XVI ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



By these agencies it has become generally known that contri- 

 butions of the character explained were invited and would be 

 published speedily with due credit. The numei'ous and im- 

 portant responses to requests for assistance have been and will 

 continue to be thankfully acknowledged in the several publi- 

 cations to which they are germane. The objects of savage 

 and barbaric art contributed through the agencies mentioned 

 have been deposited in the National Museum and receive ap- 

 propriate public acknowledgment therefrom. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES, 

 BT MAJOR J. W. POWELL. 



In the year 1877 the Director of the Bureau pubHshed an 

 "Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages," which was 

 widely distributed for the purpose of giving the direction and 

 explanation necessary for the proper collection of linguistic 

 material. More thorough knowledge on the subject and the 

 experience of difficulties encountered demanded the prepara- 

 tion of a new edition much enlarged and improved, with re- 

 vised schedules of words, phrases, and sentences to be collected, 

 which was issued by the Bureau in 1880. It now consists 

 mainly in those explanations of characteristics which have 

 been found to best meet the wants of persons practically at 

 work in the field on languages with which they are not familiar. 

 Besides the explanations of a strictly philologic character, such 

 relating to other branches of anthropology were added (em- 

 bracing arts, habits, customs, institutions, and opinions — in 

 fact, the subject-matter of thought embodied in the several 

 languages) as would assist in the full comprehension of the 

 latter. A language, when mastered in this manner, affords in 

 turn the key to most interesting and otherwise undiscoverable 

 anthropologic facts. The scope of the attention given to such 

 subjects, as they are connected with language, is exhibited by 

 the list of the schedules of words and phrases other than those 

 used for grammatic purposes, viz, Persons, Parts of the Body, 



