476 THE TLINGIT INDIANS [eth. ann. 26 



in connection with the morphological characters just considered. 



There are a cei'tain number of nouns in both languages which are 



practically identical, although showing slight phonetic variations. 



Such are tlie following: 



Haida 



xu'Adji 



godj 



djo'lki 



lAgua'dji 



klu'xu 



gu'lga 



tci's'k!" 



tcli'tga 



yel ( Masset dialect) 



na'gadje 



kir/un 



gaodja'o 



nusk 



higayf^'dji 



It must be said of grizzly bear, wolf, ground squirrel, moose, fox, 

 and wolverine, however, that the animals are not found upon the 

 Queen Charlotte islands, and that conse(iuently the Haida could learn 

 of them only through their mainland neighbors, whose names they 

 would very naturally adopt. It is true that at the present time the 

 Tsimshiiin are nearer neighbors of most of tli(> Ilaida than are the 

 Tlingit, but according to the traditions of both Tlingit and Tsimshian 

 the latter formerly dwelt inland, while the Tlingit have moved north- 

 ward from the coasts which the Tsimshian now occupy. Yel, the 

 Masset word for raven, may have been adopted from the Tlingit in 

 place of the word xo'j'a used at Skidegate, although it is to be noted 

 that the former word occurs in names of houses in the southern towns 

 as if it were well known. The abalonc here referred to was not the 

 small native variety, but a large specimen introduced from Califor- 

 nia in trade, and it is quite likely that one people adopted the word 

 from the other. The same argument applies with still more force 

 to iron, and even the similarity of the names for fur seal may be 

 explained in this manner. The term for drum, on the other hand, 

 appears to be onomatopoetic, and may have been evolved independently 

 by the two peoples. Gaodja'o seems to mean "the thing which gives 

 forth a gao noise.'' This leaves only the words tor marten, skate, 

 and a sea bird unaccounted for, and, if our interpretation of the use 

 of yel be admitted, we ma^' perhaps assume that these words repre 

 sent the process of adoption carried to coini)letion. Their striking 

 similarity in the two tongues appears in too marked contrast to the 

 utter divergence of the bulk of the vocabularies of both languages to 

 allow us to infer on this ground alone that w(^ have here anything 

 more than an exchange of words. If no more profound resemblances 



