OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXVII 



sons familiar with the principles of sign expression, but when, 

 as often occurs, they are conventional, they cannot be under- 

 stood without the aid of the context or without knowledge of 

 the convention. The instances of diversity among the Indian 

 signs are so numerous that a vocabulary would be insufficient 

 and misleading if it was confined to the presentation of a 

 single sign for each of the several objects or ideas to be ex- 

 pressed and did not supply variants and designation of the 

 several groups of tribes using them. There being no single 

 absolute language, each of the several forms of expression 

 resembling dialects has an equal right to consideration, and 

 without this comprehensive treatment a vocabulary must either 

 be limited to a single dialect, or become the glossary of a jargon. 

 For this reason the collection of the gesture-signs of the Indians 

 for scientific investigation involves many minute details and 

 requires much time. 



The frequent presence of delegations of Indian tribes in 

 Washington has been of great value to supplement field-work 

 in the study of their signs. During the year a large collec- 

 tion of gesture-signs was obtained from Pani, Ponka, and 

 Dakota Indians who visited the seat of government on busi- 

 ness connected with their reservations, by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, 

 who has assisted Colonel Mallery in the whole of this branch 

 of study. 



Special endeavor was made to procure for collation and com- 

 parison collections of gesture-signs from tribes and localities in 

 parts of the world from which little or no material of this kind 

 has ever been obtained. The voluminous correspondence and 

 other persevering exertions to accomplish that object have been 

 rewarded by collections from Turkey, Sicily, the Hawaiian 

 and the Fiji Islands, Madagascar, and other distant regions, but 

 of greatest interest are those from the Gilbert Islands and 

 Japan. The result shows that where observers can be found 

 who comprehend the subject of inquiry and are willing to 

 take the requisite pains in research, communication by gesture, 

 either as an existing system or the relic of such system, has 

 nearly always been discovered. 



When some expected responses shall have arrived from 



