LANGUAGES OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS 



5°3 



can not be brought into connection with the other or with any other 

 group. Historically the small family may be as significant as the large, 

 for it represents just as separate an origin. 



The Geeat Uto-Aztekan Stock 



Perhaps the best known and most important single tribe in America 

 were the Aztecs, who founded and held the city of Mexico and ruled 

 from there over a large part of the modern republic of that name. 

 Excepting perhaps the Incas of Peru, they were the most powerful na- 

 tion in the new world at the time of its discovery and conquest. Their 



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civilization, though for the most part borrowed from other tribes rather 

 than invented, was also of the highest. As to their own origin the 

 Aztecs had certain traditions, according to whose testimony they came 



