[60] Among
the Aztecs, the very word for chief, _tlatoani_, literally means
"orator" (from the verb _tlatoa_, to harangue). In the far south,
among the Araucanians of Chili, and their relatives the migratory hordes
of the Pampas, no gift is in higher estimation than that of an easy and
perspicuous delivery. This alone enables the humblest to rise to the
position of chieftain.[61] So it was over the whole continent.
In most of their languages, the oratorical was markedly different from
the familiar or colloquial style. The former was given to antithesis,
repetition, elaborate figures, unusual metaphors, and more sonorous and
lengthened expressions. The Rev. Mr. Byington gives a number of the
oratorical affectations in the Choctaw, as _akakano_ for _ak_,
_okakocha_ for _ok_, etc.[62]
Some genuine specimens of the oratory of the northern tribes are
preserved by Mr. Hale, in the Iroquois _Book of Rites_, to which I
have referred on a previous page. The speeches it contains were learned
by heart, and transmitted from generation to generation, long before
they were committed to writing, and long after some of the words and
expressions they contain had become lost to the colloquial language of
the tribe.
The ancient Mexicans were much given to this sort of formal
speech-making.
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