126 



The young man could not reckon as far as five, 

 which certainly is no proof, that the word five 

 does not exist in the Maco tongue. I know not 

 whether this tongue be a dialect of the Saliva, as 

 is pretty generally asserted ; for the idioms, that 

 are derived from one another, sometimes fur- 

 nish words utterly different for the most com- 

 mon and most important things*. But in dis- 

 cussions on mother-tongues and derivative lan- 

 guages, it is not the sounds, the roots only, that 

 are decisive ; but rather the interior structure, 

 and the grammatical forms. In the American id- 

 ioms, which are notwithstanding rich, the Moon 

 is commonly enough called the Sun of night, or 

 even the Sun of sleep ; but the Moon and Sun 

 very rarely bear the same name^ as among the 

 Macoes. I know only a few examples in the 

 most northerly part of America, among the 

 Woccons, the Chippeways, the Muskogulges, 

 and the Mohawks-f . Our missionary asserted, 

 that jama, in Maco, indicated at the same time 

 the Supreme Being, and the great orbs of night 

 and day ; while many other American tongues, 

 for instance the Tamanack, and the Caribbee, 



* The great family of the Esthonian (or Tschoude) lan- 

 guages, and of the Samojede languages, affords numerous ex- 

 amples of these differences. 



f Nipia-kisathwa in the Shawanese (the idiom of Canada), 

 from nippi, to sleep, and kisathwa, the Sun, 



