166 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



II. Hurons. 1. Wyandotes. 



A brief notice of the Hurons and of their descendants, the Wyandotes, has 

 already been given. They were called Wane'-dote by the Iroquois, which name 

 they afterwards adopted for themselves. 1 The Wyandotes affirm that the Dakotas 

 are descended from them, which must be understood simply as an assertion of their 

 genetic connection. They call the Dakotas Tun-da'-no. This was the name, still 

 preserved in Wyandote tradition, of the chief under whom the Dakotas separated 

 themselves from the Wyandotes. It signifies "Big Stomach." The Dakotas 

 themselves, it is said, still recognize the relationship, and style the Wyandotes 

 Brothers. 



Their system of relationship will be found in the Table. It has all of the indica- 

 tive features of the common system, and agrees with the Seneca so completely that 

 its presentation in detail would be, for the most part, a literal repetition of the 

 description just given. The terms of relationship, in nearly every instance, are 

 from the same roots as the Seneca ; and although the dialectical variation, in some 

 cases, is quite marked, their identity is at once recognized. This, however, is of 

 less importance than the coincidence of the radical features of their respective 

 systems. A comparison of the two forms shows that the system in all its precision 

 and complexity, with the same original terms of relationship, now prevails in both 

 nations; and that it has descended to each, with the streams of the blood, from the 

 same common source. For two hundred and fifty years, within the historical 

 period, these nations have been separate and hostile, and were for an unknown 

 period anterior to their discovery, and yet the system has been preserved by each, 

 through the intervening periods, without sensible change. The fact itself is some 

 evidence of the stability and persistency of its radical forms. Its existence in the 

 Hodenosaunian branch of the Ganowanian family carries it back to the time when 

 these several nations were a single people. 



The most remarkable fact with reference to this system of relationship yet 

 remains to be mentioned, namely, that indicative feature for indicative feature, and 

 relationship for relationship, almost without an exception, it is identical with the 

 system now prevailing amongst the Tamil, Telugu, and Canarese peoples of South 

 India, as will hereafter be fully shown. The discrepancies between them are 

 actually less, aside from the vocables, than between the Seneca and the Cayuga. 



The comparative table of the Seneca-Iroquois and Yankton-Dacota systems of 

 relationship, referred to at page 154, is appended to this chapter. 



1 It signifies " calf of the leg," and refers to their manner of stringing strips of dried buffalo moat. 



