The only authority is Diego de Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation is extremely obscure in the original. I have given it in the only sense in which the author’s words seem to have any meaning.
8
Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 72.
9
Desjardins, Le Pérou avant la Conquête Espagnole, p. 122: Paris, 1858.
10
An instance is given by Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 186: Vienna, 1856.
11
George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, p. 130: London, 1850.
12
Morse, Report on the Indian Tribes, App. p. 352.
13
Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic shore not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (ciervos) and from their milk making cheese (Hist. de las Indias, cap. 43). I attach no importance to this statement, and only mention it to connect it with some other curious notices of the tribe now extinct who occupied that locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very light complexions, and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin; they cultivated when first visited the potato (or the groundnut), tobacco, and cotton (Humboldt); they reckoned time by disks of wood divided into sixty segments (Lederer); and just in this latitude the most careful determination fixes the mysterious White-man’s-land, or Great Ireland of the Icelandic Sagas (see the American Hist. Mag., ix. p. 364), where the Scandinavian sea rovers in the eleventh century found men of their own color, clothed in long woven garments, and not less civilized than themselves.
14
The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word Eskimantick, eaters of raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time they possessed the Atlantic coast considerably to the south. The Northmen, in the year 1000, found the natives of Vinland, probably near Rhode Island, of the same race as they were familiar with in Labrador. They call them Skralingar, chips, and describe them as numerous and short of stature (Eric Rothens Saga, in Mueller, Sagænbibliothek, p. 214). It is curious that the traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed their arrival on the Virginian coast about 1300, spoke of the race they found there as eaters of raw flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, Account of North America, in Harris, Voyages).
15
Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 374.
16
The late Professor W. W. Turner of Washington, and Professor Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have traced the boundaries of this widely dispersed family. The name is drawn from Lake Athapasca in British America.
17
The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in common with the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The name is of unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled Tsalakie, a plural form, almost the same as that of the river Tellico, properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, p. 87), on the banks of which their principal towns were situated. Adair’s derivation from cheera, fire, is worthless, as no such word exists in their language.
18
The term Algonkin may be a corruption of agomeegwin, people of the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is an adjective manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft “from the words Alleghany and Atlantic” (Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There is no occasion to accept it, as there is no objection to employing Algonkin both as substantive and adjective. Iroquois is a French compound of the native words hiro, I have said, and kouè, an interjection of assent or applause, terms constantly heard in their councils.
19
Apalachian, which should be spelt with one p, is formed of two Creek words, apala, the great sea, the ocean, and the suffix chi, people, and means those dwelling by the ocean. That the Natchez were offshoots of the Mayas I was the first to surmise and to prove by a careful comparison of one hundred Natchez words with their equivalents in the Maya dialects. Of these, five have affinities more or less marked to words peculiar to the Huastecas of the river Panuco (a Maya colony), thirteen to words common to Huasteca and Maya, and thirty-nine to words of similar meaning in the latter language. This resemblance may be exemplified by the numerals, one, two, four, seven, eight, twenty. In Natchez they are hu, ah, gan, uk-woh, upku-tepish, oka-poo: in Maya, hu, ca, can, uk, uapxæ, hunkal. (See the Am. Hist. Mag., New Series, vol. i. p. 16, Jan. 1867.)
20
Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies.
21
Rep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209.
22
According to Professor Buschmann Aztec is probably from iztac, white, and Nahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the language Nahuatl, clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbé Brasseur (de Bourbourg), on the other hand, derives the latter from the Quiche nawal, intelligent, and adds the amazing information that this is identical with the English know all!! (Hist. du Mexique, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several languages of Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Germanic stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Toltec, from Toltecatl, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter may be from tolin, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The signification artificer, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later date, and was derived from the famed artistic skill of this early folk (Buschmann, Aztek. Ortsnamen, p. 682: Berlin, 1852). The Toltecs are usually spoken of as anterior to the Nahuas, but the Tlascaltecs and natives of Cholollan or Cholula were in fact Toltecs, unless we assign to this latter name a merely mythical signification. The early migrations of the two Aztec bands and their relationship, it may be said in passing, are as yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt as far north as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the country now occupied by the Black Feet. Their language, which includes that of the Comanche, Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred bands, was first shown to have many and marked affinities with that of the Aztecs by Professor Buschmann in his great work, Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und höheren Amerikanischen Norden, p. 648: Berlin, 1854.
23
His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of the secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commentaries of Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all proved to be modified forms from the lengua general (Meyen, Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru must not be confounded with the Quiches of Guatemala. Quiche is the name of a place, and means “many trees;” the derivation of Quichua is unknown. Muyscas means “men.” This nation also called themselves Chibchas.
24
The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be the same word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi or Tupa is the name given the thunder, and can only be understood mythically.
25
The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two Quichua words, ari auccan, yes! they fight; an idiom very expressive of their warlike character. They had had long and terrible wars with the Incas before the arrival of Pizarro.
26
Since writing the text I have received the admirable work of Dr. von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerika’s zumal Brasilians, Leipzig, 1867, in which I observe that that profound student considers that there is no doubt but that the Island Caribs, and the Galibis of the main land are descendants from the same stock as the Tupis and Guaranis.
