293 
pronoun, he only conveyed to his audience the idea that he 
and his fellow-missionaries were exclusively great sinners. 
This is a striking peculiarity of speech. Yet it exists in many 
American languages, and is common to the Australian and 
Polynesian. Other links of relationship between the Asiatic 
and American races may be also traced through the languages 
of Polynesia, especially in the determinate significance of the 
formative particles on the verbal root. The Rev. R. Garnett, 
in a paper read before the Philological Society,* observes, 
“We may venture to assert, in general terms, that a South 
American verb is constructed precisely on the same prin- 
ciple as those in the Tamil and other languages of South 
India, consisting, like them, of a verbal root — a second element 
defining the time of the action, and a third denoting the 
subject or person.” In Polynesia, too, “ verbs have few if 
any inflections, the want of which is supplied by affixed 
particles, which are used to' designate tense, mood, and voice.” 
Time is, perhaps, less regarded than the place where the 
action is performed; and this is carefully expressed by the 
locative verbal form. The directive particles indicate ( e . g.) 
— as in the Oregon language — the direction of the action, 
whether from or toward the speaker. Thus, in the Cherokee, 
wai, he is going away ; tayai , he is coming near ; nai, he is 
going by. 
Putting all these linguistic affinities together, the evidence 
of some primeval connection between the Old World and 
the New, which we previously traced out as probable, even 
from a consideration of the oceanic currents, now assumes a 
far more definite character. Let us see how this evidence 
may be strengthened by a comparison of certain social 
customs which exist in common between America and the 
rest of the world. 
III. The first I bring forward is of so extremely peculiar a 
nature that nothing but some common origin appears at all 
capable of explaining its existence among races otherwise 
distant and diverse. Strabo tells us that the Iberian women 
in the north of Spain, after the birth of a child, used to put 
their husbands to bed, and nurse them as invalids for a given 
time.f This practice still exists among the modern Basques, 
of whom it is said that after the birth of a child the husband 
goes to bed, taking his baby with him, and then receives his 
neighbour s’ compliments. J Diodorus Siculus notices the same 
custom as existing among the natives of Corsica. § Others have 
* Vol. i., p. 271. + Strabo, III., 4, 17. 
+ Michael, Le Pays Basque , p. 20. § Diodorus Siculus, V., 14. 
