Bureau of Americaji Ethnology 379 



The linguistic researches and the classification of the native 

 tribes by the bureau may be considered the continuation of 

 the admirable work of Gallatin, who in 1836 published a 

 " Synopsis of the Indian Tribes ... in North America," ^ in 

 which eighty-one tribes belonging to twenty-eight families 

 were enumerated. Even more closely were the researches 

 connected with the plan communicated to the Smithsonian 

 Institution in 1851 by Professor William W. Turner; for it 

 was in accordance with this plan that the earlier linguistic 

 collections were made under the auspices of the Institution, 

 while these collections formed the nucleus of the material 

 conveyed to the Rocky Mountain Survey and inherited by 

 the bureau. Time has shown the wisdom of Professor Tur- 

 ner's plan, a part of which is worthy of repetition : 



" Let the writer . . . describe the particular language un- 

 der consideration ; let all fanciful comparisons with Hebrew, 

 Greek, etc., be excluded. Each grammar should note the 

 dialectical peculiarities of the language of which it treats, and 

 also the changes that may be taking place in it — that is to say, 

 such as have been observed by the whites since they have 

 been familiar with it, and especially such as are indicated by 

 differences in the speech of old and young persons. To each 

 grammar should be appended one or more specimens of com- 

 position in the language, with an interlinear English transla- 

 tion. For the purpose of comparison, the parable of the 

 Prodigal Son is superior on many accounts to the Lord's 

 Prayer, although it would be well to give both. But it is 

 very desirable that to these should be added some origi- 

 nal production of the native mind, — some speech, fable, 

 legend, or song, — that it may afford samples of aboriginal 

 modes of thought as well as of expression. It seems strange 

 that so apparently obvious and easy a means of obtaining an 

 insight into the workings of the mind of rude nations, which 



1 " Archajologia Americana," Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian 

 Society, Worcester, 1836, Volume 11, pages 1-422. 



