Some years ago I contemplated the publication of a work through the American Folklore Society on Algonquian Mythology. Various reasons led me to lay it aside. Part of the material was introduced into my works on the general mythology of the American tribes,[12-1] and one fragment appeared in ([20]) in which I offered a psychological explanation of the character of the hero god Gluscap, so prominent in the legends of the Micmacs and Abenakis. At that time I was not acquainted with the ingenious suggestions on the etymology of the name subsequently advocated by the native author, Joseph Nicolar.[12-2]
The Nanticokes lived on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. In collecting their vocabularies I found one alleged to have been obtained from them, but differing completely from the Algonquian dialects. It had been partly printed by Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton,[12-3] but remained a puzzle. My article ([21]) proves that it belongs to the Mandingo language of western Africa. It was doubtless obtained from some negro slave.
The Nanticoke vocabulary ([22]) was secured in 1792 for Mr. Thomas Jefferson. I give the related terms in the other dialects of the stock.
The Natchez are an interesting people of whose rites we have strange accounts from the early French explorers. Their language is a small stock by itself. At one time I thought it related to the Maya ([23]); but this is probably an error. In ([24]) I printed a vocabulary of words obtained for me from a native, together with some slight grammatical material.
The Taensas were a branch of the Natchez, speaking the same tongue; but in 1881, J. Parisot presented an article of half a dozen pages to the International Congress of Americanists on what he called the “Hastri or Taensa Language,” totally different from the Natchez.[13-1] Subsequently this was expanded to a volume, and appeared as Tome IX. of the Bibliothêque Linguistique Américaine (Maisonneuve et Cie, Paris) introduced by the well-known scholars Lucien Adam and Albert S. Gatschet.
It passed unchallenged until 1885, when I proved conclusively that the whole was a forgery of some young seminarists, and had been palmed off on these unsuspecting scientists out of a pleasure in mystification ([28]). As I have given the details elsewhere, I shall not repeat them.[13-2]
The works of Pareja in the Timuquana tongue of Florida were unknown to linguists when, in 1859, I published the little volume ([27]). In it, however, I called attention to them, and from the scanty references in Hervas expressed the opinion that it might be related to the Carib. This was an error, as no such affinity appears on the fuller examination of the tongue now possible, since Pareja’s grammar has been republished,[13-3] and texts of the Timuquana have been reproduced by Buckingham Smith.[13-4] The language stands alone, an independent stock.
III. Mexican and Central American Languages.
30. The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, November, 1893.
31. The Lineal Measures of the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, January, 1885.