App. Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 460, 472, 1878 (same
as Chelekees or Tsalagi--"apparently entirely distinct from all other
American tongues").
> Tschirokies, Berghaus (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848.
> Chelekees, Keane, App. Stanford's Comp. (Cent. and So. Am.), 473,
1878 (or Cherokees).
> Cheroki, Gatschet, Creek Mig. Legend, I, 34, 1884. Gatschet in
Science, 413, April 29, 1887.
= Huron-Cherokee, Hale in Am. Antiq., 20, Jan., 1883 (proposed as a
family name instead of Huron-Iroquois; relationship to Iroquois
affirmed).
Derivation: French, adaptation of the Iroquois word hiro, used to
conclude a speech, and kou['e], an exclamation (Charlevoix). Hale gives
as possible derivations ierokwa, the indeterminate form of the verb to
smoke, signifying "they who smoke;" also the Cayuga form of bear,
iakwai.[39] Mr. Hewitt[39] suggests the Algonkin words [-i]r[-i]n, true,
or real; ako, snake; with the French termination ois, the word becomes
Irinakois.
[Footnote 39: Iroquois Book of Rites, 1883, app., p. 173.]
[Footnote 40: American Anthropologist, 1888, vol. 1, p. 188.]
With reference to this family it is of interest to note that as early as
1798 Barton[41] compared the Cheroki language with that of the Iroquois
and stated his belief that there was a connection between them.
Gallatin, in the Archaeologia Americana, refers to the opinion expressed
by Barton, and although he states that he is inclined to agree with that
author, yet he does not formally refer Cheroki to that family,
concluding that "We have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and
generally of the language of the Five Nations, or of the Wyandots, to
decide that question."[42]
[Footnote 41: New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of
America. Phila., 1798.]
[Footnote 42: Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., 1836, vol. 2, p. 92.]
Mr. Hale was the first to give formal expression to his belief in the
affinity of the Cheroki to Iroquois.[43] Recently extensive Cheroki
vocabularies have come into possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, and a
careful comparison of them with ample Iroquois material has been made by
Mr. Hewitt. The result is convincing proof of the relationship of the
two languages as affirmed by Barton so long ago.
[Footnote 43: Am. Antiq., 1883, vol. 5, p. 20.]
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.
Unlike most linguistic stocks, the Iroquoian tribes did not occupy a
continu
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