employed in the manner in which they are still used by the best
speakers.

It must be understood that the foregoing sketch affords only the barest
outline of the formation of the Iroquois language. As has been before
remarked, a complete grammar of this speech, as full and minute as the
best Sanscrit or Greek grammars, would probably equal and perhaps
surpass those grammars in extent. The unconscious forces of memory and
of discrimination required to maintain this complicated intellectual
machine, and to preserve it constantly exact and in good working order,
must be prodigious. Yet a comparison of Bruyas' work with the language
of the present day shows that this purpose has been accomplished; and,
what is still more remarkable, a comparison of the Iroquois with the
Huron grammar shows that after a separation which must have exceeded
five hundred years, and has probably covered twice that term, the two
languages differ less from one another than the French of the twelfth
century differed from the Italian, or than the Anglo-Saxon of King
Alfred differed from the contemporary Low German speech. The forms of
the Huron-Iroquois languages, numerous and complicated as they are,
appear to be certainly not less persistent, and probably better
maintained, than those of the written Aryan tongues.





ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL.