What are case-endings in the sense of Aryan grammar? Kühner informs us that "all the relations which the Greek denotes by the genitive, dative, and accusative were originally considered relations of space. The relations of time and causality also were regarded as relations of space. Whitney remarks that out of the seven cases "three of them distinctly indicated local relations: the ablative denoted the relation expressed by from; the locative that expressed by in; the instrumental that expressed by with or by." To these Peile adds the dative, denoting the relation expressed by to or towards. Can any one explain away these words of Kühner, Whitney, and Peile? The learned author of "Polysynthesis and Incorporation" informs us that "a further consequence of the same method" (i. e., his method of polysynthesis) "is the absence of true relative pronouns, of copulative conjunctions, and generally of the machinery of dependent clauses." In Siouan languages there are copulative conjunctions. That there are words which perform the functions of relative pronouns may be seen from the following sentences: Mazhan dhan ankikandhai te andhia tangatan ebdhegan-I we fail we shall Land the we desire for the (which) I think think that we shall fail to obtain the land which we desire for our shangetazhinga―The youth who gave it to you is not the one (who colt now has the stray colt). He who has taken it is the Ponka who has the colt's mother. Unless one has before him one or more series of sentences, such as occur in myths or epistles, he is hardly in the position to speak with authority, at least so far as dependent clauses are concerned.§ *Op. cit., p. 373. †Op. cit., pp. 271, 272. Op. cit., pp. 102-106. For examples of dependent clauses in the Siouan languages see my Madison address, "The Biloxi Indians of Louisiana," p. 16, and "Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. 6, pp. 582, 585, et passim. On page 16 Dr. Brinton says that "the subject is usually a pronoun inseparably connected or, at least, included within the tense sign," and in the same paragraph he speaks of the tense sign preceding the subject. This cannot apply to Siouan languages. In those language's the tense sign, when any is used, follows the subject, and is usually near the end of the clause or sentence. An-wan-khpa-ni, "I am poor," in Dhegiha cannot be "My being poor," as the pronominal fragment is anwan, which is objective, as shown by the vowel a, whereas the possessive and dative of the first person would have the vowel i MENOMONI CULT SOCIETY.-The last annual meeting of the Menomoni cult society, usually designated as the Grand Medicine Society, shows conclusively that its days are numbered. The Government has been endeavoring to dissuade this tribe, as well as the Ojibwa and others of the Algonquian linguistic stock, from holding such meetings and to adopt some creed of Christian faith. Neither the Government nor the church has shown much power in this direction, but the society will become extinct of its own accord, as the old men, the fanatical pagans, are rapidly dying off, while the young men take but little interest in the ceremonies, looking upon them as farcical and of no special consequence. The Menomoni society initiate a new member whenever death removes one from its fold. The initiates, both this year and last, were little girls, the last one to enter being only four years of age and not sufficiently vigorous to bear the strain of an ordeal of twenty-four hours. Women and girls are now, no doubt, in excess, the male membership consisting of the eldest and most decrepid men of the tribe. W. J. HOFFMAN. THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY will hold its annual meeting at York, Penna., about October 14. The society is in a very flourishing condition, has a large membership, and was organized several years ago for the purpose of collecting and preserving all facts relating to the early settlement of the State, the former customs and folk-lore of the people, etc. The society publishes an annual report of operations. "LA MENSURATION DU COU."-In Tome VI, No. 10, 1893, of Mélusine, there is an interesting article, the joint production of MM. Gaidoz and Perdrizet, on the size of the neck as an index of nubility and virginity in both male and female persons in the popular beliefs current among various folk. Citations are given from various authors, among others, C. Valerius Catullus, Vossius, Scaliger, Ellis, describing the custom of measuring the neck. The question was discussed in 1888 by the "Société d'Anthropologie de Paris," and the discussion was published in the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, 4th series, Tome XI (1888), pp. 459 et 472. The following quotation from the article will show its nature: "Aiez une éguillée de fil blanc, mesurez avec ce fil la grosseur du cou de la fille, puis vous doublerez cette mesure, et vous en ferez tenir les deux bouts à la fille avec ses dents, et vous étendrez ladite mesure pour faire passer sa tête; si la tête passe trop aisément, elle est corrompue; si elle ne passe qu'à peine, assurez-vous qu'elle est pucelle." Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique du Petit Albert, etc., 1743, 21 p. Among the Kabyles the puberty of young men is determined solemnly in this manner, according to the excellent work of MM. Honoteau and Letourneau, "La Kabylie." J. N. B. HEWITT. THE TERRABA LANGUAGE.-The Terraba or Tiribi Indians form at present a small cluster of aborigines dwelling on the west or Pacific side of Costa Rica, Central America. They speak a dialect related to all the other Costa Rican languages, which form one family, and are themselves related to many of the South American tongues of the Maipure connection. H. Pittier, professor of the physico-geographic institute at San José, the capital, calls it neither harmonious nor elegant, but harsh in sound and for us unpronounceable in many of its terms. Another name for it, as he states, is "the idiom of Brurán." With C. Gagini he, in 1892, published an "Ensayo lexicografico sobre la lengua De Térraba," printed at the government printing office at San José, and containing, in ninety pages, the grammatic elements, a long list of words, phrases, sentences, and two correspondences, with interlinear translation. A. S. GATSCHET. THE KUSKARAWAOKES OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. BY WILLIAM WALLACE TOOKER. Who were the Kuskarawaokes, and what was the signification of their name, are questions which have often puzzled those who have delved into the archives of aboriginal history or searched among the tortuous labyrinths of Indian traditions. The total amount of our knowledge relating to this tribe of Indians is very meagre, and even that brief portion has not been anaalyzed with the care that it deserves. Their annals, after the departure of Smith from the Virginia colony, was a blank for many years. We can assume that they were frequently visited by Spelman, Argall, Croshaw, and others for the purposes of trade and traffic; * but no one continued the narrative of subsequent events with the historical and descriptive minuteness that characterizes the recital of Captain John Smith the intrepid Englishman. The more we study his works the more we learn and the higher the man rises in our estimation. Would that all who followed in his footsteps had performed their work half so well. Many causes contributed their portion toward the obliteration of the Kuskarawaokes as a tribal organization, and which led finally to the subjugation and absorption of the remnant by neighboring tribes. In consequence, after the lapse of many years, when the settlement of their immediate country was begun by the English, nothing was left but their name as perpetuated by Smith, the decaying shells that whitened the sites of their villages, and the grassy circles that indicated the location of their wigwams. Rev. Wm. M. Beauchamp, in his recent notes to Cusick's Six Nations, suggests that Captain John Smith may have meant the Tuscaroras, by the Kuscarawaokes, a southern tribe. This is an utter impossibility, if we are to believe the linguistic evidence that can be brought to bear and accept what Smith has written upon this subject. The word Tuscarora might seem to have some affinity * Smith's Works, Arber, pp. 503, 511, 586. Iroquois Trail, etc., 1892, p. 98. with the word Kuskarawaoke, at the first glance, without due study and research; but the fact that the Tuscaroras lived in another section of the country, were of Iroquoian stock, spoke their language, and that their name, according to Mr. Beauchamp, should be translated as "the shirt-wearing people," or, as they term themselves, Skau-ro-na, "wearing a shirt," entirely prohibits this hypothesis of Mr. Beauchamp. Not only for the reasons given, but the additional one that the name Kuskarawaoke is absolutely pure Algonquian, as its analysis proves. 66 The Kuskarawaokes were one of the tribes who were found located, in 1608, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake bay; consequently were not a southern tribe from Smith's point of view, although they were from an Iroquoian standpoint. In Smith's relation of their discovery* he says: 'Repairing our sailes with our shirts we set saile for the maine, and fell in with a pretty convenient river on the east called Cuscarawaok. Here doth inhabite the people of Sarapinagh, Nause, Arseck, and Nantaquak, the best marchants of all other savages." He also tells us of the river of Kuscarawaok, upon which he found seated a people with 200 men, On his map he locates a king's town called there Kuskarawaok, on a river abbreviated to "Kus flu." While the surrounding country is marked as being under the dominion of this king, thus intimating that the term applied to all the tribes on the river, Smith's statement that there were only 200 men here would make on a very liberal estimate a total population of five hundred souls. As he mentions only four villages, and Sarapinagh, being the first mentioned and possibly the largest, was probably the real name of the one marked on the map as Kuskarawaok, and in Sarapinagh we find a duplicate of the Long Island, New York, Sagaponack, "a hard, ground-nut place," the stream, no doubt, is the one now known as the Nanticoke river. In the opinion of the best authorities, Bozman,† Dr. Brinton, and Mr. Mooney,§ it is considered that the tribe afterward known as the Nanticokes-who took their name originally from the village that Smith calls Nantaquak, "a point of land on a tidal stream"-included the descendants of all those river Indians *Smith's Works, Arber, pp. 414, 415. ? Amer. Anthopologist, vol. ii, p. 261. |
