August 31, I88:i.] 



SCIENCE. 



•i7l 



be competent to prepare a grammar of these 

 dialects. With due respect for tiie great enidi- 

 tion of Father Ctioq, whose special studios liavo 

 been in Algonquin, although a missionary to 

 both tribes, we would say that the materials 

 from which the reverend father prepared both 

 his Lexique and the Iro(iuois i)ortion of his 

 Langues sauvages are through the courtesy of 

 the Rev. Fathers Antoine and Uurtin, of the 

 order Oblat. now in the tera[X)rary possession 

 of our Bureau of ethnology at SVashingtou, 

 ■where, ahi'.uly nearly translated, they will in 

 time be pulilislied in connection with the oth- 

 er Iroquois dialects. We allude to the works 

 of that greatest of all !Mohawk scholars, tlie 

 liev. Father Marcoux. That the rules, the re- 

 sult of so much time and labor, can be clearly 

 and distinctly i)rescntcd to us in our own 

 tongue, Mr. Ilale has exemplitied in the few 

 wliicli he presents in this chapter. The ' forms ' 

 and ' particles' which he has given are all from 

 the Mohawk dialect, altiiough he follows the 

 example of all the Canadian authors, who dig- 

 nif)' one dialect with the title which others 

 contend belongs properly- to a group. The 

 examples he gives will many of them not apply 

 to some of the other dialects, more especially to 

 the Onondaga and Tuscarora. 



In following too closely the rules of the 

 French missionaries, great discrimination must 

 naturally be exercised. 



We do not agree, for example, with Mr. 

 Hale, in the illustration given with his remarks 

 upon the duplicative form, on p. 111. 



Tlie prefix of this form is te; the verb se- 

 lected, ikiakit, — the same verb as given by 

 Father Cnoq to illustfate this form. 



I-klaks, I cut, in the act of cutting ; te- 

 kiuks, 1 it cut in two, or divide ; hwisk is the 

 Jlohawk numeral ^ue; hwiak te-kiiiks, I cut 

 it into five pieces : hence te, the prefix, can- 

 not be a syuonymc of, or a literal translation 

 of, the Latin bi in bisecto (I cut in two), l)ut 

 a sign that the act of cutting is or may be re- 

 peated as often as necessary. 



Again, concerning gender (p. 106) : the old 

 French missionary idea of a ' noble ' and ' ig- 

 noble ' gender — the former of whicth included 

 ' man au<l deities,' and the latter ' woman, evil 

 spirits and olyects ' — is explained away very 

 satisfactorily by Mr. Hale, until he admits witli 

 them the absence of any neuter form. This 

 leads him into the error (p. 108) of following 

 their form of conjugation. 



The model containing the verbs ' to love ' 

 and ' to see ' are as given originally by Father 

 Marcoux, and presented to the public by Fa- 

 ther Cuoq. Here the French form of conjuga- 



tion is used, which lacks the neuter pronoun 

 ' it,' but which is supplied with the indetermi- 

 nate pronoun ' on.' Tlie neuter pronoun, how- 

 ever, does exist in these dialects as jjresented 

 in five ditferent clirestomathies alread}' pre- 

 pared. 



The transl.ation of the third person neuter 

 (p. 108), wat-hih-tos. by 'she sees,' should 

 be rendered by ' it sees ; ' and the third [)erson 

 singular, translated as indeterminate ' one 

 sees,' is, in fiict, the third person feminine; 

 and the same mistakes occur with the verb • to 

 loy.-.' 



''"'hese few exceptions are simply advanced 

 to show how much stud\" is yet to be given to 

 tliese dialects, and that we cannot accept un- 

 reservedly the opinions of even the best ac- 

 knowleged authority upon languages, which, 

 we are learning, cannot be made amenable to 

 the grammatical rules of any known tongue. 



The author's opinions concerning clans are 

 deserving of great attention ; although man}' 

 will be unwilling to agree with his conclusion, 

 that, before llie division of the Iroquois into 

 tribes, there existed but the three presented in 

 the Book of rites. It may be true that clans in 

 some instances have been added, but we know 

 of many more in our own day whicli have died 

 out. The last male representative of the 

 Khut-kun-yah clan now occupies its chieftain's 

 seat without a single constituent, upon the 

 Tuscarora reservation, while among the same 

 tribe the female remnants of the snii)e clan 

 have been passed over into that of the turtle. 

 The examples of the added Onondaga and 

 Oneida (p. 52) among the Iroquois of east- 

 ern Canada bear directly upon some remarks 

 from a corresi)ondont of Sciesce in relation to 

 the extra clans found among those Mohawks. 

 This subject is referred to by our correspond- 

 ent as ' an interesting field of inquiry.' Mv. 

 Hale's rem.arks, while suggesting a clew, are 

 not free from oljections. The clans are not 

 called by the above names. One is termed 

 the * calumet.' and has the pipe as its syral)ol, 

 which it was the province of one chosen from 

 this clan to present in solemn assemblies ; and 

 the chief of this clan also named the deputies, 

 ambassadors, etc. : lu'iiee its title of ' Ro-te- 

 sen-yia-kih-le,' from which name Mr. Haleevi- 

 dentl}' christens it 'Onondaga,' whose council, 

 not tribal name, is the same, signifying • name- 

 bearers.' Tlic council name of the Cayuga 

 tribe translates literally the -great-pipe people' 

 (p. Tit) : so might there not be as feasible a 

 foundation for naming it the Cayuga clan? 

 Moreover, woiiKl the same reasoning hold 

 good concerning the rock clan, as the council 



