RECORD OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE.
NORTH AMERICA.
Algonkian. General. In the "American Antiquarian" for July–August, 1897 (vol. xix. pp. 211–218), Professor Cyrus Thomas discusses "The Migrations of Algonquian Tribes and other Stocks" (Fifth Paper). Some rather doubtful affiliations are suggested.
Micmac. Professor W. F. Ganong's excellent "Monograph of the Place Names of New Brunswick," which appears in the "Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada" (sec. ser. vol. ii. 1896, pp. 175–289), contains a section (pp. 187–196) on "Indian Place Names," while the "Dictionary of Place Names" given at the end of the essay has many interesting and valuable interpretations.
Montagnais. To the "Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada (sec. ser. vol. ii. 1896), Mr. E. T. Chambers contributes (pp. 131–139) a paper on "The Philology of the Ouananiche." For this fish (twenty-seven varieties of spelling are cited), the author prefers ouananiche as oldest (used nearly 250 years ago by the missionaries: Sananiche) and nearest the Montagnais wananish, diminutive of wanan or wanans, native name of the fish.
Natick. This name, so important in the early history of Massachusetts, forms the basis of an interesting and valuable paper, "The Significance of John Eliot's Natick," in the "American Anthropologist" for September, 1897 (vol. x. pp. 28–287), by Mr. William Wallace Tooker. After thorough examination of all variant forms, and consideration of all etymologies hitherto advanced, Mr. Tooker came to the conclusion that Natick really signified "the place of (our) search," and had the great good fortune to find that Eliot in a letter written in 1650 says, "I propounded unto them that they should look out some place to begin a town," and, a little farther on, "the Lord did, by His special Providence and answer of prayers, pitch us upon the place where we are at Natick." This clearly confirms Mr. Tooker's derivation, which, we note, is accomplished with his usual acumen.
Athapascan. Navaho. To the "American Anthropologist" for November, 1897 (vol. x. pp. 371–376), Dr. Franz Boas contributes an interesting paper on "Northern Elements in the Mythology of the Navaho," based chiefly on Dr. Washington Matthews's "Navaho Legends" and Dr. Boas's "Mythology of the North-Pacific Coast." Some of the Coyote tales—the myths of the visit of the war-gods to their father the sun, the wife-seeker's visit to the sun, the deluge-stories, the tale of the man who was carried to the eagle's nest, etc.—invite comparison. Dr. Boas's general conclusion is: "The
