The fact is that all subject people speak the language of the dominant population, out of sheer necessity, even though the mother tongue may be spoken privately and ceremonially. And we know that friend or foe is as much a function of time, as it is of geography, economics, politics or psychology. The Algonquian structure and content of the Shawnee language may be nothing more than the linguistic consequences of military misadventures of the proto-Shawnee with a linguistically Algonquian people. All students of American Indian history agree, we know nothing of the languages of most of the indians who lived prior to the 17th century. I can accept the Tunica connection with the Siouan people, simply because the Tunica were civilized people who wore clothing and farmed, when their neighbors were wandering, naked, cannibalistic savages.
Language is a political consequence of war.
Culture is the key to our origins. Flawed cultures fail and fall, forgotten in ignominy. Art, politics and economics continually distort and transform culture, and the lives of the people who share it. Without history, you can have no cultural quality control. This site is maintained by JS Dill .