66 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



WORK IN PHILOLOGY. 



During the later months of the fiscal year the Director resumed the synthesis of 

 the native American languages, and the comparison of these with other tongues, with 

 the view of defining the principles of philology on a comprehensive basis. The task 

 is one of magnitude; the records in the Bureau archives comprise more or less com- 

 plete vocabularies and grammars of several hundred dialects representing the sixty 

 or more linguistic stocks of North America; and the study necessarily extends not 

 only over this material but over a considerable part of the published records of other 

 languages, both primitive and advanced. Accordingly, while satisfactory progress 

 was made in the work, definite announcement of results must be held for later reports. 



In connection with the general linguistic researches it was deemed necessary to 

 extend the classification of stocks southward over Mexico and Central America; and 

 this extension was undertaken with the aid of Dr Cyrus Thomas, whose researches 

 concerning the native codices of Mexico and Yucatan have familiarized him with 

 the literature of these and neighboring regions, and to some extent with the aboriginal 

 languages. Dr. Thomas devoted several months to the work; and about the close of 

 the fiscal year he had completed a provisional classification and map of native lin- 

 guistic stocks in Mexico and Central America, designed to supplement the classifica- 

 tion and map of the American Indians north of Mexico published in the Seventh 

 Annual Report. The material remains in the hands of the Director for use in gen- 

 eral study and for revision for publication. 



As noted above, Dr. Albert S. Gatschet visited Nova Scotia early in the fiscal year 

 for the purpose of completing his collections of the northeasternmost Algonquian 

 tongues — his work on Cape Breton Island was especially fruitful — and his collections 

 will enable him to round out the comparative vocabulary of Algonquian dialects so 

 far as the tribes of northeastern United States and contiguous territory are concerned. 

 On returning to the office he resumed the extraction of lexic and grammatic material, 

 and pushed forward the preparation of the comparative vocabulary, and in connec- 

 tion with the work he prepared synthetic characterizations of the principal elements 

 of several typical dialects, including the Kataba of the Siouan stock. 



Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt continued the preparation of his memoir on the comparative 

 mythology of the Iroquoian tribes. On juxtaposing the principal cosmogonic myths 

 of the several tribes, various indications of incompleteness were found; and it was 

 chiefly for the purpose of verifying certain of the versions that he revisited Ontario, 

 as has been already noted. He succeeded in obtaining a considerable body of new 

 data, and after his return from the field he made good progress in the preparation of 

 his memoir, which is designed for incorporation in an early report. Early in the 

 fiscal year Mr. Hewitt made a notable comparison between the Seri language, as 

 recorded recently by Mr. McGee (and as previously obtained from an expatriated 

 Seri man at Hermosillo by M. Pinart, Commissioner Bartlett, and Senor Tenochio), 

 with the Y''uman, Piman, and other southwestern dialects recorded by various 

 explorers. For a time the language of the Seri was supposed to be related to the 

 tongues of the Y^uman stock; but Mr. Hewitt's exhaustive study of the extensive 

 body of material now preserved in the Bureau archives seems to demonstrate the 

 absence of such relation, and to indicate that the language of the tribe represents a 

 distinct stock. Accordingly the classification of Orozco y Berra and other Mexican 

 scholars of the middle of the century is revived; and in conformity with the princi- 

 ples of nomenclature and classification announced in the Seventh Annual Report, 

 the definition of the language, dialects, and tribes is as follows: 



Stock. jyialects and tribes. 



'Seri (extant). 



Serian. 



Tepoka (recently extinct). 

 Guayma (long extinct). 

 IJpanguayma (long extinct). 



