250 SYSTEM OF CHIEFS. 
friendly token—an insult, in fact, to the fami- 
ly. Travellers are often severely taxed to pre- 
serve the good feeling of their hosts in this 
particular, especially among the prairie Indi- 
ans. One at all fastidious in matters of diet, 
would find it hard to relish food from a greasy 
horn-spoon which every urchin had been 
using; and then to ladle it out of a pot which 
had been common for all the papooses and 
pups of the premises: or to partake from 
a slice rolled up in a musty skin, or a dir- 
tier blanket. And yet a n apology even of 
having already dined half ae ae times would 
scarcely palliate the insult of a refusal. Though 
one visit fifty lodges in the course of’ a day, 
he must taste the food of every on 
The Indian system of chiefs, chic still 
revails, and is nearly the same everywhere, 
except with the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chicka- 
saws, and the Creeks to a degree, seems to 
bear a strong resemblance to that of the pa- 
triarchs of old; which, with their clans so 
analogous to those of our forefathers, perhaps 
affords as strong a proof as any other of their 
Asiatic origin.* To this might be added their 
- Pligg: origin of the American Indians has been discussed by too 
able writers for me to enter into it here: nor will [ at- 
fempe to show the general = of similarity that are to be observed 
in their — languages: yet it may interest an occasional reader, 
rmed of the lesion of consanguinity which parce be- 
tween alae of the different Indian ne, They may be arrange 
trhick is b (eet the following heads: 1. The Dahcotah stock, 
which is by = ~~ most extensive of those indigenous west of the 
ippi. It embraces the Arkansas (of which the Quapaws 
are now the only remnant), the Osages, Kansas or Kaws, Iowas, 
Winnebagoes, Otoes, Missouries, Omahas, Foose and the various 
bands of the Sioux: all of whom speak a language still traceable 
