Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/274

 238 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. baptized, on being taught through carelessness, Honor thy fat Iter anil mother. As to verbs, what is most remarkable in their language is, first, that they have some for animated beings and others for things without life ; secondly, that they vary their tenses and also their numbers in as many ways as the Greeks ; besides which the first person as well of the dual as of the plural is also double. For in order to say, for instance, ' we set off, thou and I,' you must say Marascsa ; and to say, ' we set off, he and I,' aiarascsa ;* likewise in the plural, ' we set off, sev- eral of us,' (nous autres) aaarascsa ; ' we set off along with you,' esarascsa. Beside that they have a double conjugation ; and I believe this to be common to all the American languages. One is simple like that of the Latin and French. lehiaton, 'I write,' chiehiatonc, ' thou writest,' chahiatonc, ' he writes,' asahiatonc, ' we write,' scsahiatonc, ' you write,' attihiatonc, ' they write.' The other way of conjugating may be called reciprocal, in- asmuch as the action signified by the verb is always terminated in some person or some thing ; so that, instead of saying as we do in three words, 1 love thee, the Hurons say in one word, onnonhse ; and also, I love you both, inonhxe ; I love you many, aanonhae, &c. What I find most singular is that there is a feminine conju- gation, at least in the third person of the singular and plural ; for we have not discovered with certainty the distinction else- where. Here is an instance ; lhaton, ' he says ? ; haton, 'she says'; lhonton, 'they say, (the men)'; Ionton, 'they say, (the women) '. The principal distinction of that feminine conjugation is the want of the letter h, with which the mas- culine abounds ; perhaps in order that the women should understand that there must be nothing harsh or severe in their words and manners, but that grace and mildness must be on their lips, according to the same lex clementice in lingua ejus. They are fond of similes, trivial sayings, and proverbs. Here is a common one ; Tichiout etoatendi, ' there,' say they, ' is the fallen star,' when they see somebody fat and in good order. It is because they believe that on a certain day a star fell from heaven in the shape of a fat goose. Amantes sibi somnia fingunt.
 * The same distinction is made in the Cherokee language.