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قراءة كتاب A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages
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A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages
to the pre-Columbian period.
No. VII. Ancient Nahuatl Poetry. Edited by Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. 176 pages. 1890.
In this volume twenty-seven songs in the original Nahuatl are presented, with translation, notes, vocabulary, etc. Many of them date from before the conquest and none later than the sixteenth century. The introduction describes the ancient poetry of the Nahuas in all its bearings.
No. VIII. Rig Veda Americanus. Edited by Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. 95 pages. 1890.
Presents the original text with a gloss in Nahuatl of twenty sacred chants of the ancient Mexicans. They are preserved in the Madrid MSS. of Father Sahagun, and date anterior to the Conquest. A paraphrase, notes and a vocabulary are added, and a number of curious illustrations are reproduced from the original.
The edition of each of these was about 400 copies, except No. II., of which 900 were printed. A complete set is now difficult to obtain.
II. North American Languages North of Mexico.
16. Lenâpé-English Dictionary. From an anonymous MS. in the archives of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, Pa., with additions, by Daniel G. Brinton and Rev. Albert Seqaqkind Anthony, 4to, pp. 326. Philadelphia, 1888. Published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
17. The Lenâpé and their Legends; with the complete Text and Symbols of the Walum Olum, a new Translation and an Inquiry into its Authenticity. pp. 262. Illustrated. Philadelphia, 1885.
18. Lenâpé Conversations. In American Journal of Folk-Lore, Vol. I.
19. The Shawnees and their Migrations. In American Historical Magazine, January, 1866.
20. The Chief God of the Algonkins, in his Character as a Cheat and Liar. In the American Antiquarian, May, 1885.
21. On certain supposed Nanticoke words shown to be of African origin. American Antiquarian, 1887.
22. Vocabulary of the Nanticoke dialect. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, November, 1893.
23. The Natchez of Louisiana, an Offshoot of the Civilized Nations of Central America. In the Historical Magazine (New York), for January, 1867.
24. On the Language of the Natchez. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, December, 1873.
25. Grammar of the Choctaw Language. By the Rev. Cyrus Byington. Edited from the original MS. by D. G. Brinton. pp. 56. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1870.
26. Contributions to a Grammer of the Muskokee Language. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, March, 1870.
27. The Floridian Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities. 8vo, cloth, pp. 202. Philadelphia, 1859.
28. The Taensa Grammar and Dictionary. A deception exposed. In American Antiquarian, March, 1885.
29. The Taensa Grammar and Dictionary. A reply to M. Lucien Adam. In American Antiquarian, September, 1885.
Within the area of the United States, my articles have been confined practically to two groups, the Algonkian dialects and those spoken in Florida and the Gulf States.
The Delaware Indians or Lenni Lenâpé, who occupied the valley of the Delaware River and the land east of it to the ocean, although long in peaceful association with the white settlers, were never studied, linguistically, except by the Moravian missionaries, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In examining the MSS. in the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, Pa., I discovered a MS. dictionary of their tongue, containing about 4,300 words. This I had carefully copied, and induced a native Delaware, an educated clergyman of the English Church, the Rev. Albert Seqaqkind Anthony, to pass a fortnight at my house, going over it with me, word by word. The MS. thus revised, was published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania as the first number of its “Student Series.” Various interesting items illustrating the beliefs and customs of the Delawares of the present day, communicated to me by Mr. Anthony, I collected into the article (18), “Lenâpé Conversations.”
A few years previous I had succeeded in obtaining the singular MS. referred to by C. S. Rafinesque, in 1836, as the “Painted Record” of the Delaware Indians, the Walum Olum, properly, “painted” or “red” “score.” This I reproduced in No. 17, with the accessories mentioned above (p. 9). There is no doubt of the general authenticity of this record. A corroboration of it was sent me in March of this year (1898) by Dr. A. S. Gatschet, of the U. S. Bureau of American Ethnology. He writes:
“When the Delaware delegate, Johnnycake, was here for the last time, he told Mr. J. B. N. Hewitt (also attached to the Bureau) that some of the Lenâpé Indians, near Nowata, Cherokee Nation, had seen your publication on the Walum Olum. They belong to the oldest men of that tribe, and stated that the text was all right, and that they remembered the songs from their youth. They could give many additions, and said that a few passages were in the wrong order and had to be placed elsewhere to give them the full meaning they were intended to convey.”
This was cheering confirmation to me that my labor had not been expended on a fantastic composition of Rafinesque’s, as some have been inclined to think.
Some years ago I contemplated the publication of a work through the American Folklore Society on Algonquian Mythology. Various reasons led me to lay it aside. Part of the material was introduced into my works on the general mythology of the American tribes,12-1 and one fragment appeared in (20) in which I offered a psychological explanation of the character of the hero god Gluscap, so prominent in the legends of the Micmacs and Abenakis. At that time I was not acquainted with the ingenious suggestions on the etymology of the name subsequently advocated by the native author, Joseph Nicolar.12-2
The Nanticokes lived on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. In collecting their vocabularies I found one alleged to have been obtained from them, but differing completely from the Algonquian dialects. It had been partly printed by Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton,12-3 but remained a puzzle. My article (