which they adopted the Indians were outdone in Europe, and that,
strangely enough, by the two great colonizing and conquering nations,
heirs of all modern enlightenment, who came to displace them,--the
English and the Spaniards. The Iroquois never burnt women at the
stake. To put either men or women to death for a difference of creed had
not occurred to them. It may justly be affirmed that in the horrors of
Smithfield and the Campo Santo, the innate barbarism of the Aryan,
breaking through his thin varnish of civilization, was found, far
transcending the utmost barbarism of the Indian. [Footnote: The Aryans
of Europe are undoubtedly superior in humanity, courage and
independence, to those of Asia. It is possible that the finer qualities
which distinguish the western branch of this stock may have been derived
from admixture with an earlier population of Europe, identical in race
and character with the aborigines of America. See Appendix, Note F. ]




CHAPTER X.

THE IROQUOIS LANGUAGE.


As the mental faculties of a people are reflected in their speech, we
should naturally expect that the language of a race manifesting such
unusual powers as the Iroquois nations have displayed would be of a
remarkable character. In this expectation we are not disappointed. The
languages of the Huron-Iroquois family belong to what has been termed
the polysynthetic class, and are distinguished, even in that class, by a
more than ordinary endowment of that variety of forms and fullness of