90 
VOCABULARIES OF NORTH AMERICAN LANGUAGES. 
“Upon the Canadian river, while accompanied by a trading party of Mexicans from San 
Juan de los Caballeros, we met Indians from the pueblo of Santo Domingo. The Mexicans 
stated that they were known as Teguas; hut they called themselves Ki'-o-a-me, or Ki'-wo-mi. 
One vocabulary of their language, obtained from the chief, is nearly complete. The second, 
communicated by another individual of that party, may he useful for comparison, giving con¬ 
fidence to those corresponding words which, in both, express similar sounds.” 
“At Rocky Dell creek another party of Indian traders made their appearance. They in¬ 
formed us that the Indian name of their tribe Avas Co-clii-te-mi', though by Spaniards called 
Qui'-me; and that their homes Avere in New Mexico, south of the Kiwomi—at Zandia or Isleta, 
perhaps. The vocabulary of their language Avas not completed, because it seemed to he nearly 
identical with that of the Kiwomi.” 
The general conclusion to he drawn from this is, that Ave have here vocabularies of the lan¬ 
guage spoken in Santo Domingo and the neighboring pueblos; and this conclusion is supported 
by a comparison of them with Simpson’s brief specimen of the language, the only one here¬ 
tofore published, with Avhicli it agrees tolerably well. 
One or tAvo particulars, lioAvever, in the statement are difficult to account for. It is said that 
the tribe are called by the Mexicans Teguas. Noav, the ancient and proper name of the tribe 
to which the people of Santo Domingo and the neighboring pueblos belong, as we are informed 
by Pike and Gregg, is Keres , or in the Spanish orthography Queues; whereas the Tegua tribe 
are found further to the north, in the pueblos of San Juan, Santa Clara, Nambe, Pojuaque, 
&c., and speak a different language. Again, the third A r ocabulary is that of people Avho called 
themselves Cochitemi'. This we would naturally suppose to mean people of the pueblo of Cocliiti ', 
Avho are known to belong to the Keres tribe; but they represented themselves as living to the 
south of the Kiwomi, while Cocliiti is the most northerly pueblo of the Keres. These difficul¬ 
ties could probably be easily resolved by persons residing in the country. 
It will be observed that in these three vocabularies the accent, or stress of the voice, is almost 
uniformly on the first syllable of the word. 
Acoma. —The people of this pueblo also belong to the tribe of Keres. The vocabulary before 
us is a brief one, containing but. twenty-eight words. Mr. Whipple says, speaking of these 
Indians: “We tried to write a vocabulary of their language; but the words given Avere so 
long, and so difficult to pronounce, that we gave up the task.” This, though it differs from 
the three preceding ones more than they do from each other, evidently represents the same 
language, and apparently in an older and purer form, its words being longer and present¬ 
ing a more uniform character than those of the other vocabularies, which appear to have 
been abbreviated and corrupted from them. May not this be owing to the Acucans’ being more 
separated by their almost inaccessible position from the Mexicans? Indeed Lieutenant Abert 
says: “These people cannot have associated much with the Mexicans, for they scarce knoAv a 
word of the language.” It is desirable that Ave should have a complete vocabulary of this 
dialect. 
Our interest in the people of Acoma and their language is heightened by the fact that their 
pueblo is one of the few places in Ncav Mexico visited by the first explorers of the country 
under Coronado, in the middle of the sixteenth century, which it is uoav possible to identify. 
It had been supposed that the present pueblo of Acoma, remarkable for its lofty position and 
difficulty of access, which proved its safeguards on that occasion, was the Acuco of the invaders. 
This supposition is iioav fully confirmed by the testimony of Colonel J. H. Eaton, who says: 
“In a conversation Avith a very intelligent Zuni Indian, I learned that the pueblo of Acoma is 
called, in the Zuni tongue, Hali-hoo-hee-ah (Acuco); and this name was given to me without 
any previous question Avliich could serve to give him an idea of this old Spanish name.” 
(Schooler., Hist. Cond., &c., IV, 220.) 
