To add to their self-importance they pretended to converse in a tongue
different from that used in ordinary life, and the chants containing
the prayers and legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fragments
of one or two of these have floated down to us from the Aztec
priesthood. The travellers Balboa and Coreal, mention that the temple
services of Peru were conducted in a language not understood by the
masses,[284-1] and the incantations of the priests of Powhatan were not
in ordinary Algonkin, but some obscure jargon.[284-2] The same
peculiarity has been observed among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in
these nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of competent
linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a searching examination.
The results of their labors prove that certainly in these two instances
the supposed foreign tongues were nothing more than the ordinary
dialects of the country modified by an affected accentuation, by the
introduction of a few cabalistic terms, and by the use of descriptive
circumlocutions and figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a
slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants invariably coin whenever
they associate.
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