24 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 258 



the ideal anticipated by Professor Ryder. As to the duty on scien- 

 tific instruments and books, probably the scientific men of the 

 country object unanimously. One of them said to me once, " When 

 I express myself mildly, I call it a disgrace to the country and an 

 outrao-e on science." Science might accomplish a valuable service 

 by collecting and publishing expressions of opinion on this part of 

 the tariff from some of the leading scientific men of the country. 

 Would not a petition to Congress to abolish the duty on scientific 

 instruments and books in foreign languages find many and distin- 

 guished signers ? Charles Sedgwick IVIinot. 



Boston, Dec. 23. 



Arkansaw and Kansaw. 



Where can one find a copy of the law fixing the pronunciation 

 of 'Arkansas ' ? 



As I remember the phraseology, it runs thus : " Each a shall be 

 sounded as a in ' father,' " or, " Each a shall have the Italian sound 

 of a, as in ' far,' ' father,' etc." This would require us to pronounce 

 the name ' Ar'-karn-sar ' (not dwelling on the r) or ' Ah'-kahn-sah.' 

 Mr. Hill pleads for consistency in pronunciation ( !) : is he consist- 

 ent ? How can he be when he gives three distinct values for the 

 a's in ' Arkansas ' ? If the last a should be sounded as aw in ' law,' 

 consistency would require us to say ' Aw'-kawn-saw.' The final 

 '-saw' hardly represents the common pronunciation of early 

 writers, as there was a great diversity. We find, 'Acan^-^a,' 

 ' Acanjz'a^,' ' Accanci^J,' ' A Kancea,' ' A Kansaes,' ' A Kanje ' (Mar- 

 quette's ' A Kansea,'' Jefferys' ' A Kanszs '), etc. All of these will 

 appear hereafter in ' Indian Synonymy,' when published by the 

 Bureau of Ethnology. 



Though not a New Englander, I propose to adhere to ' Ar-kan'- 

 sas ' when speaking the English name, and ' A'-kan-sa ' when I use 

 the Indian one, though I run the risk of being thought inconsistent. 



As to ' Kansas,' how can Mr. Hill say that ' Kansaze/ ' was the 

 early Anglo-American pronunciation, when he gives Long's ' Kon- 

 za ' (i.e., ' Kon'-zay ' or ' Con'-zay ') as an approximation of the true 

 pronunciation.? 'Kan'-ze' (u a vanishing nasal, a as in 'father,' e 

 as in ' they ') is the name of the Kansa, Kansas, or Kaw tribe, as 

 given to me by the Indians themselves. This agrees with what I 

 have gained from cognate tribes, the Omahas, PonkSs, and Osages. 

 The early French forms of the name are ' Canze ' (1722), ' Cansez ' 

 (1701?), ' Canses ' (1702), ' Canzez ' (1758), ' Canzas ' (1774), ' Kan- 

 cas' (1753), 'Kanse' (1722), ' Kanses ' (1702). Early Anglo- 

 American forms are 'Cansa' (1705). ' Kansas' (1741), 'Kanzas' 

 (1695), ' Kansez ' (1761), ' Kanses ' (Pike), and 'Kar'-sa' (Lewis 

 and Clarke, Discov. 1806, p. 13). 



The Quapaws or Kwapa say that they were originally part of the 

 Kansas, and the former are the same as the Akansa. Query : 

 was ,' A Kansa' or ' A Kanze ' (' A-Kan-sse,' Coxe, 1741) derived 

 from ' Kanze ' ? 



There has been a tendency on the part of some Americans to 

 change the Indian a as in ' father,' and ^ as in ' they,' to aui as in 

 ' law.' Thus : ' U-ga'-Khpa ' (' Oo-gokh'-pah ') is now ' Onaw-'^a'w,' 

 or ' QuapaTC,- '' Wa-zha-zhe ' (War-zhar'-zhay '), or ' Osage,' is given 

 as ' Was-ba-j'/zaw / ' ' Pan'-ka ' (' Pahn'-kah '), as ' Vxxw-ca-w ; ' and 

 'U-ma'-ha' ('Oo-mah'-hah ') as ' O-maiu-haw.' So 'Arkansaw' 

 and ' Kansaw.' I protest against such cacophonies, which are 

 neither English nor Indian. When the regular Indian pronuncia- 

 tion of a word cannot be retained, let us use one that is euphonic 

 EngUsh. J. Owen Dorsey. 



Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C., Jan. 3. 



Cheyenne. 



Mr. Wilson says {Science, Nov. ii, 1887, p. 239) thai S/mk-ee- 

 aie loo-hah, said by the Dakotas to the first Cheyennes met by 

 them, means ' you have painted yourselves red.' Its real meaning is, 

 'you have or possess (loo-hah) a Cheyenne (SJiah-ee-ay-laJi).' 

 Lti-ka (loo-hali), ' you have ' or ' possess,' is from yii-ha {yoo-hak), 

 which cannot be used as an auxiliary in forming the perfect tense 

 (for which there is no exact Dakota equivalent). ' You have painted 

 yourselves red ' must be expressed by shah-nee' -cliee-y ah' -pee, in 

 which shah is ' red ; ' nee-ch'ee, reflexive pronoun, second person ; 

 yah, causative ; and pee, the plural ending. J. OwEN DORSEY. 



Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C., Jan. 3. 



The Eskimo Ring-Finger. 



We found the habit of wearing finger-rings quite general among 

 the Eskimo of Point Barrow during the two years we spent among 

 them (1881-83). These rings are generally made of brass, rarely 

 of silver, and it was quite natural to suppose that they learned the 

 fashion from American whalemen. The ring, however, is always 

 worn on the middle finger, and indeed received its name {katiikqle- 

 riHi) from katilkglilh ('middle finger'), corresponding to the 

 Greenlandic kiterdlek (literally ' the middle '). This circumstance 

 was supposed to be merely accidental, especially as the word used 

 in modern Greenlandic for ring does not indicate any particular 

 finger, meaning simply ' the thing which belongs on a finger ' 

 {agssanginio). 



The use of rings is not mentioned, as far as I can tell, by any 

 writers who have described the Eskimo (though agssangmio occurs 

 in Kleinschmidt's Dictionary), and eveiy thing favored the belief 

 that the fashion was merely local at Point Barrow and in Green- 

 land (and possibly elsewhere), and had been learned after they had 

 come in contact with civilized people. 



I was not a little surprised, therefore, when I had an opportunity 

 of consulting the earliest Eskimo dictionar\- (that of Paul Egede, 

 published in 1750), to find given as a derivative of the word kiter- 

 dlek (which, by the way, appears in the form katertlek, decidedly 

 nearer the Point Barrow pronunciation), katertleraut (' a ring : ' 

 " annulus, quia Groenlandi annulum in medio digito gestare "). 



Whatever may be the fashion nowadays in Greenland, it is quite 

 plain that in Egede's time the Greenlanders, like their more unso- 

 phisticated cousins at Point Barrow, not only wore the ring on the 

 middle finger, but named it from that finger. 



Moreover, the word for ' ring ' in the Mackenzie River dialect 

 {kpitep-klopon) indicates a similar fashion in that region. Such a 

 coincidence in widely separated branches of the same race could 

 hardly be the result of accident. Nor is it easy to see how any 

 circumstances of environment could have affected such a trifling 

 matter as which finger a ring should be worn on. 



Evidently, therefore, before the Eskimo had separated into their 

 present branches, they ornamented their hands with rings, which 

 they wore on the middle finger, and not on what the white race 

 have for ages considered as the ring-finger. 



The question of the position of the ring-finger may appear, as I 

 have called it, a trifling matter ; but I think I have shown it to be a 

 link in the chain of evidence connecting the different branches of 

 the Eskimo race, and, as such, worthy of consideration. 



John Murdoch. 



Smithsonian Institution, Jan. 4. 



Queries. 



23. W.A.SP-STINGS. — I have often, from childhood to the present 

 time, heard the assertion that while one holds his breath it is im- 

 possible for him to be stung by a wasp. I have till recently always 

 dismissed the assertion with the same smile that I havd the state- 

 ment that swallows hibernate in the mud, or that Friday is an un- 

 lucky day. My only reason now for asking place in the columns 

 of Science for a question concerning it is the persistent assertion, 

 made by a gentleman of the' highest intelligence, whose opinions 

 and judgment are of recognized value in scientific as well as other 

 departments of thought, that the statement is true. Unfortunately, 

 my own experiments have only been with wasps that were ren- 

 dered somewhat torpid by cold weather, and count for nothing 

 either way. I cannot learn that similar claims are made in regard 

 to bees or hornets ; nor can I learn, from those who make them in 

 regard to wasps, whether it is claimed that the act of holding the 

 breath renders one's skin impervious to the wasp's sting, or whether 

 it in some way changes the nature of the virus or of the sensitive- 

 ness of the flesh to it. The assertion simply is, that any one may, 

 while holding the breath, handle the liveliest and most able-bodied 

 wasps with perfect safety, and also without after-pain or ill effect 

 from any efforts of the wasp made while respiration was suspended. 

 Can any readers of Science prove or disprove these assertions, and, 

 in case they are sustained, give any theory whatever in explana- 

 tion? C. H. Ames. 



Boston, Dec. 38. 



