142 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



special tendency to the monosyllabic form. Gumniigar, we 

 are told, signifies * all the substantial of the table, such as 

 bread, meat, vegetables, &c. ; ' and the same word is used to 

 designate the cook. The boy, it is added, does not use this 

 word, but uses gna-migiia, which the girl considers as a mis- 

 take. From which we may gather that even at their tender 

 age the form of their language had become with them an 

 object of thought ; and we may infer, moreover, that the 

 language was not invented solely by the girl, but that both 

 the children contributed to frame it. 



"Of miscellaneous words may be mentioned ^(^r, * horse ;* 

 deer^ ' money of any kind ; ' beer, ' literature, books, or school ; * 

 peeVy ' ball ;' te/, 'soldier, music ; ' odo, ' to send for, to go out, 

 to take away ; ' ke/i, ' to soil ; ' pa-ma, * to go to sleep, pillow, 

 bed.' The variety of acceptations which each word was 

 capable of receiving is exemplified in many ways. Thus feu 

 might become an adjective, as ne-pa-feu, ' not warm.' The 

 verb odo had many meanings, according to its position or the 

 words which accompanied it. Ma odo, ' I (want to) go out ; ' 

 gar odo, ' send for the horse ; ' too odo, ' all gone.' Gaan signi- 

 fied God ; and we are told — When it rains, the children often 

 run to the window, and call out, Gaan odo inigno-migno,feu 

 odo, which means, ' God take away the rain, and send the sun ' 

 — odo before the object meaning ' to take away,' and after the 

 object, ' to send.' From this remark and example we learn, 

 not merely that the language had — as all real languages must 

 have — its rules of construction, but that these were sometimes 

 different from the English rules. This also appears in the 

 form mea waia-waiaw, ' dark furs ' (literally, * furs dark '), where 

 the adjective follows its substantive. 



"The odd and unexpected associations which in all 

 languages govern the meaning of words are apparent in this 

 brief vocabulary. We can gather from it that the parents 

 were Catholics, and punctual in church observances. The 

 words papa and mamma were used separately in their 

 ordinary sense ; but when linked together in the compound 

 term papa-mamma, they signified (according to the connec- 



