s this fact to the position
of the personal and possessive pronouns at the end of the nouns and
verbs, and the numerous tenses of the latter, a characteristic of both
the Indian and Hebrew tongues which naturally struck the attention of
the monks. An analogy, however, does not go far to prove an identity of
origin. He refers to Adair as among travelers "somewhat credulous who
have heard the strains of the Hebrew Hallelujah among the Chickasaws and
Choctaws of North America,"--and he might have added the Cherokees also.
James Adair, however, could hardly be called a traveler. He published in
London in 1775 the results of his observation during a residence of
forty years as a trader among the Chickasaws and neighboring tribes. He
adduces many analogies of their languages with the Hebrew, and calls
attention to many customs for which he seeks to discern precedent in the
Mosaic dispensation. How much he had read of previous speculations it is
impossible to say. He protests that he is but a trader and not "a
skillful Hebraist," by his vocation obliged to write far from all
libraries, literary associations, and conversation with the learned,
compelled even to keep his papers secret from the observation of the
Indians, always very jealous of the enigmatical "black marks" of the
traders' correspondence, but he quotes largely from many writers both
English and foreign--the Reverend Mr. Thorowgood, Don Antonio de Ulloa,
Acosta, Benzo, etc., and shows considerable aptness of logic in adapting
his theories to his investigations into the structure of the Indian
languages. Such nice verbal distinctions, such order and symmetry, such
a train of subtle and exact religious terms, he argues, could not be
invented by a people so ignorant and illiterate as the modern Indian,
and contends that they obviously bear all the distinctive marks of a
language of culture. He further declares that one of the Chickasaw
prophets, _the Loache_, assured him that they had once had an "old
beloved speech," which in the course of time and national degeneration
they had lost. In this connection, but entirely apart from all Hebraic
analogies, one is moved to wonder if there were also among them a
reminiscence of an "old beloved character," and if the extraordinary
invention of the Cherokee character of the "syllabic alphabet" by the
Indian, Guest, early in the present century, partly partakes of the
nature of tradition.

3 Page 22. The high value which the F