SIGN LANGUAGE y 
AMONG 
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
COMPARED WITH THAT AMONG OTHER PEOPLES AND DEAF-MUTES. 
BY GARRICK MALLERY. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
During the past two years the present writer has devoted the inter- 
vals between official duties to collecting and collating materials for the 
study of sign language. As the few publications on the general subject, 
possessing more than historic interest, are meager in details and vague 
in expression, original investigation has been necessary. The high de- 
velopment of communication by gesture among the tribes of North 
America, and its continued extensive use by many of them, naturally 
directed the first researches to that continent, with the result that a large 
body of facts procured from collaborators and by personal examination 
has now been gathered and classified. A correspondence has also been 
established with many persons in other parts of the world whose character 
and situation rendered it probable that they would contribute valuable 
information. The success of that correspondence has been as great as 
could nave been expected, considering that most of the persons addressed 
were at distant points sometimes not easily accessible by mail. As the 
collection of facts is still successfully proceeding, not only with refer- 
ence to foreign peoples and to deaf-mutes everywhere, but also among 
some American tribes not yet thoroughly examined in this respect, no 
exposition of the subject pretending to be complete can yet be made. 
In complying, therefore, with the request to prepare the present paper, 
it is necessary to explain to correspondents and collaborators whom it 
may reach, that this is not the comprehensive publication by the Bureau 
of Ethnology for which their assistance has been solicited. With this 
explanation some of those who have already forwarded contributions 
will not be surprised at their omission, and others will not desist from 
the work in which they are still kindly engaged, under the impression 
that its results will not be received in time to meet with welcome and 
credit. On the contrary, the urgent appeal for aid before addressed to 
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