The Tlapaneka according to Humboldt is a peculiar language.—Ludwig in voc.

I have done, however, little or nothing, in the way of first hand work with the languages to the South of Sinaloa and the West of Texas. I therefore leave them—leave them with a reference to Ludwig's valuable Bibliotheca Glottica, for a correction of my statement respecting the non-existence of any Indian forms of speech in New Grenada. The notices under v. v. Andaquies, Coconucos, Correquajes, Guaques, Inganos, will shew that this is far from being the case.

The present paper has gone over so large a portion of North America that it is a pity not to go over the remainder. The ethnology of the Canada, and the British possessions akin to Canada contains little which is neither Eskimo or Algonkin, Iroquois or Athabaskan. Of new forms of speech like those of which Oregon and California have given so many instances it exhibits none. Everything belongs to one of the four above-named classes. The Bethuck of Newfoundland was Algonkin, and so were the Blackfoot, the Shyenne and Arrapaho. Indeed, as has been already stated, the Eskimo and Athabaskan stretch across the Continent. The Blackfoot touches the Rocky Mountains. Of the Sioux class the British possessions shew a sample. The Red River district is Assineboin; the Assineboins being Sioux. So are a few other British tribes.

Upon the whole, however, five well-known families give us all that belong to British America to the East of the Rocky Mountains. As the present paper is less upon the Algonkin, Sioux and like classes than upon the distribution of languages over the different areas of North America this is as much as need be said upon the subject.

For the Northern two-thirds of the United States, East of the Mississippi, the same rule applies. The Sioux area begins in the West. The Algonkin class, of which the most Northern branch belongs to Labrador, where it is conterminous with the Eskimo, and which on the west contains the Blackfoot reaches as far south as South Carolina—the Nottoways being Algonkin. The enormous extent of this area has been sufficiently enlarged on. Meanwhile, like islands in an Ocean, two Iroquois district shew themselves. To the north the Iroquois, Hurons and others touch the Lakes and the Canadians frontier, entirely separated from the Tuscaroras who give a separate and isolated area in California. Whether the Iroquois area, once continuous, has been broken-up by Algonkin encroachments, or whether the Iroquois &c. have been projected into the Algonkin area from the South, or, whether vice versa, the Tuscaroras are to be considered as offsets from the North is a matter for investigation. The present writer believes that south of N. L. 45. (there or there about) the Algonkins are intrusive.

N. L. 35. cuts the Cherokee, the Woccoon, the Catawba, and the Chocta area—to the west of which lies of the Mississippi.

Between the frontier of Texas, the aforesaid parallel, and the Ocean we have Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Now here the displacement has been considerable. The part played by the Algonkins, Iroquois, and (it may be added) the Sioux is here played by the Cherokees, the Choctahs, and the Creeks. Whatever is other than Creek, Choctah, and Cherokee is in a fragmentary form. The details of what we know through vocabularies are as follows:—

  1. The Woccon—extinct, and allied to——
  2. The Catawba—also extinct. These belonged to the Carolinas. The Woccon and Catawba vocabularies are mentioned in the Mithridates.
  3. The Tinqua—see Ludwig.
  4. The Timuacuana—see p. [377].
  5. The Uche—of this we find a specimen in the Archæologia Americana. The tribe belongs to the Creek confederacy and must be in a very fragmentary state.
  6. The Natchez—on the Mississippi, facing the Caddos, Adahi.
  7. The Chetimacha.—In Louisiana. Vocabulary in Archæologia Americana.

In the way of internal evidence (i.e. the evidence of specimens of language) this is all we have what may be called the fragmentary languages of the South Eastern portion of the United States. Of the Choctah, Creek, Chikkasah, and Cherokee we have an abundance, just as we have of the Algonkin and Eskimo. It is, however, the fragmentary tribes, the probable representatives of the aboriginal population, which we more especially seek.