22. Now let the people repose during the night; at sunrise there shall be a feast; then you shall take the bride in marriage.
And this is the song of the marriage.
The assurance which has offered this as a genuine composition of a Louisiana Indian is only equalled by the docility with which it has been accepted by Americanists. The marks of fraud upon it are like Falstaff’s lies—“gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” The Choctaws are located ten days’ journey up the Mississippi in the wild rice region about the head-waters of the stream, whereas they were the immediate neighbors of the real Taensas, and dwelt when first discovered in the middle and southern parts of the present State of Mississippi. The sugar maple is made to grow in the Louisiana swamps, the broad-leaved magnolia and the ebony in Minnesota. The latter is described as the land of the myrtle, and the former of the vine. The northern warrior brings feet-rings and infant clothing as presents, while the southern bride knows all about boiling maple sap, and is like a white birch. But the author’s knowledge of aboriginal customs stands out most prominently when he has the up-river chief come with an ox-cart and boast of his cows! After that passage I need say nothing more. He is indeed ignorant who does not know that not a single draft animal, and not one kept for its milk, was ever found among the natives of the Mississippi valley.
I have made other notes tending in the same direction, but it is scarcely necessary for me to proceed further. If the whole of this pretended Taensa language has been fabricated, it would not be the first time in literary history that such a fraud has been perpetrated. In the last century, George Psalmanazar framed a grammar of a fictitious language in Formosa, which had no existence whatever. So it seems to be with the Taensa; not a scrap of it can be found elsewhere, not a trace of any such tongue remains in Louisiana. What is more, all the old writers distinctly deny that this tribe had any independent language. M. De Montigny, who was among them in 1699, Father Gravier, who was also at their towns, and Du Pratz, the historian, all say positively that the Taensas spoke the Natchez language, and were part of the same people. We have ample specimens of the Natchez, and it is nothing like this alleged Taensa. Moreover, we have in old writers the names of the Taensa villages furnished by the Taensas themselves, and they are nowise akin to the matter of this grammar, but are of Chahta-Muskoki derivation.
What I have now said is I think sufficient to brand this grammar and its associated texts as deceptions practiced on the scientific world. If it concerns the editors and introducers of that work to discover who practiced and is responsible for that deception, let the original manuscript be produced and submitted to experts; if this is not done, let the book be hereafter pilloried as an imposture.
As soon as I could obtain reprints of the above article I forwarded them to M. Adam and others interested in American languages, and M. Adam at once took measures to obtain from the now “Abbé” Parisot the original MSS. That young ecclesiastic, however, professed entire ignorance of their whereabouts; he had wholly forgotten what disposition he had made of this portion of his grandfather’s papers! He also charged M. Adam with having worked over (remanié) his material; and finally disclaimed all responsibility concerning it.
In spite, however, of his very unsatisfactory statements, M. Adam declined to recognize the fabrication of the tongue, and expressed himself so at length in a brochure entitled, Le Taensa a-t-il été forgé de toutes Pièces? Réponse à M. Daniel G. Brinton (pp. 22, Maissonneuve Frères et Ch. Leclerc, Paris, 1885). The argument which he made use of will be seen from the following reply which I published in The American Antiquarian, September, 1885:
THE TAENSA GRAMMAR AND DICTIONARY.
The criticism on the Taensa Grammar published in the American Antiquarian last March has led to a reply from M. Lucien Adam, the principal editor, under the following title: “Le Taensa a-t-il-été forgé de toutes Piéces?” As the question at issue is one of material importance to American archæology, I shall state M. Adam’s arguments in defense of the Grammar.