March 2, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



109 



Calls for Domestic Animals. 



In reply to Mr. H. Carrington Bolton's query in relation to terms 

 used in addressing domesticated animals, I beg leave to give in- 

 formation regarding the terms used by the Eskimo of Cumberland 

 Sound and Davis Strait in addressing dogs. To start dogs, a 

 whistling sound made in the throat, and strongly aspirated, some- 

 thing like h ! h ! is used. For urging the dogs, a great variety 

 of terms are used, the most common of which are the following, 

 expressed in the phonetic alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology : 

 ak (the k being very guttural) ; yatit ; 7ii { the / pronounced in a 

 very high key, and lasting from about five to ten seconds) ; a (pro- 

 nounced in a similar way; ; yauksa koksa ; the same sound as the 

 one used in starting the dogs. For stopping the dogs, a deep o, 

 drawn very long, is used ; for making them lie down, a similar o 

 spoken in a low voice, and at the same time the whip is gently 

 thrown over their heads. In order to turn to the right, the driver 

 sings out, aji'a au'a ya ati'a, throwing the whip to the left ; to turn 

 to the left, the term goi'a got' a ya qoi'a is used. For driving dogs 

 from some food or other things they may attack, the term ha I 

 preceded by the name of the dog, is used. Dr. F. Boas. 



New York, Feb. 20. 



Vermin-E aters . 



Certain aborigines of South America are addicted to a peculiarly 

 disgusting habit, as the following extract from A. Simson's ' Travels 

 in the Wilds of Ecuador ' attests : " Lice of different species are 

 the most abundant, and it is among the commonest sights to see 

 the inhabitants engaged in their chase, keenly pursuing them in 

 each other's heads, and cracking them, when captured, between 

 their teeth " (p. 9). It is interesting to compare this with the evi- 

 dence of a traveller in another part of the globe. Octavius G. 

 Stone, in ' A Few Months in New Guinea ' (Franklin Square Li- 

 brary edition), says, " A very favorite pastime, particularly of the 

 women, is hunting in each other's heads for vermin. Two, three, 

 or four in a row, sitting one behind the other, might be constantly 

 seen in front of my tent, pursuing their favorite amusement. It is 

 a common one among most colored races, and a wholesome prac- 

 tice to boot. But eainig\.\\t lice is another affair. I could hardly be- 

 lieve my own eyes when I first saw them engaged in this disgusting 

 employment ; yet they not only eat every one caught, but appear to 

 do it with considerable zest and relish. Whether they believe it 

 nourishing, or take it simply as a bonne bonche, is not quite certain, 

 but opinion inclines toward the latter theory" (p. 11). Whether 

 this be the correct explanation or not, remains to be seen. Cer- 

 tainly it is not for lack of food that the practice is kept up. Is the 

 practice known to exist elsewhere in America? The tribes visited 

 by Mr. Simson were the Piojes and Jivaros ; those seen by Mr. 

 Stone belonged to the Motu district of New Guinea. Perhaps when 

 all instances of the occurrence of this strange habit have been col- 

 lated and examined, a clear and satisfactory explanation of it may 

 be given. In the mean time, I simply call attention to this interest- 

 ing point in the anthropology of the Naturvolker. 



A. F. Chamberlain. 



Toronto, Feb. 15. 



In addition to Mr. Chamberlain's quotations, I would say that 

 the custom of eating vermin is a wide-spread one, although most 

 travellers do not mention it in their reports. Parry and. Lycm, as 

 well as Hall, found it practised by the Eskimo of Hudson Bay and 

 Frobisher Strait. I found the same habit among the Eskimo of 

 Cumberland Sound and Davis Strait, and I well remember a father 

 carrying his three-year-old child, and feeding it with the lice he 

 picked from its head. F. Boas. 



New York, Feb. 25. 



The Snow-Snake and the r-Sound. 



Dr. Beauchamp will, I am sure, agree with me that the pres- 

 ence of the snow-snake game among the Southern Iroquoian tribes 

 can be more firmly established by the evidence to be obtained di- 

 rectly from the traditions of those Tuscaroras who early in the 

 present century came directly from the South to their present habi- 

 tation in Niagara County, N.Y., and by the evidence of language, 

 than in any other way. 



In these traditions the Tci-7-u-ha -ka (the Nottowayans), among 

 others, are mentioned as contestants with the Skd-ru' -reP-' (Tusca- 

 roras) in this game of snow-snake. 



The name of the so-called ' snow-snake ' in the language of the 

 Tuscaroras is u-trd-hwe'^-te. (misprinted in my former article); and 

 of the game, nd-yd-trd-hzve'^-id'-yens (literally, ' they two bet snow- 

 snake '). U-trd-hiue,^'-ie is a pure noun, having the power of com- 

 position either with verbs or adjectives, and also having a declension 

 to express the nominative and oblique cases, — circumstances that 

 in the nature of the language assign to the noun an age far ante- 

 dating the wars of 1711- 13. The game was played in winter, and 

 a slight modification of it in the summer. 



The southern limit of snow at sea-level is, in the United States, 

 the 30th parallel of northern latitude ; and, as the territory of the 

 Southern Iroquoian tribes lay between the 35th and 39th parallels, 

 it is quite likely that they often had winters ' appropriate ' for the 

 use of the snow-snake. 



With the assistance of some very intelligent Onondagas, some of 

 whom spoke Tuscarora and Oneida in addition to their own tongue, 

 I collected, in 1880 and 1884, with other linguistic matter, a vocab- 

 ulary of more than fifteen hundred words and over five hundred 

 and fifty phrases and sentences, and I also made translations of two 

 quite lengthy aboriginal compositions. In the prosecution of these 

 linguistic studies, great care was taken in verifying the work at 

 every stage of it. No Onondagan word was found in which the 

 r-sound was used. 



Mr. Albert Cusick, a man of intelligence and education, was one 

 of my assistants in these investigations. 



The Onondagan, like the Senecan, tongue of to-day has either 

 transmuted the ;'-sound into an aspirate, or has simply suppressed 

 it. 



Mr. Horatio Hale, the eminent linguist and ethnologist, says 

 {Book of Rites, p. 46), "In former times, as we know from Jesuit 

 vocabularies, the sound of the letter r existed in the Onondagan 

 dialect. Since their day the sound has disappeared from it en- 

 tirely." 



Dr. Daniel Wilson, in his lecture on the Huron-Iroquois of 

 Canada {Trans. Roy. Soc. of Canada, 1884, Sec. 11. p. 105), 

 states that the r-sound is " no longer heard " in the Onondagan 

 tongue. 



No one denies that the r-sound once existed in the speech of 

 the Onondagas, as it is still common to nearly all of the cognate 

 dialects. 



The orthographies and translations of both Schoolcraft and Zeis- 

 berger are so inaccurate and untrustworthy that it seems strange 

 to see them quoted as authority on a point of phonetics requiring 

 precision and accuracy of observation, and record of language, for 

 its proper determination. 



Dr. Beauchamp says that in a version of the Lord's Prayer 

 sent to him by a native Onondaga in that tongue, " the letter in 

 question frequently occurred, but the sound was obscure. I went 

 over the version with him syllable by syllable, to get the exact 

 sound, and retained the letter four times as clearly enunciated." 



Faulty articulation quite probably accounts for these four r's re- 

 tained by the doctor. 



In the summer of 1884, I obtained from living Onondagas, and 

 not from ' lifeless books,' a version of the Lord's Prayer in which the 

 r-sound does not once occur. 



One difficulty experienced in my work was to obtain the Onon- 

 dagan orthoepy of a word. The intercommingling with the Onon- 

 dagas, of persons speaking cognate languages in which some form 

 of the r-sound occurs, is in many instances the cause of the uncon- 

 scious mispronunciation of a word. 



To the student of Iroquoian tongues faulty articulation, worse 

 orthography, and otosis (defective hearing) are fruitful sources of 

 error. 



Every Indian is not competent to furnish satisfactory linguistic 

 data. Equally deficient are many collectors of vocabularies and 

 linguistic material. 



Recognizing these difficulties, the Rev. Ashur Wright, who knew 

 well what Iroquoian orthoepy and orthography require, says, on the 

 sixth page of his valuable Senecan spelling-book, printed in 1842, 

 " It is sometimes, also, very difficult to decide on the correct usage. 



