DEATH OF '« black-bird:' 243 



the Japan river name Pee-chee-lee. Ujiji of Africa finds its likeness in the Jujuy 

 of the Indian. 



Oochee (which is a corruption of either Acha or Ogha) is found in many 

 river names of the world — in Russia, China, France, Scotland, and often in the 

 Indian. From this term comes the word written by our early French explorers, 

 Ouachita (now Washita or Wichita). We find what is perhaps identically the 

 same thing in a French transcript of a Polish name — Oachitza. The name 

 Canoochee of the Aboriginal American, and which is very like the Asiatic word 

 Canojia, gives us a descriptive epithet which is evidently borrowed from the 

 Greek. There are more than a score of the Indian names applying to the rivers 

 bordered by the canes — names having in their structure the Greek canna. We 

 shall refer to them again. 



The above examples — selected at random, and without any effort to give the 

 fullest analogies in the Indian nomenclature to those of the Old World — certainly 

 convey the idea that the river names of America were not devised in utter igno- 

 rance of the language of the Old World. Countless other testimonies could be 

 adduced showing the verbal analogies of the Indian tc those of the civilized peo- 

 ple of the Eastern Continent. The occasional use by the Indian of similar 

 syllabic expressions, or even coincident phrases and complete words found in 

 the speech of unknown people in remote countries, could be accounted for on 

 •the ground of accidentality or otherwise. Yet the nomenclatures of the Red 

 man — his "appellations " — are too full of similarity and actual identity with the 

 words of the Old World for us to doubt for a moment the earliest colonist's 

 knowledge of the pre-existent models. We must confess that there is revealed 

 by the Indian names a knowledge of the historical languages and their etymolog- 

 ical laws governing the coinage of words. 



We have seen some of the examples of the Indian familiarity with terms 

 having origin in languages antedating the Latin. Let us now see if his knowl- 

 edge extended through, or embraced the speech of the Romans. Let us see if 

 we can detect in the river nomenclature of American Aborigines a knowledge of 

 idioms and phrases that cannot be traced beyond the limits of the Latin into an 

 anterior tongue. When we shall have seen the testimonials relating to the origin 

 of the earliest colonists of America as they are revealed by the language of those 

 people, we shall then consider the analogies existing in Character and Art. — 

 Magazine of American History. 



\To be Continued \ 



DEATH OF "BLACK-BIRD." 



A. R. FULTON, 



I have read the interesting article of Mr. CoUett in the August number of 

 the Review, regarding the death of the celebrated Maha chief, Black-Bird, in 



