OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



195 



These terms represent four stock languages. To say there is a striking similarity 

 among them is hardly sufficient. There is more or less of affinity among them all, 

 which might be raised, by the recovery of a few intermediate links, to demonstrated 

 identity. In a few instances the identity seems to be apparent; e. g., the terms for 

 cousin in Seneca and Yankton; the terms for uncle in Seneca, Yankton, Chocta, 

 and Cherokee ; the term for aunt in Seneca, Chocta, and Cherokee ; and the term 

 for mother in Wyandote, Yankton, Mandan, and Kaw. From the present relation 

 of these dialects to each other, and more especially from the particular points of 

 agreement in their several systems of relationship, there appears to be sufficient 

 reason for classifying them together as branches of a common stem. This, for 

 sufficient reasons, has been called the Dakotan. 



IV. Prairie Nations. 1. Pawnees. 2. Arickarees. (3. Witchitas. 4. Kichais. 

 5. Huecos. Not in the Table.) 



Our limited knowledge of this branch of the Ganowanian family is explained 

 by their residence in the interior of the continent. The Pawnees and Arickarees 

 are the only nations belonging to this branch which have ever reached a locality as 

 far east as the Missouri River, and they were never known to reside upon its east 

 side. Having obtained and domesticated the horse at an early day, they haA r e been 

 prairie Indians from the earliest period to which our knowledge of their existence 

 extends. The range of the Pawnees was upon and between the upper waters of 

 the Kansas and Platte Rivers, in Kansas and Nebraska; whilst the Arickarees, who 

 are a subdivision of the Pawnees, moved northward and established themselves 

 upon the Missouri, next south of the Mandans, where they became, to some extent, 

 agricultural and Village Indians. Their congeners, the Witchitas, Kichais, and 

 Huecos or Waccoes, held as their home country the region upon the Canadian 

 River, and between it and the Red River of Louisiana. Gregg was one of the 

 first to point out the connection of the last three nations named with the Pawnees. 1 

 They have sometimes been called the Pawnee-Picts, from their habit of "profuse 

 tattooing." 2 The late Prof. William W. Turner established the identity of their 

 dialects with the Pawnee by the selection of vocables in the note. 3 I have taken 



1 Commerce of the Prairie, II, 251, note. Ib., II, 305. 



8 Explorations for a Railroad Route, <fec. to the Pacific, III, 68. Rep. on Indian Tribes. 



