PREFACE VII 



in that field. Dr Albert S. Gatschet emplo3^ed his time and long- 

 experience in the preparation of the material pertaining- to the Miisk- 

 hogean tribes of southeastern United States, the Yuman tribes of the 

 lower Colorado drainage and of Lower California, and various smaller 

 linguistic groups. To Col. Garrick jVIallery were assigned the French 

 authors bearing on the general subject. With such aid the work 

 received a pronounced impetus, and before the close of 1885 a lai-ge 

 body of additional material had been recorded. Four years later the 

 elaboration of the material pertaining- to the Yuman, Piman, Keresan, 

 Tanoan, and Zunian stocks of the extreme Southwest was placed in 

 charge of Mr F. W. Hodge, who brought it to completion. 



The work was continued under Mr Henshaw's supervision until, in 

 1893, ill health compelled his abandonment of the task. This is the 

 more to be regretted as Mr Henshaw had in course of preparation a 

 classification and nomenclature of the minor divisions of the linguistic 

 stocks, which is essential to a proper presentation and a clear under- 

 standing of the subject. After Mr Henshaw's relinquishment of the 

 work, Mr Hodge was given entire charge of it. But other official 

 duties of members of the staff prevented the Handbook as a whole 

 from making- marked progress until 1899, when Dr Cyrus Thomas 

 was intrusted with the task of revising the recorded material bearing 

 on the Algonquian, Siouan, and Muskhogean families. 



In 1902 the work on the Handbook was again systematically taken 

 up, at the instance of Secretary Lang-lej^, who detailed Mr Hodge, at 

 that time connected immediatelv with the Smithsonian Institution, to 

 undertake its g-eneral editorial supervision. The scope of the subject- 

 matter was enlarged to include the relations between the aborigines and 

 the Government; their archeology, manners, customs, arts, and indus- 

 tries; brief biographies of Indians of note; and words of aboriginal 

 origin that have found their wa}'' into the English language. It was 

 proposed also to include Indian names that are purely geographic, but 

 by reason of the vast number of these it was subsequently deemed advis- 

 able to embody them eventually in an independent work. Moreover, it 

 was provided that the work should be illustrated as adequateh^as time 

 and the illustrative material available would admit, a feature not orig- 

 inally contemplated. To fully cover this vast field at the present time 

 is impossible, by reason of the fact that research among the native 

 tribes, notwithstanding the extensive and important work that has 

 been accomplished in recent years, has not advanced far beyond the 

 first stage, even when is taken into account the sum of knowledge 

 derived from the researches of the Bureau and of other institutions, 

 as well as of individuals. 



The lack of completeness of our present knowledge of the tribes was, 

 perhaps, never better shown than when an attempt was made to carry 

 out the enlarged plan of the Handbook. With its limited force the 



