A singular example of the last is presented by the tribes to whom I have already referred as occupying this area,--the Algonkins. Wherever they were met, whether far up in Canada, along the shores of Lake Superior, on the banks of the Delaware, by the Virginia streams, or in the pine woods of Maine, they always had a tale to tell of the Great Hare, the wonderful Rabbit which in times long ago created the world, became the father of the race, taught his children the arts of life and the chase, and still lives somewhere far to the East where the sun rises. What debasing animal worship! you will say, and so many others have said. Not at all. It is a simple result of verbal ambiguity. The word for rabbit in Algonkin is almost identical with that for _light_, and when these savages applied this word to their divinity, they agreed with him who said, “God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” These languages offer also an entertaining field to the psychologist. On account of their transparency, as I may call it, the clearness with which they retain the primitive forms of their radicals, they allow us to trace out the growth of words, and thus reveal the operations of the native mind by a series of witnesses whose testimony cannot be questioned. Often curious associations of ideas are thus disclosed, very instructive to the student of mankind. Many illustrations of this could be given, but I do not wish to assail your ears by a host of unknown sounds, so I will content myself with one, and that taken from the language of the Lenāpé, or Delaware Indians, who, as you know, lived where we now are. I will endeavor to trace out one single radical in that language, and show you how many, and how strangely diverse ideas were built up upon it. The radical which I select is the personal pronoun of the first person, _I_, Latin _Ego_. In Delaware this is a single syllable, a slight nasal, _Nĕ_, or _Ni_. Let me premise by informing you that this is both a personal and a possessive pronoun; it means both _I_ and _mine_. It is also both singular and plural, both _I_ and _we_, _mine_ and _our_. The changes of the application of this root are made by adding suffixes to it. I begin with _ni´hillan_, literally, “mine, it is so,” or “she, it, is truly mine,” the accent being on the first syllable, _ni´_, mine. But the common meaning of this verb in Delaware is more significant of ownership than this tame expression. It is an active animate verb, and means “I beat, or strike, somebody.” To the rude minds of the framers of that tongue, ownership meant the right to beat what one owned.