Gatschet.] 490 {April 5, 
THE TIMUCUA LANGUAGE. 
By ALBERT 8S. GATSCHET. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, April 5th, 1878, as a 
sequel to the article read April 6th, 1877.) 
Ancient writers on Floridian history have left us a multitude of inter- 
esting details of the civil life and warfare of the Timucua. But these new- 
comers often judged these and other natives and their peculiarities with 
the bias and prejudice inseparable from their European origin, and many 
of their views may, after a comprehensive study of the Southern tribes, 
finally prove untenable. Nothing conveys so deep an insight into the 
mode of thinking and the mental capacities of a people than its idiom, and 
though it will not enable us to correct inaccurate or erroneous historical 
statements, it will depict to us an important side of the interior life of the 
nation, disclose its social and intertribal position, give a glance at its ideas 
on religion, demonology, or natural phenomena, and perhaps furnish indi- 
cations of former migrations. 
-The volumes of F. Pareja consulted by me are the property of the New 
York Historical Society, and to the courtesy of its librarian, Mr. J. IN 
Stevens, I am indebted for the opportunity of perusing also some passages, 
which contain the titles of other books published in Timucua by the Padre. 
They mainly refer to ascetic subjects, and in the ‘‘ Historical Magazine of 
New York,’’ 1858, No. 1, page first, the second edition of a Timucua Cate- 
chism is mentioned, which was printed by Juan Ruyz in the City of 
Mexico in 1627. A copy of it exists in the Library of the British Museum. 
The title of one of Gregorio de Mouilla’s books is given below. 
To a further selection of Timucua texts I premise here a few notes of 
historical and linguistic import. 
Various NOTEs. 
1. Although the peeple and language of which we treat is generally called 
Timuquana, I have preferred the simple form of Timucua, by which term 
the tribe seems to be characterized as the ruling or most powerful portion of 
the entire oligarchic commonwealth. Timuquana is only the Spanish ad- 
jective of the noun wtimoqua or atimoge, and occurs in “lengua timucuana, 
provincia timuquana,’’ while Pareja and the historians always give Timo- 
qua, Timuca or Timucua, as the real name of the district and tribe. The 
French formed their ‘‘Thimagona’”’ from the Spanish adjective. 
2. Mr. Buckingham Smith, in a manuscript note, gives the following 
about the areu of the Timucua lauguuge: 
“The limits within which the language of the Atimuqua was spoken 
can be stated only in general outline. On the north the boundary was not 
distant from the river Saint Mary’s, on the west the river Ausile and the 
