REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39 
by death some specially loved and favored relative and seeks a ceremonial 
expression of sympathy from the entire tribe. It is the intention to procure 
the songs and rituals of this ceremony, and specimens of the standards 
employed in its performance. 
Altogether Mr. La Flesche has made excellent progress in his study of the 
Osage people, and the results are already shedding light on the organization 
and the origin and function of the ceremonies of this important tribe. 
The special researches of the bureau in the field of linguistics were conducted 
by Dr. Franz Boas, honorary philologist, one of the immediate and tangible 
results of which was the publication of Part 1 of the Handbook of American 
Indian Languages. It seems desirable to restate at the present time the 
development of the plan and the object of this work. 
Through the efforts of the late Maj. Powell and his collaborators a great 
number of vocabularies and a few grammars of American Indian languages 
had been accumulated, but no attempt had been made to give a succinct 
description of the morphology of all the languages of the continent. In order 
to do this, a series of publications was necessary. The subject matter had to 
be represented by a number of grammatical sketches, such as are now being 
assembled in the Handbook of American Indian Languages. To substantiate 
the inductions contained in this grammar, collections of texts are indispensable 
to the student, and finally a series of extended vocabularies are required. The 
plan, as developed between 1890 and 1900, contemplated the assembling in the 
bulletin series of the bureau of a series of texts which were to form the basis 
of the handbook. Of this series, Dr. Boas’s Chinook, Kathlamet, and Tsimshian 
Texts, and Swanton’s Haida and Tlingit Texts, subsequently published, form a 
part, but at the time Swanton’s Texts appeared it was believed by Secretary 
Langley that material of this kind was too technical in character to warrant 
publication in a governmental series. It was, therefore, decided to discontinue 
the text series in the bulletins of the bureau and to divert them to the Publica- 
tions of the American [thnological Society and the Columbia University Con- 
tributions to Anthropology. Other series were commenced by the University 
of California and the University of Pennsylvania. The method of publication 
pursued at the present time, though different from that first planned, is 
acceptable, since all the material is accessible to students, and the bureau is 
saved the expense of publication. 
Dr. Boas has been enabled to base all the sketches in the first volume of his 
handbook on accompanying text series, as follows: 
(1) Athapascan. Text published by the University of California. 
(2) Tlingit. Text published by the Bureau of American Ethnology, but too 
late to be used systematically. 
(3) Haida. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 
(4) Tsimshian. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology and 
the American Ethnological Society. 
(5) Kwakiutl. Texts published by the Jesup Expedition and in the Colum- 
bia University series. 
(6) Chinook. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 
(7) Maidu. Texts published by the American Ethnological Society, but too 
late to be used. 
(8) Algonquian. Texts published by the American Ethnological Society. 
(9) Sioux. Texts in Contributions to North American Ethnology. 
(10) Eskimo. Texts in ‘‘ Meddelelser om Grgnland,” but not used system- 
atically. 
Although Dr. Boas has urged the desirability of undertaking the publication 
of the series of vocabularies, no definite steps have yet been taken toward the 
