Horatio Emmons Hale (May 3, 1817 – December 28, 1896) was an American-Canadian ethnologist, philologist and businessman. He is known for his study of languages as a key for classifying ancient peoples and being able to trace their migrations. Hale was the first to analyze and confirm that the Tutelo language of some Virginia Native Americans belonged to the Siouan family, which was most associated with the western Dakota and Hidatsa languages. Hale also determined that the Cherokee language spoken by a tribe associated with the Appalachian Mountains and upland areas of the interior American Southeast was one of the Iroquoian family of languages. Most of the speakers of the latter had historically occupied territory to the east and south of the Great Lakes, in present-day New York and Pennsylvania. In addition, he published a work, Iroquois Book of Rites (1883), based on his translation of their only two known historic manuscripts. It was supported by his studies with tribal elders in interpreting the Iroquois wampum belts to establish the people's prehistory. Early life and education Horatio Hale was born on May 3, 1817, at Newport, New Hampshire, in the United States, the son of David Hale, a lawyer, and of Sarah Josepha Hale (née Buell). After the death of her husband, Sarah Josepha Hale turned to writing and became a prominent magazine editor. Entering Harvard College in 1833, Hale showed a marked faculty for languages. His first original work was published the next year, and attracted the attention of the college authorities. It consisted of an Algonkin vocabulary, which he gathered from a band of Indians who had camped on the college grounds. United States Exploring Expedition Three years later, when the United States Exploring Expedition was organized under Charles Wilkes, Hale was recommended, while yet an undergraduate, for the post of ethnologist and philologist. He was appointed to the position. From 1838 to 1842, Hale worked with the expedition, visiting South America, Australasia, Polynesia, and North-western America, then known as Oregon Country. From this point he returned overland. The Hale Passages of Puget Sound were named in recognition of his service to the expedition. The expedition traveled also to Polynesia. Of the reports of that expedition, Hale prepared the sixth volume, Ethnography and Philology (1846), which is said to have laid the foundations of the ethnography of Polynesia. Personal life Having completed his degree of M. A. at