ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XLIII 
the subsequent history has been chiefly one of linguistic inte- 
gration. It is a corollary of this proposition, which is but the 
generalization of all known facts relating to the aboriginal 
languages of America, that the Western Hemisphere must have 
been peopled by the ancestors of the modern Indian tribes 
before the birth of language among them. Both the main 
proposition and the corollary run counter to earlier opinions 
entertained in this and other countries; yet they are not only 
sustained by the unprecedentedly rich collection of linguistic 
facts preserved in the Bureau archives or published in the 
reports, but by the cumulative evidence obtained through the 
researches concerning the arts, industries, institutions, and 
beliefs of the American aborigines. A more detailed report 
on this subject is in preparation. 
Dr Albert S. Gatschet has continued the collection of lin- 
euistic material pertaining to the Algonquian Indians, and has 
made progress in the preparation of the comparative dictionary 
of Algonquian terms. The new material collected during the 
year was obtained chiefly among the Passamaquoddy Indians 
living in the woods of Maine and adjacent parts of New 
Brunswick. Advantage was taken of an opportunity to obtain 
a Nez Percé vocabulary, representing the Shahaptian stock, 
from Lewis D. Williams, an educated member of the tribe, 
who spent some months in Washington during the earlier part 
of the fiscal year. This record is deemed of special value, 
not only in that it is more complete than those representing 
the same stock already on file, but in that it affords means of 
checking and clearing up doubtful points in the earlier records. 
In addition to collecting a rich body of material relating to 
the languages and beliefs of several Iroquoian tribes, Mr J.N.B. 
Hewitt made considerable progress in the systematic arrange- 
ment of material collected during preceding years. One of 
the more important lines of his work was a study of the pro- 
noun with special reference to its function in primitive lan- 
guage and its relation to other parts of speech. His researches 
indicate with greater clearness than others hitherto conducted 
that the pronoun occupies a much more prominent position in 
primitive speech than in the highly developed languages of 
