PREFACE. 7 



With such facilities the work of compilation received a pronounced 

 impetus, and before the close of the year named a large body of material 

 was recorded. It should here be stated that, although the basis of the 

 Dictionary is the literature of the Indians, many volumes of manuscript 

 ethnologic notes and vocabularies recorded by members of the Bureau, 

 and others, as well as a fund of general information obtained through 

 personal study of the tribes and their languages, were utilized in its 

 preparation. 



The work was continued under Mr. Henshaw's supervision, until, in 

 1 89 1, ill-health compelled his abandonment of the task. Two years 

 previously the preparation of the material pertaining to the Yuman, 

 Piman, Keresan, Tanoan, and Zunian stocks of the extreme Southwest 

 was placed in charge of Mr. F. W. Hodge, who brought it practically to 

 completion and who meanwhile was given nominal charge of the en- 

 tire work ; but other official duties of members of the staff prevented 

 the Dictionary as a whole from making much progress until some three 

 years ago when Dr. Cyrus Thomas was entrusted with the task of bring- 

 ing to date the recorded material'bearing on some of the more prominent 

 stocks. 



In 1902 the work was again systematically taken up at the instance 

 of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who detailed Mr. Hodge 

 to undertake the general editorial supervision of the Dictionary, assisted 

 by Mr. James Mooney, Prof. Cyrus Thomas, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, and 

 Dr. John R. Swanton, of the Bureau of American Ethnology; Dr. Franz 

 Boas, of the American Museum of Natural History; Dr. Washington 

 Matthews, U. S. A., retired; Dr. A. L. Kroeber, of the University of 

 California; Mr. Roland B. Dixon, of the Peabody Museum of American 

 Archaeology and Ethnology; Dr. A. F. Chamberlain, of Clark University; 

 and Mr. Joseph D. McGuire. The material in the main was divided 

 among these ethnologists in accordance with their special knowledge of 

 the tribes which they had studied, and the Dictionary as now published 

 is therefore largely the result of their labors. 



Under the plan inaugurated, the scope of the Dictionary is as com- 

 prehensive as its function necessitates. It comprehends the tribes north 

 of Mexico, with the few south of the boundary that are closely connected 

 with those of the United States. It has been the aim to give a brief 

 description of every linguistic stock, confederacy, tribe, subtribe or 

 tribal division, clan, gens, and settlement known to history or even to 

 tradition, as well as the origin and derivation of every name treated; 

 and to record, under each, every form of the name and every other appel- 

 lation by which it has been known, together with a cross-reference to 

 each such designation. 



Under the tribal descriptions a brief account of the ethnic relations 

 of the tribe, its history (including migrations, first contact and later 



