286 SOME LAWS OF PHONETIC CHANGE 



triyas are one and the same. The Kshatriyas also were Asuras, and 

 of the Asuras were the Pisachas. With these three names, Asura, 

 Kshatriya, Pisacha, may be compared the Basque Euskara, Heritor, 

 Basque and Guipuzcoa, the Caucasian Iskuria or Dioscurias, the 

 Dioscurian Castor, who found his way into classical mythology, 

 Abasech and Schapsuch, the Khita (of Syria) Sangara, Ashteroth and 

 Kliupuskia, the Huron-Iroquois Tawiscara, Ahatsistari and Jouskeha 

 and the Peruvian Huascar, Ayatarco and Pasco, together with the 

 Kheti Ashtar, the Dacotah Seejoohskah, the Muyscan Bochica, and 

 many other isolated members of the triad in other tiubes and 

 families. 



The original physical features of the Khitan must be found on 

 this continent in regions more or less remote from European influ- 

 ences, for in Spain and the Caucasus, in India, and even in Japan, 

 foreign intermixture has so changed the type that little but language 

 and tradition remain to point out a Khitan origin. The measure of 

 Khitan culture was probably never in excess or greatly in excess of 

 that which anciently prevailed in Mexico and Peru. The savage 

 independence of Khitan character appears equally among the tribes 

 of the Caucasus and the Koriaks of Siberia, on the one hand, and 

 among the Dacotahs and Iroquois of this continent, on the other. 

 It is language, however, that determines the relationship of the 

 various members of this once central and historical but now widely 

 scattered family. 



Of the African and Indian members of the dispersion, I prefer 

 for the present to say nothing. In Europe the Basques, with their 

 polysynthetic language are the most westerly of the Khitan. In 

 the Caucasus, under modified grammatical forms, the same language 

 survives among the Lesghians, Mizjeji, Circassians, and Georgians. 

 In Central Siberia the Yeniseians are the remnant of the Katei, 

 whose inscriptions are as unintelligible to them as those of the Mound 

 Builders to our Indians. Of the same family are the whole of Dr. 

 Latham's Peninsular Mongolidae, namely, the Koriaks (including the 

 Tchuktchis) of Siberia, the Kamchatdales, the Ainos, Coreans and 

 Japanese, together with the Yukahiri within the Koriak area. 

 The leading American divisions of the Khitan are : in the northern 

 continent the Dacotahs, Huron-Iroquois, Choctaws, Cherokees, 

 Natchez, Adahis, Shoshonese, the Pnjunis and Yumas of California, 

 Pueblos Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, the Sonora tribes, the 



