PREFACE 



During the early exploration and settlement of North America, a 

 multitude of Indian tribes were encountered, having- diverse customs 

 and languages. Lack of knowledge of the aborigines and of their lan- 

 guages led to many curious errors on the part of the early explorers and 

 settlers: names were applied to the Indians that had no relation what- 

 ever to their aboriginal names; sometimes nicknames were bestowed, 

 owing perhaps to personal characteristics, fancied or real; sometimes 

 tribes came to be known by names given bv other tribes, which were 

 often opprobrious; frequentl}" the designation by which a tribal group 

 was known to itself was employed, and as such names are oftentimes 

 unpronounceable by alien tongues and unrepresentable by civilized 

 alphabets, the result was a sorry corruption, varying according as the 

 sounds were impressed on Spanish, English, French, Dutch, German, 

 Russian, or Swedish ears. Sometimes, again, ])ands of a single tribe 

 were given distinctive tribal names, while clans and gentes were often 

 regarded as independent autonomous groups to which separate tribal 

 designations likewise were applied. Consequently, in the literature 

 relating to the American Indians, which is practically coextensive with 

 the literature of the first three centuries of the New World, thousands 

 of such names are recorded, the significance and application of which 

 are to be understood only after much study. 



The need of a comprehensive work on th6 subject has been felt ever 

 since scientific interest in the Indians was first aroused. Many lists of 

 tribes have been published, but the scientific student, as well as the 

 general reader, until the present time has been practically without the 

 means of knowing an}" more about a given confederacy, tribe, clan, or 

 settlement of Indians than was to be gleaned from casual references 

 to it. 



The work of which this Handbook is an outgrowth had its inception 

 as earl}^ as 1873, when Prof. Otis T. Mason, now of the United States 

 National Museum, began the preparation of a list of the tribal names 

 mentioned in the vast literature pertaining to the Indians, and in due 

 time several thousand names were recorded, with references to the 

 works in which thej' appear. The work was continued by him until 

 after the establishment of the Bureau, when other duties compelled its 

 suspension. Later the task was assigned to Col. Garrick Mallery, who, 

 however, soon abandoned it for investigations in a field which proved 



