ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT. XXXIII 



In May he again started out to gatlier additional etlniologic 

 material, especially with regard to the Kiowa, and to fihtain 

 further collections ft)r the World's Columbian Exposition. 

 Going first among the Sioux, he proceeded next to the Sho- 

 slioni and northern Arapaho villages, in Wyoming, and then 

 to the Kiowa countr}', in Indian Territory, where he was still 

 working at the close of the fiscal year. 



WORK OF MR J. OWEN DORSEY 



Reverend J. Owen Dorsey, from January 14 to February 21, 

 1892, made a trip to Lecomj)te, Rapides parish, Louisiana, for 

 the purpose of gaining information from the survivors of the 

 Biloxi tribe. He found only one pei'son, an aged woman, wlio 

 spoke the language in its purity, and two others, a man and 

 his wife (the latter the daughter of the old woman), whose dia- 

 lect contains numerous modifications of the ancient lan"ua<>e. 

 From these three persons he obtained several mjths and other 

 texts in the Biloxi language, material for a Biloxi-English dic- 

 tionary, local names, personal names, names of clans, kinship 

 terms, list of floi-a and fauna with their Biloxi names, and 

 grammatic notes. He filled many of the schedules of a co])y 

 of the second edition of "Powell's Introduction to the Study 

 of Indian Languages" (English-Biloxi in this instance). lie 

 brought to Washington a few botanical specimens, for which 

 he had gained the Biloxi names, in order to obtain their scien- 

 tific names from the botanists of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 He photographed three Biloxi men and two women, all who 

 could be found. There were about seven other Biloxi resid- 

 ing in the pine forest G or 7 miles from Lecompte, but they 

 would not be interviewed. The Biloxi lanouag-e contains 

 many words which resemble their equivalents in other Siouan 

 languages, some being identical in sound with the correspond- 

 ing- words in Dakota, Winnebago, etc. The Biloxi has more 

 classifiers than are found in the other languages of this family, 

 and, while it uses adverbs and conjunctions, it often expresses 

 a succession of actions by inere juxtaposition of two, three, or 

 more verbs. In the paucity of modal prefixes it may be com- 

 pai-ed with the Hidatsa and Tutelo, and in the use of d'^'' and 



13 ETH III 



