Native American Studies
Hale returned to his study of First Nations and Native Americans. He was mentored by the Iroquois chiefs George Henry Martin Johnson and John Fraser, whom he met while visiting the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. In addition he traveled to the United States to consult with other native informants. Hale documented the oral history and rituals of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was assisted in interpreting the group's wampum belts, which recounted their history. His work resulted in his publishing Iroquois Book of Rites (1883). He also studied the Iroquois languages, determining that Mohawk was the oldest and that the Laurentian languages were also Iroquoian.
Hale made many valuable contributions to the science of ethnology, attracting attention particularly by his theory of the origin of the diversities of human languages and dialects—a theory suggested by his study of child-languages, or the languages invented by little children. He also emphasized the importance of languages as tests of mental capacity, demonstrating that Native American languages were complex and had a high capacity for classification.
He used language as a criterion for the classification of human groups. He was the first to discover that the Tutelo language of Virginia belonged to the Siouan family, as well as the first to identify the Cherokee language as a member of the Iroquoian family of languages.
Besides writing numerous magazine articles, Hale read a number of valuable papers before learned societies. These include:
- Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederacy (1881) (available at Project Gutenberg)
- Indian Migrations as Evidenced by Language (1882)
- The Origin of Languages and the Antiquity of Speaking Man (1886)
- The Development of Language (1888)
- Language as a Test of Mental Capacity: Being an Attempt to Demonstrate the True Basis of Anthropology (1891)
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