> Wyandot-Iroquois, Keane, App. Stanford’s Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 468, 1878.
> Cherokees, Gallatin in Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 89, 306, 1836 (kept apart from Iroquois though probable affinity asserted). Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III, 246, 1840. Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, V, 401, 1847. Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt. 1, xcix, 77, 1848. Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 58, 1856 (a separate group perhaps to be classed with Iroquois and Sioux). Gallatin in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, III, 401, 1853. Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860. Keane, App. Stanford’s Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 472, 1878 (same as Chelekees or Tsalagi—“apparently entirely distinct from all other American tongues”).
> Tschirokies, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848.
> Chelekees, Keane, App. Stanford’s Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 473, 1878 (or Cherokees).
> Cheroki, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 34, 1884. Gatschet in Science, 413, April 29, 1887.
= Huron-Cherokee, Hale in Am. Antiq., 20, Jan., 1883 (proposed as a family name instead of Huron-Iroquois; relationship to Iroquois affirmed).
Derivation: French, adaptation of the Iroquois word hiro, used to conclude a speech, and koué, an exclamation (Charlevoix). Hale gives as possible derivations ierokwa, the indeterminate form of the verb to smoke, signifying “they who smoke;” also the Cayuga form of bear, iakwai.[39] Mr. Hewitt[40] suggests the Algonkin words īrīn, true, or real; ako, snake; with the French termination ois, the word becomes Irinakois.
With reference to this family it is of interest to note that as early as 1798 Barton[41] compared the Cheroki language with that of the Iroquois and stated his belief that there was a connection between them. Gallatin, in the Archæologia Americana, refers to the opinion expressed by Barton, and although he states that he is inclined to agree with that author, yet he does not formally refer Cheroki to that family, concluding that “We have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and generally of the language of the Five Nations, or of the Wyandots, to decide that question.”[42]
Mr. Hale was the first to give formal expression to his belief in the affinity of the Cheroki to Iroquois.[43] Recently extensive Cheroki vocabularies have come into possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a careful comparison of them with ample Iroquois material has been made by Mr. Hewitt. The result is convincing proof of the relationship of the two languages as affirmed by Barton so long ago.