482 Adjectives of Color in Indian Languages.  [August, 
mskuawi; bronze colored halawi mskuawi (lit. “light red”); drown, 
pkuni mskuawi, or dark red, while the red cockscomb is mskua 
pelué. No special term exists for buff color. Black is mkatéwa, 
and opaque is circumscribed by “ you cannot see through.” Ob- 
jects reflecting sunlight are called waséte; multicolored, tsagi 
yelatégi, and striped in colors, lalatasate, when the stripes run in 
a vertical direction. 
The Creek language is one of the dialects of the Maskoki 
linguistic family, once the form of speech dominant in the terri- 
tories of the Gulf States. The languages forming this stock have, 
in course of time, differentiated so much among themselves that 
they have become incomprehensible to each other. The principal 
dialects, as far as known to us, are Cha’hta with Chikasa; Creek 
(upper and lower) with Seminole; Natchez; Hitchiti; Apalache. 
Nothing certain is known concerning the Alibamu dialect, which 
is still spoken in one of the south-eastern counties of Texas. 
Besides a few Indians remaining in Texas and in the Everglades 
of Florida, all the natives speaking Maskoki- dialects are now 
settled in the Indian Territory. 
The phonetic character of all these idioms pleasantly affects 
the ear accustomed to European languages. All of them, the 
Creek not excepted, possess the lingual s, which could be ren- 
dered by ¢h/, a group of sounds approaching closely to its real 
articulation. 
The term for white and clear is hatgi, and since every adjective 
of color forms an attributive verb, he is white is hatgis. From 
hatgi is derived supak’hatgi, gray and roan, literally, “ mixed in 
with white.” 
Blue is holati, ozolati, which may be said of the sky, of water, 
of distant mountains; wiwat hulatis, the water is blue. Green is 
lani, and when said of plants it means “not in a dry state ;” 
pahilanoma, grass-green; pahit lanis, however, means as well, ; 
“the grass is green,” as “the grass is faded, yellow;” láni also 
means ġe. 
The term for ved, tchati, also means “ blood,” and forms the 
derivate oktsadi, purple (and sorrel when applied to horses). 
Hasti, d/ack, forms the derivate okuldshti, drown ; dark, when — 
used for the darkness of night, is yémudshki. 
Instead of inventing new terms for metals recently imported, a 
_as a few tribes have done, the Creeks will call gold coin, “yellow 
