Bureau of American Ethnology 381 



ment, the bureau collection is invaluable to students of the 

 origin and growth of language. The special treatises by 

 J. Owen Dorsey, Doctor Gatschet, and other collaborators 

 are well known to the students of all countries ; the more 

 comprehensive results are set forth in preliminary form only 

 in Powell's "Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages" 

 and in the earlier reports; yet these studies indicate many of 

 the laws and conditions of linguistic development from early 

 savagery well into barbarism. 



The subject of sign-language was taken up soon after the 

 institution of the bureau, and was vigorously pursued for 

 some years, especially by Colonel Garrick Mallery. It was 

 ascertained that this is a veritable art of expression, logically 

 coordinate with lingual utterance, and perhaps of equal im- 

 portance in the formative stage of language. The signs were 

 originally demonstrative or mimetic, though many of them 

 were developed into partially denotive symbols. By the use 

 of these symbols the Indians were able not only to exchange 

 intelligence at distances, but also to communicate with each 

 other despite differences in dialects, and indeed, since the 

 signs were less completely differentiated than the phonetic 

 symbols, even when the speakers belonged to distinct stocks. 



As the Indian spanned space by signals, so also he sought 

 to bridge time by means of symbols painted or carved or 

 embossed on the faces of cliffs or other suitable surfaces ; and 

 thus, long before the advent of white men, the aborigines 

 entered the stage of graphic expression. This subject also 

 was studied by Director Powell, Colonel Mallery, Doctor 

 Hoffman, and others. Some indications were found that 

 pictographic and decorative art sprang from the same ill- 

 defined stem, but early became differentiated ; and many in- 

 dications were found that, while originally demonstrative and 

 mimetic, the rude symbols of pictography soon began to 



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