74 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



ormal or absolute language ; several groups with their centers of origin 

 being indicated. Five of these groups ajipear, from present informa- 

 tion, to be well defined as follows: First, the Arikara, Dakota, Mandan, 

 Gros Ventre or Hidatsa, Blackfeet, Crows, and other tribes in Montana 

 and Idaho. Second, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Pani, Kaiowa, Caddo,Wicbita, 

 Apache of Indian Territory, and other tribes in the Southwest as fiir as 

 New Mexico, and possibly portions of Arizona. Third, Pima, Yuma, 

 Papago, Maricopa, Haalpai (Yuman), and the tribes of Southern Cali- 

 fornia. Fourth, Shoshoni, Banak, Pai Uta of Pyramid Lake, and the 

 tribes of ISTorthern Idaho and Lower British Columbia, Eastern Wash- 

 ington, and Oregon. Fifth, Alaska, embracing the Southern Innuit, 

 Kenai (Athabaskan), and the lakutat and Tshilkaat tribes of the 

 T'hlinkit or Koloshan stock. The gestures of Alaskan tribes present 

 marked difference to any of the southern tribes. 



The gestures still used by the Indians of British Columbia and the 

 northern part of Vancouver's Island, also by the Iroquois of Canada^ 

 are not at present classed in any groui>. 



In the comparison made between the gesture signs of the several 

 bodies of speaking men and between those groups and the signs of deaf- 

 mutes, it appears that variation in form is frequent, while identity of 

 system is preserved. Not only do many of the particular signs of deaf- 

 mutes in America differ from those with the same signification in some 

 countries of Europe, but a similar disagreement is observed among the 

 several institutions for deaf-mute instruction in the United States. 

 When the diverse signs are purely ideographic, they are, however, in- 

 telligible to all persons familiar with the principles of sign expression ; 

 but when, as frequently occurs, they are conventional, they cannot bo 

 understood without the aid of the context, or without knowledge of the 

 special convention. Th6 similar instances of diversity among the In- 

 dian signs are so numerous that a vocabulary confined to the presenta- 

 tion of a single sign for each of the several objects or ideas to be ex- 

 pressed would be insufficient and misleading. Variants must be sup- 

 plied with designation of the several groups using them. There being 

 no single absolute language, each of the prevalent forms of expression 

 has an equal right to consideration, without which a vocabulary must 

 either be limited to a single so-called dialect, or become the glossary of a 

 jargon. For this reason the collation of the gesture signs of the North 

 American Indians for scientific examination requires minute care, and 

 when they are critically compared with the signs of other speaking 

 men, ancient and modern, and with those of deaf-mutes, the work is 

 much protracted. 



Colonel Mallery has also continued the study of pictographs, and 

 has prepared for the press a preliminary paper on that subject intended 

 to guide research and ijrocure collaboration. The collection of picto- 

 graphs has been largely enriched during the year, especially by the 

 discovery of six forms of Dakota Winter Counts, which have been col- 



