1883. ] 1 2 {March 2, 
the very interesting facts recorded by Beverley respecting their Jan- 
guage.* 
According to this historian, the tribes of Virginia spoke languages differ- 
ing so widely that natives ‘at a moderate distance” apart did not under- 
stand one another. They had, however, a ‘general language,’’? which 
people of different tribes used in their intercourse with one another, pre- 
cisely as the Indians of the north, according to Ia Fontan, used the ‘4Al- 
gonkine,’’ and as Latin was employed in most parts of Europe, and the 
Lingua Franca in the Levant, These are Beverley’s illustrations, He 
then adds the remarkable statement: “The general language here used is 
that of the Occaneeches, though they have been but a small nation ever 
since these parts were known to the English ; but in what their language 
may differ from that of the Algonkins I am not able to determine.’’| 
Further on he gives us the still more surprising information that this “oen- 
eral language’’ was used by the ‘priests and conjurors’”’ of the different 
Virginian nations in performing their religious ceremonies, in the same 
manner (he observes) ‘as the Cathelics of all nations do their Mass in 
the Latin.’’ + 
The Akenatzies or Occaneeches would seem to have been, in some 
respects, the chief or leading community among the tribes of Dakotan 
stock who formerly inhabited Virginia. That these tribes had at one 
time a large and widespread population may be inferred from the simple 
fact that their language, like that of the widely scattered Algonkins (or 
Ojibways) in the northwest, became the general medium of communica- 
tion for the people of different nationalities in their neighborhood. That 
they had some ceremonial observances (or, as Beverley terms them, ‘‘ado- 
rations and conjurations’’) of a peculiar and impressive cast, like those of 
the western Dakotas, seems evident from the circumstance that the intru- 
sive tribes adopted this language, and probably with it some of these eb- 
servances, in performing their own religious rites. We thus have a strong 
and unexpected confirmation of the tradition prevailing among the tribes 
both of the Algonkin and of the Iroquois stocks, which represents them 
as coming originally from the far north, and gradually overspreading the 
country on both sides of the Alleghanies, from the Great Lakes to the moun- 
tain fastnesses of the Cherokees. They found, it would seem, Virginia, and 
possibly the whole country east of the Alleghenies, from the Great Lakes to 
South Carolina, occupied by tribes speaking languages of the Dakotan 
stock. ‘That the displacement of these tribes was a very gradual process, 
and that the relations between the natives and the encroaching tribes were 
not always hostile, may be inferred not only from the adoption of the ab- 
original speech as the general means of intercourse, but also from the 
terms of amity on which these tribes of diverse origin, native and intru- 
sive, were found by the English to be living together. 
* See the note on page 303 of Dy Brinton’s volume, 2d edition, 
+ History of Virginia (ist edition), p, 161. 
} Lbid., p. 171. 
