PREFACE 
HE following collection of Kutenai tales embraces a series of 
ik texts collected by the late Alexander F. Chamberlain in 1891, 
and another one collected by me in the summer of 1914. 
The texts collected by Dr. Chamberlain were told by two men— 
Paul, who, according to information received in 1914, lived near St. 
Eugéne Mission, and who had spent some time among the Blackfeet ; 
and Michel, who belonged to the same region. The name of the nar- 
rator of the Lower Kutenai tales is given in “The International 
Congress of Anthropology” (Chicago, 1894) as Angi McLaughlin. 
The texts recorded by Chamberlain are brief. It should be remem- 
bered that these were recorded on the first field expedition ever 
undertaken by Dr. Chamberlain, and that tt requires a considerable 
amount of practice to record long tales. This accounts to a great 
extent for the fragmentary character of his notes. 
Among the texts collected by me, one was told by Pierre Andrew, 
a man about 33 years of age, who has a good command of English. 
He is not able, however, to interpret with any considerable degree 
of accuracy the grammatical forms of Kutenai, so that his own 
translation is always a rather free rendering of the Indian sentences. 
Two tales were told by Pierre Numa, an older man, who, however, 
spoke so rapidly that the tales had to be redictated by Pierre Andrew, 
who served as interpreter. Three other tales were told in the same 
way by Mission Joe, a man about 60 years old, whose dictation was 
repeated by Felix Andrew, a young man who speaks English very 
well, but whose ability to interpret the Indian texts word by word 
was even less than that of Pierre Andrew. One tale was told by 
Felix Andrew himself and was recorded by Mr. Robert T. Aitken. 
The rest of the stories were told by Barnaby, a man about 60 years 
of age, who, after very short practice, learned to speak slowly and 
distinctly, and whose dictation was perfectly satisfactory. All these 
tales were recorded without translation; and the translation was 
made later on, in part with the assistance of Pierre Andrew, in part 
with that of Felix Andrew. All my informants were Upper 
Kutenai, and the revision of Chamberlain’s tales was also made by 
Upper Kutenai; so that the dialectic forms of the Lower Kutenai 
have probably disappeared. 
It is interesting to note that Barnaby refused to tell the Mosquito 
story (p. 25), because, as he said, it was proper for children, not for 
adults. 
I wish to express my sincere thanks for much kindly assistance 
rendered to me in the course of my work by Rev. F. E. Lambot, 
O. M. L., and the Sisters in charge of the Government School of St. 
Eugéne. | 
Franz Boas 
CoLumBIA UNIVERSITY 
New York 
