HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 69 
In the Chippeway language, -gan and -jigan (-gun and -jeegun, Schoolcraft; Cree, 
-gun, -chéggun, Howse ; Delaware, -can, -schican, Zeisberger) are the formations of many 
names of instruments. Mr. Schoolcraft regarded these names as “based upon the word 
jeegun, one of the primitive nouns, which, although never disjunctively used, denotes, 
in its modified forms, the various senses implied by our words ‘instrument,’ ‘ contriv- 
ance,’ ‘machine,’ &c.” Sometimes, he says, it is shortened to -gun.* These generics, 
however, are not primitive words, but the formatives of participles, and jigan is never 
shortened to -gan, but is formed by the insertion of the characteristic of energetic action, 
ji, between -gan and the verbal root. Participials in -gan (or -gun) serve as names of 
what may be distinguished as passive instruments—things ‘used for” some purpose by 
an animate agent; e. g., niba-gan, “a bed” (‘used for sleeping”); opwd-gan, “a pipe,” 
(“used for smoking”); wassditshie-gan, ‘a window” (“used for lighting”), ete. Parti- 
cipials in jigan (-jeegun) or -chéggun denote inanimate agents, instruments “ for doing” 
something and which are regarded as exerting a degree of energy of their own. Of this 
class are all labor-saving machines and contrivances for helping the Indian do what he 
cannot do without them: e. g., Chippeway kishkibo-jigan, “a hand-saw,” 7. e, used for 
cutting crosswise; téshkibo-jigan, ‘a saw-mill or pit saw”, used for cutting lengthwise; 
bissibojigan, “a corn-mill or coffee mill”, used for making fine, reducing to powder. 
Delaware, kinhan-schican (Zeisb.) “a grindstone,” used for sharpening. t 
The preceding examples have been taken from the languages of the Algonkin 
family, in which the generic annex follows the qualificative. In other groups the order 
of synthesis is reversed and the generic is prefixed. The Dakota cha” (ch as in chin) 
meaning “tree” or ‘ wood,” corresponds to the Algonkin -tukh, for the designation 
of articles ‘made of wood” or “ belonging to a tree,” e. g., cha”-ha, “tree skin,” bark ; 
cha*ha’pi, “tree sap,” sugar; cha”opiye, “wood to put into,” a box or wooden vessel; 
cha'sii", “tree fat”, gum or resin; cha"shu'shka, “good for nothing wood,” the box- 
elder, &c. Ta is a generic prefix of names of ruminating animals, but when used inde- 
pendently denotes the moose, par excellence. Wa limits certain names to the “bear” 
species. Ho refers others to the class “fish,” as in ho-a’ pe, “a fin” (from a/pe “ leaf”); 
ho-wa! sa pa, “all-black fish”, the catfish ; ho-ta"ka, “‘ great fish,” the sturgeon, &c. 
§ 32.—THE RANK OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. 
Students of Indian languages have sometimes fallen into error about 
their rank or value as instruments for the expression of thought, as shown 
moowhau. The Dakota sak corresponds to the Algonkin asq; sa’ka, “raw”; dimin., sa/ka-da”, ‘‘ green,” 
“immature”; sa/ka-yutapi, ‘* something eaten raw,” melons, cucumbers, &c. 
*Lectures on the Odjibwa Substantive. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., vol. ii, p. 228, adopts 
from Schoolcraft the statement that ‘‘a numerous class of compounds is derived from jeegun or gun, mean- 
ing ‘instrument,’ words never used alone.” 
tThis characteristic -j? is itself a compound or derivative, as we find by going back to simpler 
forms of the verb. In the Cree and Chippeway, ¢ or d (Massachusetts, tt or dt) is the characteristic of 
verbs of action performed on inanimate objects; but if the object is not expressed, the verb takes a dif- 
ferent inflection and its characteristic becomes che or ji (i. e., t-she, d-zhe). From this form of the verb 
comes the participial in -jigan or chéggun, which by its formative, -an or -wn ascribes action to an 
inanimate subject employed to do an act, generally, or of which the object is not specified; it cuts (some- 
thing or anything) crosswise,” ‘‘ it makes something sharp,” etc. 
