Phonetics can be Judged

(13) I will merely review the points there made very briefly. In the first place the phonetics, as well as can be judged, are markedly like (those found in the Muskhogean languages arid markedly unlike those of northern Florida. Secondly, a few words translated by Fontaneda seem recognizable in Choctaw--notably oski, cane, in "Guasacaesgui, the river of canes"; and okla or ogala, people, in "Cañiogacola, a crafty people, skilful with the bow" - while one or two place names not translated also strongly suggest Choctaw words--as, Calaoba (a town), cf. Choctaw kali hofobi, deep spring. Finally, two early American writers mention a band of "Choctaw" Indians in the country which it seems impossible to connect with the well-known Choctaw of Mississippi. The suggestions contained in these fragments of evidence are so tantalizing and the consequences of establishing the hypothesis so important that it is to be hoped more of this south Florida tongue will ere long be discovered.

     The divergence of Timucua from the languages spoken north of it led earlier investigators to believe that it might owe its peculiarities to influences from the West Indies, and Dr. A. S. Gatschet, who made a considerable study of Timucua, thought that he detected in it certain West Indian and South American words.

(14) Some of these might be explained equally well, however, by means of North American tongues spoken not very far away. Thus, paha, house, is almost as near Choctaw aboha as Arawak bahü; moca, sea, as nea to Choctaw oka, water, as to Taino bagua, sea; while piro or pira, red, may be connected with the stem which gives Chitimacha pini, Tunica mili, and perhaps also Choctaw homa, as well as with Galibi ta-piré, red and yellow, Tupi piranga, red or Taino pu or bu, scarlet, as cited by Gatschet. My own investigations would indicate that Timucua is remotely connected with the Muskhogean group of languages rather than with Arawak, and if future research adds the fact of a pure Muskhogean dialect spoken in the region south of Timucua. The argument for West Indian influence within it would be very much weakened. There appears to be a non-Muskhogcan element in Timucua requiring explanation and contact with West Indian languages may account for it though I am rather inclined to look for the causes toward the north and west than toward the south. As to the Mayan, Arawakan, and Muskhogean linguistic stocks themselves, I am not aware that anyone has until recently, suggested a connection between them, and the attempt so far has been confined to the two former.

     If we turn now to the cultural features oaf the three regions we are confronted by contrasts almost as marked. The Maya civilization of Yucatan was, as is well known, in many respects the highest attained in America but there appears not to be a single trace of it in either western Cuba or southern Florida. In the West Indies there was also an area of higher culture, though not one comparable to that of the Maya.

(15) It centered in the island of Haiti and extended to the eastern end of Cuba,
but it faded out. rapidly westward and is entirely wanting at the western extremity to say nothing of any possible influence on Florida. The tribes of the southeastern coast of the latter peninsula were small and of low cultural status, and, while the position of the Calusa Indians on the western side seems to have been distinctly more advanced, involving something of a centralized government over a wide area, there appears to .have been little in common between it and the culture of western Cuba, still less with the culture of the Maya. In short, the Maya from the highlands of Central America, the Arawak from the forests of South America, and the Muskhogeans front the interior of North America semi to. have converged in the Three points of land we have been considering and to 'have gone no farther.

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Southern Contacts of the Indians North of the Gulf of Mexico, 1924

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