MALLERY.] HOW SIGNS WERE OBTAINED AT WASHINGTON. 399 
1880 delegations, sometimes quite large, of most of the important tribes. 
Thus the most intelligent of the race from many distant and far sepa- 
rated localities were here in considerable numbers for weeks, and indeed, 
in some cases, months, and, together. with their interpreters and agents, 
were, by the considerate order of the honorable Secretary of the Interior, 
placed at the disposal of this Bureau for all purposes of gathering eth- 
nologic information. The facilities thus obtained were much greater 
than could have been enjoyed by a large number of observers traveling 
for a long time over the continent for the same express purpose. The 
observations relating to signs were all made here by the same persons, 
according to a uniform method, in which the gestures were obtained 
directly from the Indians, and their meaning (often in itself clear from 
the context of signs before known) was translated sometimes through 
the medium of English or Spanish, or of a native language known in com- 
mon by some one or more of the Indians and by some one of the obsery- 
ers. When an interpreter was employed, he translated the words used 
by an Indian in his oral paraphrase of the signs, and was not relied upon 
to explain the signs according to his own ideas. Such translations and 
a description of minute and rapidly-executed signs, dictated at the mo- 
ment of their exhibition, were sometimes taken down by a phonographer, 
that there might be no lapse of memory in any particular, and in many 
cases the sigus were made in successive motions before the camera, and 
prints secured as certain evidence of their accuracy. Not only were 
more than one hundred Indians thus examined individually, at leisure, 
but, on oceasions, several parties of different tribes, who had never before 
met each other, and could not communicate by speech, were examined at 
the same time, both by inquiry of individuals whose answers were con- 
sulted upon by all the Indians present, and also by inducing several of 
the Indians to engage in talk and story-telling in signs between them- 
selves. Thus it was possible t» notice the difference in the signs made 
for the same objects and the degree of mutual comprehension notwith- 
standing such differences. Similar studies were made by taking Indians 
to the National Deaf Mute College and bringing them in contact with 
the pupils. 
By far the greater part of the actual work of the observation and 
record of the signs obtained at Washington has been ably performed by 
Dr. W. J. HOFFMAN, the assistant of the present writer. When the 
latter has made personal observations the former has always been 
present, taking the necessary notes and sketches and superintending 
the photographing. To him, therefore, belongs the credit for all those 
references in the following “‘ LISt OF AUTHORITIES AND COLLABORA- 
TORS,” in which it is stated that the signs were obtained at Washington 
from Indian delegations. Dr. HOFFMAN acquired in the West, through 
his service as acting assistant surgeon, United States Army, at a large 
reservation, the indispensable advantage of becoming acquainted with 
the Indian character so as to conduct skillfully such researches as that in 
