62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



those phenomena which are manifestly the product of the " working 

 of like minds in a like state of culture." The disregard of this has 

 led to many curious, and sometimes most absurd, views as to the 

 origin of some of the peculiar features of the customs and mythology 

 of our American Indians. Here let me cite a case in point. Among 

 certain tribes of northern Asia the ''hare" appears frequently in 

 their mythology and folk-lore. In the great Algonkin family we 

 find the myth of the " Gi'eat White Hare." In this apparent coinci- 

 dence the advocates of an eastern Asiatic origin would find a striking 

 proof of the truth of their theory. But when we examine into the 

 matter we find that it is a " myth of the dawn," as Max Miiller 

 would term it; and from this as a basis the myth of the " G-reat 

 White Hare " has grown in the following manner : — The words for 

 "hare" and "white" in the Algonkin dialects ai'e in many cases 

 evidently the same at bottom, e.g. : — 



Chippewa — wabos, hare ; wawhishkaw, white. 



Menomonee — waiopos, hare ; waubish keeivah, white. 



Miami — wapawsuoh, hare ; wapeJcinggek, white. 



The words for ''white" in old Algonkin, Micmac, Penobscot, 

 Etchemin, Abenaki, Bethuk, Cree, Massachusetts, Mohican, Nanti- 

 coke, JSIarragansett, Montaug, Pampticoe, Saukie, Sheshatapoosh, 

 Squallymish, &c., are all from this same root. Thus, instead of an 

 imported myth from Asia, we have a " language myth " grown up 

 amid the Algonkin family. The transition from the white of the 

 daivn to the white hare is easily understood, and the result is the 

 myth of the " Great White Hare," Michabo. And I have no doubt 

 but that in our study of American mythology we shall meet with 

 many of these language-myths for which no other satisfactory ex- 

 planation can be given. 



Mr. Horatio. Hale suggests that the foreign element of the Chero- 

 kee language may have been derived from the speech of the ancient 

 " Mound-builders." He bases this view upon the fact that the 

 Choctaw and Cherokee, " though differing in the more common 

 words of vocabulary, agree in quite a number of terms which seem 

 likely to have been borrowed." Dr. Brinton suggested that "the 

 Mound-builders were in part the progenitors of the Chahta itribes." 

 Robertson, the historian, considered the Otomis to be their present 

 representatives. Frost (North-Americans of Antiquity, 1882,) sums 



