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ON THE NOBTH-WESTEBN TRIBES OF CANADA. 545 



Eighth Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. E. B. Tylor, 

 Mr. G. W. Bloxam, Sir Daniel Wilson, Dr. G. M. Dawson, 

 Mr. E. G. Haliburton, and Mr. H. Hale, appointed to 

 investigate the physical character Sy languages, and industrial 

 and social condition of the North-Western Tribes of the 

 Dominion of Canada. 



MemarJcs on Linguistic Ethnology : Introductory to the Report of Dr. 

 A. F. Chamberlain on the Kootenay Indians of South-Eastern British 

 Golumhia. By Mr. Horatio Hale. 



The report of Dr. Chamberlain derives a special interest from the fact 

 that it is a monograph devoted to the people of a single linguistic stock, 

 or in other words to a people differing totally in speech from all other 

 branches of the human race. In my ' Remarks on ITorth American 

 Ethnology,' prefixed to the Fifth Report of the Committee (1889) — 

 Tvhich I venture in this connection to recall to mind — the fact was 

 pointed out that ' in America the linguistic stock is the universally ac- 

 cepted unit of classification.' After explaining how, in my opinion, such 

 stocks had originated, namely, ' in the natural language-making faculty 

 of young children,' who in the earliest settlement of a new country had 

 been left, orphaned and isolated from all other society, to frame a new 

 language, and ultimately a new social system and a new religion of their 

 own,^ I added : ' From what has been said, it follows that in our studies 

 of communities in the earliest stage we must look, not for sameness, but 

 for almost endless diversity, alike in languages and in social organisa- 

 tions. Instead of one " primitive human horde," we must think of some 

 two or three hundred primitive societies, each beginning in a single 

 household, and expanding gradually to a people distinct from every 

 other, alike in speech, in character, in mythology, in form of government, 

 and in social usages.' 



. Since these remarks were written three publications relating to 

 American ethnology, each of peculiar value and authority, have ap- 

 peared. The earliest and in many respects the most important of these 

 is the volume on ' The American Race,' by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Pro- 

 fessor of American Archaeology and Linguistics in the University of 

 Pennsylvania. The general scope of the work is shown by its second 

 title: 'A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the 

 Native Tribes of North and South America.' The author has con- 

 densed within the limit of 400 pages an immense mass of informa- 

 tion concerning the numbers and locations, the physical, mental, and 

 moral traits, and the languages, religions, and social systems of the 

 tribes of the western continent. It is the first and the only compre- 

 hensive work embracing all the septs of the new world, and will doubt- 

 less long remain the standard and indispensable authority. Of 'inde- 

 pendent stocks or families,' we are told, ' there are about eighty in North, 

 and as many in South America. These stocks,' the author adds, * offer 

 us without doubt our best basis for the ethnic classification of the 



' See the Presidential Address of Prof. Sayce in the Beport of the British 

 Association for 1887. 

 1892. 



