The history of the Huron-Iroquois race, and especially of the Six Nation Indians, since the settlement of the main body for the past century on their reserves on the Grand river, in the Province of Ontario, curiously illustrates the pertinacity with which they have cherished the dialectic varieties of a common tongue. But while the essential differences of language everywhere constitute one of the most obvious distinctions of race, it is interesting to note the recognition by the Indians of affinities of dialects, and even remote kinship based on such evidence; as in the readmission of the Tuscaroras to the Iroquois family of nations. According to Brebeuf, the kinship of the Attiwendaronks of the Niagara peninsula was recognised by the Hurons in that designation which classed them as a “people of a language a little different.”[119] Peter Jones Kahkewaquonaby, a civilised Ojibway, adopted into the Mohawk nation, in speaking of the traditions of the Indians as to their own origin, says: “All the information I have been able to gain in relation to the question amounts to the following. Many, many winters ago the Great Spirit, Keche-Manedoo, created the Indians. Every nation speaking a different language is a second creation, but all were made by the same Supreme Being.”[120] Among the races of the northern continent, none east of the Rocky Mountains more fitly represent their special characteristics than the great Huron-Iroquois family. Their language is remarkable for its compass and elaborate grammatical structure; and the numerous dialects of the common mother tongue furnish evidence of migration and conquest over a wide region eastward of the Mississippi. To such philological evidence many inquirers are now turning for a clue to the origin of the races of the New World, and for the recovery of proofs of their affinity to one or other of the Old World stocks. Professor Whitney, after dwelling on the “exaggeratedly agglutinative type” of the ancient Iberian language, and its isolation among the essentially dissimilar languages of Aryan Europe, thus proceeds: “The Basque forms a suitable stepping-stone from which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the New World, since there is no other dialect of the Old World which so much resembles in structure the American languages”[121]; not indeed, as he adds, that they are all of accordant form; for he pronounces the grouping of them in a single great family as “a classification of ignorance.” The possibilities of ancient communication between the opposite shores of the Atlantic, and the migration of colonists of the New World from the Mediterranean Sea, have already been discussed in dealing with the legend of the Lost Atlantis. Great indeed as is the interval of time therein implied, it would not suffice to erase all traces of affinity of languages. But it would be vain to hope for any historical guidance recoverable from the oldest of Iroquois legends. If,