182 ASIATIC TRIBES OF *ORTH AMERICA. 



the third personal pronoun, precedes the object possessed ; in other 

 "words the Choctaw and Peninsular languages practice the post-posi- 

 tion of the nominative. Thus in Japanese " the bone of the man" 

 is rendered 



otoko no fone, 

 and in Choctaw hatak in foni. 



Simikrly, "the finger of the woman" is in Loo-Choo— • 



tackki noo eebee, 

 and in Choctaw tekchi in ibbak-ushi. 



These forms, which give us the. English, manJs hone, womarHs finger, 

 and in which in, no, noo represent the possessive inflection 's, together 

 with the close resemblance in the actual woi'ds employed, illustrate 

 the neai-ness of the Choctaw to the Peninsular idiom, and render a 

 reference to Tchuktchi grammar unnecessary. The personal pro- 

 nouns precede the verbal root in Loo-Choo and Japanese as well as 

 in Choctaw, and the temporal index of the verb is final. For the 

 past tense ta is the Japanese and tee the Loo-Choo index, while in 

 Choctaw it is tuk, toh. The Choctaw futures in ching, he and ashJd 

 are like the Mongol in ya, ho and sogai. In the formation of the 

 passive the Choctaw sometimes inserts an / like the Turkish, but in 

 other cases simply changes the final vowel, as in Japanese. The 

 Choctaw negative, k or ik, combined with the -initial pronoun, is the 

 prefixed Mantchu ako. In Choctaw, Japanese and Loo-Choo the 

 accusative precedes the governing verb, and the place of the adjective 

 seems in either case to be sometimes before, at others after the noun 

 it qualifies. According to Santini, the Koriak verb, like the Tungus, 

 is susceptible of all the modifications denoting variety and quality of 

 action which characterize the American families of language. The 

 Choctaws are undoubtedly the Tshekto, and the Cherokees the 

 Koraeki. 



A family more important in many respects, at any rate to the 

 Canadian student of American ethnology, is that known as the 

 Wyandot, which, in general terms, includes the Hurons and Iroquois. 

 These fall into two divisions, a northern and a southern, the latter 

 being, in the historical period, natives of ISTorth Carolina, and thus 

 in proximity to the Choctaws. The most important of the southern 

 tribes were the Tuscaroras and Nottoways. The northern tribes 

 were, arid are still in part, in the neighborhood of the great lakes — 

 Huron, Ontario and Erie. The Huron, or Wyandot confederacy, 



