OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. 

 WORK OF MR. JEREMIAH CURTIN. 



Mr. Curtin spent the first two weeks of July at the Quapaw 

 agency, Indian Territory, in making a collection of Modoc 

 myths, which he had begun in the preceding winter, being part 

 of a general collection of Indian myths begun in 1883. The 

 number of Modoc myths obtained was nearly one hundred. 



After finishing work at the Quapaw Agency, he returned to 

 Washington, and shortly afterward was directed to proceed to 

 northern California and obtain vocabularies of the Nosa and 

 Kombo languages, and thence to Oregon to obtain vocabularies 

 of the Wasco, Tyigh, and Tenina languages. 



Work was begun on the Nosa language (Yanan family) at 

 Redding, Cal., on October 11. The difficulties were very 

 great, especially at first, owing to the fact that the Nosa are 

 few in number, live far from one another, and have a very 

 imperfect knowledge of English. 



The Nosa were a prominent and rather numerous people 

 until 1864, when all of them who could be found were mas- 

 sacred by white settlers, who organized two companies for the 

 purpose of exterminating) the tribe. Owing to a chance by 

 which a few escaped and to the exertions of Mr. Benjamin 

 Oliver, who secreted several in his cellar, about fifteen full 

 blood Nosa survived. 



Work on Nosa was continued in and around Redding until 

 the end of November, when Round Mountain was visited to 

 complete the Nosa vocabulary and obtain that of the Atsugei 

 (Palaikan family), a very interesting language. Work at 

 Round Mountain was finished on January 8 and Redding was 

 revisited on January 9, preparatory to departing for Oregon. 



Owing to the excessive severity of the winter and the snow 

 blockades, which lasted six weeks, communication with Warm 

 spring was closed, and it was impossible to enter the reserva- 

 tion till January 27, when Sinnashee, a school and center of 

 the Warm Spring Indian population, was reached. 



At this place the Tyigh vocabulary (Shahaptian family) was 

 collected. The Wasco (Chinookan family) was obtained at 

 the agency headquarters near the Deschutes river. Tenina, 



