APPENDIX. 483 



In order to place the substantives tluis formed in the tliird per- 

 son, corresponding with the indicative from which they were 

 changed, it is necessary only to prefix the proper pronoun. Thus, 

 Ogeezhaiivddizziwm, his generosity, &c. 



7. Compound Sulistantivcs. — The preceding examples have been 

 given promiscuously from the various classes of words, primitive 

 and derivative, simple and compound. Some of these words ex- 

 press but a single idea, as, us, father — gali^ mother — moz^ a moose 

 — kdg^ a porcupine — racing^ a loon — and appear to be incapable of 

 further division. All such words may be considered as primitives, 

 although some of them may be contractions of dissyllabic words. 

 There are also a number of dissyllables, and possibly some tri- 

 syllables, which, in the present state of our analytical knowledge 

 of the language, may be deemed both simple and primitive. Such 

 are neehi. water ; ossin^ a stone ; geezis, the sun ; nodin^ wind. But 

 it may be premised, as a principle which our investigations have 

 rendered probable, that all polysyllabic words, all words of three 

 sjdlables, so far as examined, and most words of two syllables, are 

 compounds. 



The application of a syntax, formed with a view to facilitate 

 the rapid conveyance of ideas by consolidation, may, it is pre- 

 sumable, have early led to the coalescence of words, by which all 

 the relations of object and action, time and person, were expressed. 

 And in a language which is only spoken, and not written, the 

 primitives would soon become obscured and lost in the multiform 

 appendages of time and person, and the recondite connection of 

 actor and object. And this process of amalgamation would be a 

 progressive one. The terms that sufficed in the condition of the 

 simplest state of nature, or in a given latitude, would vary with 

 their varying habits, institutions, and migrations. The introduc- 

 tion of new objects and new ideas would require the invention of 

 new words, or what is much more probable, existing terms would 

 be modified or compounded to suit the occasion. No one who 

 has paid much attention to the subject, can have escaped noticing 

 a confirmation of this opinion, in the extreme readiness of our 

 western Indians to bestow, on the instant, names, and approjDriate 

 names — to any new object presented to them. A readiness not 

 attributable to their having at command a stock of generic poly- 

 syllables — for these it would be very awkward to wield — but, as 



