In fact, in spite of all that has been said about the native oratory,
we are in a very inadequate position to judge of it correctly, and this
because we have no accurate reports in the original tongues of their
speeches. Translations, more or less loose, more or less imaginary,
we have in abundance; but, for critical purposes, they are simply
worthless.

Yet that even the ruder tribes in both the northern and southern
continents, attached great weight to the cultivation of oratory, is
amply evident. James Adair, who is competent authority, tells us that
the southern Indians studied public speaking assiduously, and that their
speeches "abound with bolder tropes and figures than illiterate
interpreters can well comprehend or explain."[59] Mr. Howse writes that,
among the Crees, those who possess oratorical talent are in demand by
the Chiefs, who employ them to deliver the official harangues.[60] Among
the Aztecs, the very word for chief, _tlatoani_, literally means
"orator" (from the verb _tlatoa_, to harangue). In the far south,
among the Araucanians of Chili, and their relatives the migratory hordes
of the Pampas, no gift is in higher estimation than that of an easy and
perspicuous delivery. This alone enables the humblest to rise to the
position of chieftain.[61] So it was over the whole continent.

In most of their languages, the oratorical was markedly different from
the familiar or colloquial style. The former was given to antithesis,
repetition, elaborate figures, unusual metaphors, and more sonorous and
lengthened expressions. The Rev. Mr. Byington gives a number of the
oratorical affectations in the Choctaw, as _akakano_ for _ak_,
_okakocha_ for _ok_, etc.[62]