PREFACE 



AT the time of the early exploration and settlement of North America, 

 there were encountered many Indian tribes varying in customs 

 and speaking a diversity of languages. Lack of knowledge of the abor- 

 igines and total ignorance of their languages led to many curious errors 

 on the part of the early explorers and settlers: names were applied to 

 the Indians that had no relation whatever to those by which they were 

 aboriginally known; sometimes nicknames were bestowed, owing per- 

 haps to some personal characteristic, fancied or real; sometimes there 

 was applied the name given by another tribe, which was often oppro- 

 brious; frequently an effort was made to employ the designation by 

 which a tribal group knew itself; and as such names are oftentimes 

 unpronounceable by an alien tongue and unrepresentable by a civilized 

 alphabet, the result was a sorry corruption, varying as the sounds were 

 impressed on Spanish, English, French, Dutch, Russian, or Swedish ears, 

 or were recorded in as many languages only to be as grossly corrupted 

 when the next traveler appeared. Sometimes, again, bands of a single 

 tribe would be given distinctive names, while clans or gentes would be 

 regarded as independent autonomous groups to which separate tribal 

 designations were likewise applied. Consequently, in the literature of 

 the American Indians, which is practically co-extensive with the litera- 

 ture of the first three centuries of the New World, thousands of tribal 

 names are encountered, only a small proportion of which are recogniz- 

 able at a glance. 



The need of a comprehensive work by means of which these names 

 might be identified has been felt ever since a scientific interest in the 

 Indians was first aroused. Many lists of tribes have been published, but 

 the scientific student, as well as the general reader, until the present 

 time, has been practically without the means of knowing any more 

 about a given confederacy, tribe, clan, or settlement of Indians than was 

 to be gleaned from a single casual reference to it in literature. 



The present work had its inception over thirty years ago, when Prof. 

 Otis T. Mason conceived the plan of preparing a classified list of the 

 tribal names mentioned in the vast literature of the Indians, and in due 

 time several thousand names were recorded on cards, with reference to 

 the works in which they appeared. Meanwhile Mr. James Mooney began 

 the preparation of a classified list and a series of maps showing the dis- 

 tribution of the tribes of the entire Western Hemisphere. 



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