362 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



INDIAN MIGRATIONS AS EVIDENCED BY LANGUAGE. 



BY HON. HORATIO HALE. 



In this paper the author undertook to trace by the evidence of language,, 

 verified to some extent by that of tradition, the course of migration which ha& 

 been followed by the tribes belonging to some of the leading linguistic stocks of 

 North America. The Cherokees were shown to belong to the Huron-Iroquois 

 stock, but to have received accessions to their vocabulary from some other source. 

 The Huron language was shown to be the oldest in form among the languages of 

 this stock. The migration of the Huron-Cherokee tribes was traced in a course 

 leading from the northeast to the southwest, that is, from the lower St. Lawrence 

 to northern Alabama. 



The Dakota stock was next considered. The Tuteloes of Virginia and 

 North Carolina were shown to belong to this stock and to speak a language 

 which is older in its forms than the language of the western Dakota tribes. The 

 Algonkin tribes and languages were next examined, and the evidence was ex- 

 hibited which shows that their migration probably flowed from Hudson's Bay and 

 Labrador towards the south and west. The tribes of the Chahta-Muskoki family 

 were noticed, and the fact was pointed out that their language, like that of the 

 Cherokees, has apparently received accession from some alien speech. Some 

 reasons were given for supposing that this speech was that of the mound-builders 

 of the Ohio Valley. Traditionary and linguistic evidence was adduced to show- 

 that the mound-builders were conquered and partly exterminated by the Iroquois 

 and Algonkins, and that the survivors, mingUng with the Cherokees and Choc- 

 taws, caused great changes in the languages of these nations. 



The fact that the course of migration seems to have been from the Atlantic 

 coast towards the interior was regarded as evidence that the ancestors of our In- 

 dian tribes were emigrants from Europe. In support of this opinion, reference 

 was made to the close resemblance in structure between the Barnque and Indian 

 languages. It was further suggested that if the Aryan intruders, entering Europe 

 from the east, encountered and absorbed a population resembling the American- 

 aborigines, this fact would account for the great changes which the Aryan speech 

 underwent in central and western Europe. It would also account for a very re- 

 markable change which took place in the character of the intruding race. The 

 Aryans, who in the east have always been a submissive and cofttemplative race, 

 devoid of the idea of popular government, became in Europe a high-spirited,, 

 practical nations and liberty-loving people. The conclusion is that the of mod- 

 ern Europe are a people of mixed race, forming a transition, in physical and 

 mental traits, between the eastern Aryans and the aboriginal Americans. 



