THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE AMERICAN LANGUAGES. 61 



Horatio Hale (Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language) dis- 

 cusses this question with regard to the Dakotan, Wyandot, Iroquois 

 and Choctaw-Muskogee families, and comes to the conclusion that, 

 instead of pointing towards Asia, the traditions of these peoples 

 point to the north-east as the land of their forefathers and their 

 earliest abode. He says : " The striking fact has become evident 

 that the coui'se of migration of the Huron-Cherokee family has been 

 from the north-east to the south-west, i.e. from eastern Canada on 

 the lower St. Lawrence to the mountains of northern Alabama '' 

 (p. 11). Mr. Hale and others have shown the connection which 

 exists between the Algonkin stock and the Cherokee and cognate 

 tongues, and in investigating the Tutelo language, he discovered that 

 it was the oldest form of speech in the Dakotan family. As the 

 original habitat of the Tuteloes was in Cai'olina, it follows that the 

 whole Dakotan stock came from the east of the Mississippi. This 

 opinion has lately been strikingly confirmed by the investigations of 

 the Rev. I. Owen Dorsey amongst the tribes of the Siouan family. 

 He observes : *' Some authors speak of a series of migrations of 

 these Siouan tribes from the west towards the east, but the author 

 has been unable to learn upon what authority such statements have 

 been made, nor has he ever found any tradition of such eastern 



migration among the tribes which he has visited." 



Ages ago the ancestors of the Omahas, Ponkas, Osages, Kansas, 

 Kwapas, Winnebagoes, Pawnee-Loups, and Pees, dwelt east of the 

 Mississippi. They were not all in one region, but they were all 

 allies, and their general course was westward " (Migrations of Siouan 

 Tribes, Amer. ISaturalist, March, 1886). Thus from the Mississippi 

 to the Atlantic, and from Labrador to Florida, careful study has 

 shown a general affiliation of speech to exist (the relation in many 

 cases it not easy to discern, but enough has been shown to prove 

 that it does exist). It is probable that a like application in other 

 regions will produce a like result. Neither from the languages nor 

 from the traditions of the Indians of this vast region does the theory 

 of Peninsular Asiatic origin gain support, and the same may be said 

 of their mythology. 



In dealing with questions of mythology, some writers have gone 

 to the extreme of deriving all known phenomena of this kind from 

 one source. But too much attention cannot, I think, be paid to 



