also named the city of Enna, Sicily, with its numerous temples, "the navel of Sicily" (Cicero, Verrin. orat. II, 4, 48). The pin or index of a sun-dial was called by the same term, being the eminence in the central point. It has also passed into botany, for the navelwort or Umbilicus Veneris received its appellation from a projection in the middle of its flower. From its more modern botanical name, Umbilicaria, was formed, by phonetic changes, the name of Umbilix and Malix, a village on a mountain slope in the Grisons, Switzerland, where the weed in question was found to occur. The round knobs at the ends of booksticks were called by the Romans umbilici or cornua, horns.

In gathering local names derived from the navel I have not been very successful, but will present what I have on hand, beginning with Mount Tabor, in Palestine, the name of which also appears as Atabyrion in another Semitic country and dialect, and is said to mean navel. America presents the following:

The artificial navel-shaped mound, from which the Cha'hta people ascended to the surface of the earth, as alleged, lies in Winston county, Mississippi, and was a sacred place in early periods. They called it the "navel of the country;' it showed the spot where the abdomen of a giant, the world's creator, lay below, and upon his command they climbed up there from the nether world.

Opposite the Indian pueblo of Zuñi, on the south bank of the Zuñi river, lies the ruin Hálona, one of the "Seven Cities of Cibola," and called by the early Spanish explorers Alona. It once occupied both banks of the river and some of the walls of ancient Hálona comprise to-day a portion of the southwestern section of the Zuñi pueblo. The full Zuñi name is Hálona itiwana, which we may with equal correctness interpret: "the middie place of happy fortune," or "the middle anthill of the world," or "the anthill at the navel of the Earth Mother." (Cushing in "The Millstone," vol. IX, 55, Indianapolis, 1884; idem, in Compte Rendu Cong. Int. Amér., VII, 190, Berlin: 1890; Corresp. of F. Webb Hodge; cf. his review of Fewkes' Journal in ANTHROPOLOGIST, July, 1891.) Cuzco, the ancient capital of Perú during the two centuries of the Inca dynasty, is said to be built in a local depression rising up in ringlike shape like a navel. Kosco meant navel in the "language of the Inca," according to Garcilaso de la Vega, but in the actual language of the Peru Indians, the Runa simi, is no longer used in that acceptation (Middendorf, Keshua Wörterbuch).

A. S. GATSCHET.

NOTES ON THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE.

BY FRANZ BOAS.

The Chinook language was spoken along the banks of Columbia River from the Cascades down to the Pacific Ocean. Since Horatio Hale published his great work on the philological results of the Wilkes Expedition, in which he made us acquainted with the languages of the North Pacific coast of America, no further material on the grammar of the Chinook has been published.

Two principal dialects of this language may be distinguished—the Upper Chinook, spoken from the Cascades to Grey's Bay on the northern bank and to a point a little above Astoria on the southern bank of the river, and the Lower Chinook, spoken on Shoalwater Bay, at the mouth of Columbia River and a little to the south of its southern entrance. The Upper Chinook is subdivided into a number of dialects, which differ to some extent, while the Lower Chinook had only two dialects-the Clatsop, which was spoken on Clatsop peninsula, and the Chinook proper, which was spoken on Shoalwater Bay. The difference between these latter dialects is very slight.

In the following lines it is intended to give a brief sketch of this language, based mainly on a series of texts collected by the author on Shoalwater Bay in 1890 and 1891. The remarks refer to the Chinook dialect, but occasional references to the Katlamat dialect of the Upper Chinook are given.

The following characters are used to render the sounds of the Chinook language:

a, e, i, o, u, have their continental sounds (short).

ā, ē, i, ō, ū, long vowels.

E

the obscure e in flower.

vowels not articulated, but indicated by the position of the

mouth.

as in German Bär.

as aw in law.

as o in German voll.

separates vowels which do not form diphthongs.

as i in island.

as ow in how.

as in English.

very long, slightly palatized by allowing a greater part of the back of the tongue to touch the palate.

posterior palatal /. The tip of the tongue touches the alveoli of the lower jaw, the back of the tongue is pressed against the hard palate, sonans.

the same, short, surd (Lepsius's t).

the same, with very great stress of explosion.

velar k.

velar g.

as in English.

palatized k (Lepsius's k'), almost ky.

might be better expressed as a posterior palatal k, between k and k..

same as ch in German Bach.

x pronounced at the posterior border of the hard palate, with á position of mouth.

palatal ch, as in German ich.

are evidently the same sound and might be written s or c', both being palatized. c (English sh) is pronounced with open teeth, the tongue almost touching the palate immediately behind the alveoli. s is modified in the same manner.

as in English; but surd and sonant are difficult to distinguish.

g, k,

as in English.

as in year.

as in English.

is pronounced with semi-closure of the nose and with very light compression of the lips. It partakes, therefore, of the character of b and w.

is pronounced with semi-closure of the nose. It partakes, therefore, of the character of d.

designates very great stress of the articulation of consonants. designates very great stress of the articulation of consonants due to the elision of q.

is a very deep laryngal articulation due to the elision of q.

a pause.

It will be seen from this list of sounds that the phonetic system of the Chinook resembles closely that of the languages spoken farther north on the coasts of Washington and British Columbia. We find an abundance of guttural sounds and palatized l's, frequent pauses,

many consonants pronounced with increased stress, and great variability of the vowels.

Variations of the vowel of the theme of nouns and verbs are due to various causes, namely, to emphasis, to diæresis expressing a plural or distributive, or to the endeavor to effect harmony between the vowel of the prefix and of the stem. tell, tired, when emphasized becomes täll: nikct, not, goes through all stages from neket to näket; aLxE'l'ōkō, he awakes; aLxEl'o'yōkō, they awake (theme -'ōkō) shows the occurrence of diæresis conveying a distributive or plural meaning; é'k'ala imo'lak, a male elk (theme -kala); o'kõla openpEn, a male skunk, shows the variation of the vowel of the theme, which takes place in order to bring about harmony between the vowel of the prefix (- masculine article, ō- feminine article) and that of the theme.

The language abounds in abstract terms. It is particularly remarkable that many concepts which we use in the form of adjectives occur as abstract nouns only. For instance, it is impossible to say "a bad man," but this is expressed by "the man, his badness." The Chinook does not say "I am sick," but "my sickness is on me;" he does not say "I shoot him," but "the action of shooting him I perform it against him." Abstract concepts of this character are

very numerous.

There exist a surprisingly large number of onomatopoetic terms. Almost all names of birds may be considered such. A long series of verbs expressing actions accompanied by a noise or only more or less closely related to such noises are undoubtedly of onomatopoetic origin. These terms are not subject to inflection; they are repeated in order to express a frequent or repeated occurrence of the action. LEX, to tear; qut, to tear off; ts¡Ex, to split; Lxoap, to dig; tɛmm, noise of walking; k¡Emm, no noise; he he, to laugh, are examples of words of this class.

The language has three well-defined genders. The genders are masculine, feminine, and neuter, the latter originally designating small objects. The gender is denoted by a prefixed article which is inseparably connected with the noun. In the dual and plural forms there is no distinction between these genders. We find the following articles:

Singular Masculine, è- or i-.
Feminine, ō- or ù-.
Neuter, L-.

Dual, c-.

Plural, t-.

Indefinite, L-.

Sometimes the masculine and feminine articles are used to distinguish large and small objects:

e'pqunx, large basket.

e'penpen, badger.

ō'pqunx, small basket.
ō'penpen, skunk.

The plural has generally the article -, but often also L-. In numerous cases the article remains the same in singular and plural. Sometimes the plural has the feminine article, while the singular is masculine.

Plurals with the article t- éqoa-inë'në, beaver; pl., tqoa-inë'nē.

LE'cgan, plank; pl., tɛc'gan.
igite' tcxala, piece of meat; pl., tgite'tcxala.

Plurals with the article L-: o'kumatk, baton; pl., Lkumatk.

o'p Like, bow; pl., Lp Like.

Plural with the feminine article: ikani'm, canoe; pl., ōkunī'm.

Suffixes denoting the plural are quite frequent. The most important is -uke or -ikc. This suffix denoted originally a plurality of human beings. When used with numerals and indefinite pronouns it always designates human beings:

ka'nauwe, all; Lkanauwē'tikc, all people.

iqjëyo'qxut, old man; Lqjeyo'qxtike, old people.
eso'k, blanket; t!o'kkc, blankets.

-ma originally distributive (-max in Katlamat):

ōō'Lax, day; pl., t!ală'ma.

e'maL, bay; pl., Lmă'LEma.

-nana perhaps only with words designating relationship : ōgu'Lak, my aunt; Lge'LakEnana, my aunts.