Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/260

 29 t A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. The way in which the Delawares express the reflected form is not an inflection. They simply add the word rthakcy, 'my body. 1 ' 1 hear myself is, n'penda n'hdkey, 'I hear my body.' One instance occurs of an animate form as distinct from the inanimate amongst Zeisberger's paradigms, in the verb peton, ' to bring.' The following are examples of the manner in which, either by inflections, or by compounding the verb with some other part of speech, complex ideas are expressed in a single word. ' It rains,' sokelan ; ' it rains hard,' kschilan ; ' it rains by showers,' popctelan ; ' it is a general rain,' alhacquot. ' The river drifts ice,' massipook ; 'it is clearing up of ice,' mosch- hoquat ; ' the water is rising,' petaquiechen ; ' the water is high,' ■m'chaquicchcn ; 'it is ripe (corn),' winu; ' it is ripe (fruit)/ winxu ; ' he fetches wood,' natachtu. Chippeway Nouns. [Extracted from Schoolcraft's Lectures.] All words of whatever denomination are separated into two classes, animates and inanimates. This principle pervades the whole language. It may be considered as forming two gen- ders, into which are merged the masculine and the feminine. And it requires different inflections in the verbs, the adjectives, and the pronouns. Examples, I see, good, this, Animate. wabima, onishishin ? mabum, Inanimate. wabindan, onishishi ? (is this correct ?) mandun. The animate gender, besides animals, embraces trees, fruits, seeds, the sun, moon, stars, thunder, lightning, and various in- animate objects possessing certain real or fancied properties, such as a consecrated stone, a bow, a pipe, a feather, a kettle, wampum, &ic. The sex is distinguished by distinct words in a few instances, such as man, father, husband, grandfather, and their correlatives, deer, dog, &c. The sex of animals is commonly distinguished by adding the words iabai, male, and nozhai }