Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/62

 26 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. Thirdly, that the verbs are also altered according to the person to whom they refer. Thus " I use a cap," Nitaouin agou- niscouchon. But it' I mean to say " I use his cap," I must in- stead of nitaouin, say nitaouiouan. And all these verbs have their moods, times, and persons; and they have different conju- gations, according to the difference of their terminations. Fourthly, that the verbs again differ if the action is done by land or by water. Thus "I am going to fetch something;" if it is by land, and the thing is inanimate, you must say ninaten ; if by water ninahen; if animated, and by land, ninatan ; if animated, and by water, ninahouau; he. Fifthly, that the adjectives vary according to the substan- tives with which they are joined ; of which he gives several instances. And he further adds that all those adjectives may be conjugated. Thus " The stone is cold," Tabiscau assini ; " it was cold," tabiscaban. ; "it will be cold," catatabischan. Sixthly, that they have an infinite number of words signify- ing many things together, which have no apparent affinity with the words which signify those several things. Thus " The wind drives the snow ; " wind is routin, snow is count ; and snow being;, according to the Indians, a noble or animated thing, the verb " drives," should be rakhineou. Now, in order to say " The wind drives the snow," the Indians, instead of saying routin rakhineou coune, say, in a single word, piouan. Thus, again, nisticatchi means "I am cold," and nissitai means "my feet " ; but, in order to say that my feet are cold, I must use the word nitatagouasisin. Besides the abovementioned specimens of the Montagnar, and some others interspersed in the Annual Relations of New France by the Jesuits, we have no other ancient vocabulary of the Algonkin but that of La Hontan. The fictitious account of his pretended travels beyond the Mississippi has very de- servedly destroyed his reputation for veracity. Yet it would seem that he ventured to impose on the public, only with re- spect to countries at that time entirely unknown, and that his account of the Canada Indians may generally be relied upon. There cannot be any doubt, notwithstanding the observations of Charlevoix, of the correctness of his vocabulary, which has been transcribed verbatim by Carver and by John Long, and appears to have been the only one used for a long time among the Indian traders. Among; the Algonkin inhabitants of the River Ottawa were the Ottawas themselves (called by the French Outaouais),