OP THE huri:au op ethnology. XLIII 



OFFICE WORK. 



The work upon a synonymy of the Indian tribes of North 

 Amerioa, which has been mentioned to some extent in former 

 reports, has been continued with increased energy. 



Every tribe of Indians of any size and importance has been 

 treated of by historians under a variety of names. The sources 

 of these different appellations are manifold. In very man}- 

 instances the names of tribes or other bodies of Indians com- 

 municated by themselves have been imperfectly understood 

 and erroneously recorded ; misspelled names and typograph- 

 ical errors have been perpetuated. 



Traders, priests, and colonists have called the same tribes by 

 different names and the historian has often added to the con- 

 fusion by handing down these synonyms as the names of other 

 and different tribes. Not a few tribes well known under es- 

 tablished names have received new names upon a change of 

 I'esidence, especially when they have removed to a great dis- 

 tance or have coalesced or allied with other tribes. Added to 

 these and to other sources of confusion are the loose and dis- 

 similar applications of the terms clan, band, tribe, confederacy, 

 and league, the same term having been used with various mean- 

 ings by different authors. 



As a consequence the student of Indian languages and cus- 

 toms finds himself in a tangle, as regards tribal names, wliich 

 it is beyond the power of the individual worker, unaided, to 

 unravel. The scope of the work in question includes the at- 

 tempt to trace the several names back to their sources and to 

 ascertain their original and proper application, to define their 

 meaning when possible, and to relegate each tribe under its 

 proper title to the linguistic family to which it belongs In 

 the completion of tliis work the whole force of the Bureau as 

 sists. 



The need of a, volume giving the results mentioned has long 

 been felt, and it is believed that it will prove to be one of the 

 most important contributions to the accurate study of Indian 

 history ever made. The classification of the languages of the 

 North American Indians is closely connected with tlie synon- 



