OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXIII 



ance made it exceedingly difficult to obtain material of per- 

 manent value. 



The Shetimasha Indians of Saint Mary's Parish, on Bayou 

 Teche, Louisiana, whom he visited afterwards, live at Charen- 

 ton. They number 35, while 18 others live in the woods north 

 of Grand Lake, or Lake of the Shetimashas, as anciently called. 

 These Indians are, except five or six, all mixed bloods, speak 

 the Creole French, are gay, kind, and amiable to strangers, 

 cultivate small farms, help in cultivating the sugar fields, and 

 in winter remove cypress trees from the flooded swamps. Like 

 the Kataba, they speak their language with considerable pur- 

 ity, and circumstances favored the obtaining of ethnologic 

 texts. The phrases, sentences, and terms gathered in Shetima- 

 sha, where a stay of two weeks was made, amount to nearly 

 two thousand. 



A search for the historical Atakapas, Adayes, and Taensas 

 throughout Louisiana was not attended with any results. 



WORK OF MRS. ERMINISTIE A. SMITH. 



Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith continued her Iroquoian investiga- 

 tions, first visiting the Onondaga Reservation in New York 

 State, and there filling a chrestomathy on the Onondaga dia- 

 lect, and collecting folk-lore. Later she visited the Six Nations 

 Reserve upon the Grand River in Canada, collecting folk-lore 

 and comparing the dialects. 



WORK OF DR. W. J. HOFFMAN. 



Dr. W. J. Hoffman prosecuted investigations in gesture- 

 language and pictographs among the Mandan, Hidatsa, and 

 Arikara Indians living at Fort Berthold, Dakota. Similar in- 

 formation was also obtained from Indians visiting that locality, 

 prominent among which were Dakota, Pani, Absaroka, or 

 Crows, Blackfeet (Satsika), and Ojibwa. On the return journey 

 a small delegation of Dakota Indians from the southern part 

 of Dakota was met at Mendota, Minn., from whom similar in- 

 formation was obtained. The material collected consisted 

 chiefly of extensive lists of gesture-signs, both those peculiar 



