14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



After recapitulating the various concessions and showing up the 

 weak points developed by the defense, Brinton meets the grannnatical 

 })art of the French philologist's reply by stating that he had never 

 denied the existence of the exceptional grammatical features he had 

 referred to in American languages, but maintained that it was un- 

 likely they should all occur in one language. lie concludes his argu- 

 ment by saying that "even if some substructure will be shown to have 

 existed for this Taensa Grammar and texts (which, individually, 

 I still doubt), it has been presented to the scientific world under con- 

 ditions which are far from adequate to the legitimate demands of 

 students." « 



With this view Professor Vinson, the next contributor to the dis- 

 cussion, entirely concurs, and in detailing his early association with 

 Parisot is able to show further discrepancies between the claims of 

 that individual in earlier and later years.'' 



In his letter to the Revue de Linguistique for January, 1888, 

 Brinton touches upon Taensa long enough to expose several glaring 

 l)lunders in the pamphlet of texts published at Epinal in 1881. This, 

 occurring in connection with criticisms on certain opinions expressed 

 by Dr. A. S. Gatschet, brought forth from the latter student the best 

 defense of the Taensa Grammar that has appeared. Gatschet agrees 

 with Brinton, indeed, in his criticism of the Epinal pamphlet,' but 

 attempts to defend the rest, including the texts throAvn over by Adam, 

 although he allows for the possibility of their fraudulent nature by 

 saying that " the eleven songs might be the work of a forger without 

 the language itself being necessarily unauthentic." " To the statement 

 that the Taensa did not survive the year 1740 he produces documen- 

 tary evidence of their existence as late as 1812. Nor was it necessary 

 that a " Sjoanish monk " should have recorded this language, since 

 any Spaniard straying over from Pensacola, only 10 leagues from the 

 later location of the Taensa near Mobile, might have performed that 

 service. Like M. Adam, Gatschet finds the exceptional grammatical 

 forms cited by Brinton in various other American languages, and he 

 meets the obstacle raised by references to various American and 

 European languages by supposing that they had been inserted by 

 M. Adam in revision. The mention of sugar cane, rice, apples, pota- 

 toes, bananas, cattle, and a cart are to be explained on the ground that 

 the Taensa had existed long after the introduction of those things. 

 The month of December was called " the white month," not on ac- 

 count of the snow, but on account of the frost, which the critic him- 

 self had seen in Louisiana in parishes much farther south than that 

 in which the Taensa lived. The sugar maple is found not only in the 

 north, but in mountainous sections of the south.« 



" Amer. Antiq., \u, 27G. "Ibid., xxi, 203-204. 



"Revue de Linguistique, xix, 147-169. « Ibid., 204-207. 



" Ibid., 207. 



