ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 135 



have gone into history as facts characteristic of the people of 

 the United States in their treatment of the Indians. In the 

 paragraph quoted from Burton some other errors occur. The 

 Utes and Shoshonis do not claim to have descended from an 

 ancient people that immigrated into their present seats from 

 the northwest. Most of these tribes, perhaps all, have 

 myths of their creation in the very regions now inhabited 

 by them. 



Again, these Indians have not been demoralized mentally 

 or physically by the emigrants, but have made great prog- 

 ress toward civilization. 



The whole account of the Utes and Shoshonis given in 

 this portion of the book is so mixed with error as to be val- 

 ueless, and bears intrinsic evidence of having been derived 

 from ignorant frontiersmen. 



Turning now to the first volume of Spencer's Principles 

 of Sociology (page 149) we find him saying : 



And thus prepared, we need feel no surprise on being told that the Zufii 

 Indians require "much facial contortion and bodily gesticulation to make 

 their sentences perfectly intelligible ; " that the language of the Bushman 

 needs so many signs to eke out its meaning, that "they are unintelligible 

 in the dark ; " and that the Arapahos " can hardly converse with another 

 in the dark." 



When people of different languages meet, especially if 

 they speak languages of different stocks, a means of com- 

 munication is rapidly established between them composed 

 partly of signs and partly of oral words, the latter taken 

 from one or both of the languages but curiously modified so 

 as hardly to be recognized. Such conventional languages are 

 usually called "jargons," and their existence is rather brief. 



When people communicate with each other in this man- 

 ner oral speech is greatly assisted by sign language, and it is 

 true that darkness impedes their communication. The great 

 body of frontiersmen in America who associate more or less 

 with the Indians depend upon jargon methods of communi- 

 cation with them ; and so we find that various writers and 

 travellers describe Indian tongues by the characteristics of 

 this jargon speech. Mr. Spencer usually does. 



