A COLLECTION OF GESTURE-SIGNS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN 



INDIANS. 



INTRODTJCTORY LEXXER. 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 Bureau of Ethnology, 



Washington, D. C, July 31, 1880. 



To the Collaborators with the Bureau of Ethnology in the Study of 

 Sign Language : 



gentle5ien : 



This paper coutaiiis the descriptions of the gesture-signs of the North American 

 Indians wlucli at the above date have been obtained by this Bureau. It will not be 

 used for publication in its present shape, and will be distributed only to those corre- 

 spondents who have contributed to its contents, and to others whose expected co-opera- 

 tion, the results of which are not yet received, is relied upon to add value to the final 

 work. No discussion is now introduced. The descriptions alone, in a tentative arrange- 

 ment, are presented for the purpose of the verification of observations, for verbal 

 corrections of every kind, and for the study of all collaborators, as well as that of the 

 editor, to secure accurate classification and comparison. Oidy such notes of resemblance 

 or discordance between several of the Indian signs, and between some of them and 

 those of deaf mutes, foreign tribes of men, and ideographic characters, are now printed 

 as have already been attached to the same signs in the comi)ilatiou for preliminary 

 treatises already jn-oduced. It is convenient to retain those in the same connection. 

 Many others of the same kind, remaining in MS. memoranda, are omitted, because 

 their insertion will be more correctly made after the pro])er arrangement has been 

 accomplished. Any such, occurring to collaborators, will, it is lioi)ed, be suggested 

 by theui in the margin of the present paper where they nmy seem to be most appro- 

 priate. 



The primary object of this paper is that every contributor to it may be enabled 

 to re%ise his own contribution, which for the present is divided and arranged accord- 

 ing to a scheme of linguistic families and subordinate languages or tribes, as set forth 

 in the List of Authorities and Collaborators, which also serves as an index to 



