 

 American continent, would leave no trace behind. It would, on the 

 contrary, have carried in its own bosom, over the slight obstacle formed 

 by Behring's Strait or the stretch of water dotted by the chain of the 

 Aleutian Islands, unmistakable tokens of its former sojourn in Asia in 

 the shape of similar customs, an identical technology, or even an analo- 

 gous mythology.^ 



This being so, I now propose to examine, in the first place, whether 

 there is any possibility of at least the Denes of America having migrated 

 from the adjoining continent. In the case of an affirmative finding, we 



1 "Dene Roots" (Trans. Can. Inst., Vol. Ill, p. 145 et seq.). 



2 "Sketches of the History of Man", Vol. II, p. 71; Edinburg, 1774. 



' From the tribal name of the Yakuts Dr. Latham infers previous commerce of 

 some sort between the Americans and Aleuts, on the one part, and the Asiatic people 

 that bears it, on the other. "The name Yakut", he writes, "unless we have recourse 

 to the convenient doctrine of accident, cannot well have been taken by those who first 

 applied it to the Sokhalar, from any language except either the Eskimo or some form 

 of speech akin thereto. There was, at some time or other, someone on those parts 

 about the Lena, who called someone Yakut. Now, the American Eskimo on the Lower 

 Kwikpak, have, as their name for men or people, the word tshagut. In the Aleutian 

 Archipelago this becomes tagut or yagut. I believe this to be the root of the name 

 yakut-at in Prince William's Sound. So that yagut (yakul) is an Eskimo word; and 

 at the same time a name in use as far from both America and the Aleutian Islands as 

 the River Lena. How came it there ? The name was Jtot native. Nor yet Koriak. 

 Nor yet Yukahiri — that we know of. In the present state of our knowledge, it is 

 only the Eskimo tongues that supply this gloss. As far, then, as it goes, it is 

 evidence in favour of a tongue allied to the Eskimo having been once spoken as far 

 westwards in Asia as the Lena. For the encroachment which must have displaced it, 

 we have considerable evidence. The Yakut themselves are evidently recent; the 

 Koriak traditions bring them from the south. The Yukahiri language is remarkable 

 for its isolation, and isolation implies displacement" ("The Native Races of the 

 Russian Empire", pp. 183-84; London, 1854). 



