March 4, 1870.] ^^^ ^ [Brinton. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO A GRAMMAR OF THE MUSKOKEE LAN- 

 GUAGE. 

 By D. G. Brinton, M. D. 



1. Historical notes on the language, its dialects, af3finities, and litera- 

 ture. 



2. The Alphabet. 



3. Remarks on Buckner's " Mask coke Grammar." 



4. The Muskokee verb. 



. 5. Specimen of the language. 



I. HisTOEiCAL Notes. 



The Muskokees, (este musk6kee, or muskokvUke), or, as they were called 

 by the English settlers, the Creeks, when first known to Euroi^eans, occu- 

 pied most of the territory now embraced in the states of Georgia, Ala- 

 bama, and Florida. They were divided into a number of towns, each gov- 

 erned by a civil ruler, the mek ko or king, and a war-chief, and all svibject 

 to one potentate, in whose family the supreme power was hereditary in 

 the female line. 



Their geographical position brought them early into contact with the 

 white race, and many Muskokee names are preserved in the ancient Span- 

 ish narratives. Most of these, when given the Spanish pronunciation, are 

 still intelligible to the natives, and some of the town names are those of 

 towns {i. e., bands), still in existence. The narratives of De Soto's expe- 

 dition (1539-40) contain many such, and the town of Tocobaga, mention- 

 ed by Hernando cl' Escalante Fontanedo, ' who was wrecked on the coast of 

 Florida in 1552, is still found among the Creeks in the Indian territory. 

 The latter writer lived several years among the natives, and gives a word 

 or two of their language. One of these, se-le-teg a, which he translates "run 

 to the look-out, " I repeated, with the Spanish pronunciation, to Mr. S. 

 W. Ferryman, Speaker of the House of Warriors of the Creek Nation, an 

 educated and intelligent native, without informing him of its alleged 

 meaning. He at once translated it " run thither, " the look-out being 

 probably intimated by a gesture. Other Muskokee words given by Fon- 

 tanedo are : Otapali, properly oti palin, ten islands ; and Tampa, properly 

 timpe, near to it. 



In the year 1570, Juan de la Vandera, a Spanish officer at the post of 

 St. Helena, north of the Savannah river, sent a detachment inland to 

 seek the town of Coosa, mentioned in such extravagant terms by the sur- 

 vivors of De Soto's expedition. The report of this exploration has been 

 pubhshed by Mr. Buckingham Smith in his " Colleccion de Documentos 

 sobre la Florida." It contains the names of a number of native villages. 

 These I read to Mr. Ferryman, who promptly identified several of them, 

 as Ahoya, two-going ; Ara-uchi, a place where a tree named ara grows ; 

 Gwataro, properly coahtari, dry cane; Issa, deer; Satapo, properly satape, 

 persimmon tree ; Solameco, properly solv mekko, buzzard king ; Tasqui- 



I Memoir of Hernando d' Escalante Fontanedo. Translated by Buckingham Smith, Washington, 

 18:>4. 



A. P. S. — VOL. XI — IOe 



