REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 05 



oiiomy of tbe ludiau tribes, the special studies of several officers of the 

 Bureau being suspended so that their -whole time should be employed 

 in that direction, lu tlie early part of the year 1885, however, and at 

 subsequent intervals, their work was as follows : 



Col. Garrick JNIallery. U. S. Army, continued the study, by researches 

 and correspondence, of sign language and pictographs. A paper on 

 the latter subject has been printed in the Fourth Annual Eeport. 



Mr. Albert S. Gatschet continued to revise and i)erfect his grammar 

 and dictionary of the Klamath language, a large part of which work is 

 in print. He also took down vocabularies from Indian delegates present 

 in this city on tribal business, and thus succeeded in incorporating into 

 the collections of the Bureau of Ethnology linguistic material from the 

 Alibamu, Hitchiti, Creek, and Seneca languages. 



Eev. J. Owen Dorsey pursued his work on the Dhegiha language. 

 Having the aid of a Winnebago Indian for some time he enlarged his 

 vocabulary of that language and recorded grammatical notes. He also 

 reported upon works submitted to his examination upon the Tuscarora, 

 Micmac, and Cherokee languages. 



Synonymy of Indian Tribes. — The Director has before reported in gen- 

 eral terms that the most serious source of per])lexity to the student of 

 the history of the North American Indians is the confusion existing 

 among their tribal names. The causes of this confusion are various. 

 The Indian names for themselves have been understood and recorded 

 in diverse ways by the earlier authors, and have been variously trans- 

 mitted by the later. Nicknames arising from trivial causes, and often 

 without apparent cause, have been imposed upon many tribes. Names 

 borne by one tribe at some i:)eriod of its history have been transferred 

 to another, or to several other distinct tribes. Typographical errors 

 and improved spellings on assumed phonetic grounds have swelled the 

 number of synonyms until the investigator of a special tribe often finds 

 himself in a maze of nomenclatural perplexity. 



It has long been the intention of the Director to have prepared a work 

 on tribal names, which so far as possible should refer their confusing 

 titles to a correct and systematic standard. Delay has been occasioned 

 chiefly by the fundamental necessity of defining the linguistic stocks or 

 families into which all tribes must be primarily divided, and to accom- 

 plish this long journeys and laborious field and office investigations 

 have been required during the whole time since the establishment of 

 the Bureau. While a few points still remained in an unsatisfactory 

 condition, it was considered that a sufficient degree of accuracy had 

 been attained to allow of the publication for the benefit of students of 

 " a volume devoted to the subject. The preparation of the plan of such 

 a volume was intrusted to Mr. H. W. Henshaw late in the spring of 

 1885, and in June of that year the work was energetically begun in ac- 

 H. Mis. 170 5 



