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The relationship between Polynesian and Cambodgian is remote, though practically certain; while the latter has more markedly fusional features than the former, both conform to the complex pure-relational type. Yana and Salinan are superficially very dissimilar languages. Only a few schematic indications are possible. A separate volume would be needed to breathe life into the scheme.
The Yana sentence has already illustrated the point that certain of our supposedly essential concepts may be ignored; both the Yana and the German sentence illustrate the further point that certain concepts may need expression for which an English-speaking person, or rather the English-speaking habit, finds no need whatever.
Different from the other tribes of this territory, the Yana would not submit without a struggle to the white man's conquest of their lands. The Yana were hunters and warriors. The usual California natives were yellow in color, fat and inclined to be peaceable.
Sometimes both types are used in the same language, as in Yana, where "beef" is "bitter-venison" but "deer-liver" is expressed by "liver-deer." The compounded object of a verb precedes the verbal element in Paiute, Nahuatl, and Iroquois, follows it in Yana, Tsimshian, and the Algonkin languages. Of all grammatical processes affixing is incomparably the most frequently employed.
Indeed, it is a fair guess that suffixes do more of the formative work of language than all other methods combined. It is worth noting that there are not a few affixing languages that make absolutely no use of prefixed elements but possess a complex apparatus of suffixes. Such are Turkish, Hottentot, Eskimo, Nootka, and Yana.
Can such a concept as that of plurality ever be classified with the more material concepts of group II? Indeed it can be. In Yana the third person of the verb makes no formal distinction between singular and plural. "It burns in the east" is rendered by the verb ya-hau-si "burn-east-s." "They burn in the east" is ya-ba-hau-si.
By placing one end of his bow at the corner of his open mouth and tapping the string with an arrow, the Yana could make sweet music. It sounded like an Aeolian harp. To this accompaniment Ishi sang a folk-song telling of a great warrior whose bow was so strong that, dipping his arrow first in fire, then in the ocean, he shot at the sun.
Yana is not here now; another man is keeping watch in his place," replied the guard. "Ai, ai!" cried the Jew softly: "this is bad, my dear lord!" "Go on!" said Taras, firmly, and the Jew obeyed.
First as to a different method of handling such concepts as we have found expressed in the English sentence. Wandering still further afield, we may glance at the Yana method of expression.
As an Indian should go, so we sent him on his long journey to the land of shadows. By his side we placed his fire sticks, ten pieces of dentalia or Indian money, a small bag of acorn meal, a bit of dried venison, some tobacco, and his bow and arrows. These were cremated with him and the ashes placed in an earthen jar. On it is inscribed "Ishi, the last Yana Indian, 1916."
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