750 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



While the iiccompanying paper is based chiefly upon the collection 

 in the United States l!^ational Museum, quite a number of valuable 

 data were found in the interesting collection of ivory records in the 

 museum of the Alaska Commercial Company in San Francisco, Cali- 

 fornia. 



In addition to these two sources of information, the writer was so 

 fortunate as to have the services in San Francisco of a native Alaskan 

 half-caste, who had for a number of years been in the employ of the 

 Commercial Company. This man had spent most of his life in travel- 

 ing- among the various settlements of southern Alaska, chiefly for the 

 purpose of securing furs and peltries in exchange for goods desired by 

 the natives. Vladimir IS^aomofl", in addition to his thorough familiarity 

 with tlie Russian and English language, was fluent in five or six native 

 dialects. His keen observation of the habits of the people of the main- 

 land, and their various methods of conveying information by recording 

 on difterent materials their thoughts, enabled him to interpret with ease 

 the numerous records in the museum referred to; and he also prepared a 

 number of sketches in imitation of records which he had observed, and 

 which he had been instructed to prepare and deposit at habitations at 

 which he had called during the absence of the regular occupants or 

 owners. 



The primary studies relating to the subject of the interpretation of 

 pictograj)hs were begun by the writer in 1871 ; and but limited prog- 

 ress was made until the year 1879, when the Bureau of Ethnology was 

 organized and furnished the facility necessary to oflicially conduct 

 investigations among the various Indian tribes of the United States 

 and British Columbia, and to visit nearly all known jiictographs and 

 petroglyphs in order to make personal investigations, comparisons, 

 and to secure tracings and sketches thereof. 



In addition to these researches in pictography, the gesture language 

 of the various tribes was also studied, the latter frequently aiding very 

 materially in interpreting obscure characters, and attempts at the 

 graphic portrayal of gestures and subjective ideas.' 



The collection of gesture signs obtained from Vladimir Naomoff", and 

 subsequently verified, to a great extent, by a Mahlemut native from 

 St. Michael's, is appended hereto,^ in connection with the list of objects 

 in the National IMuseum, to which special reference is made. 



These gesture signs are of importance in the study and interpreta- 

 tion of many of the Eskimo records. 



Many of these gesture signs are natural, and intelligible to most 

 people who are known, on account of peculiar linguistic position, to 

 have knowledge of this mode of communication because of their 



' For names and number of tribes visited, see Salishan Bibliography. J. C. Pilling. 

 Washington, D. C. [Bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology] under caption Hoffman, 

 W. J. 



^Collected by the writer in 1882, and deposited in the manuscript collections of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology. 



