176 REPORT— 1887. 



certain inquiries into natural dii'ect means of expressing emotions and 

 thoughts. Preliminary to these are conditions of face and body which 

 are symptoms of emotion, such as blushing, trembling, sneering, pouting, 

 frowning, laughter, and smiles ; there being still doubtful points as to how 

 far all races agree in these symptoms, it is desirable to notice them care- 

 fully. They lead on to intentional gestures made to express ideas, as 

 when an Indian will smile or tremble in order to convey the idea of 

 pleasure or fear either in himself or some one else, and such imitations 

 again lead on to the pretences of all kinds of actions, as fighting, eating, 

 &c., to indicate such real actions, or the objects connected with them, as 

 when the imitation of the movement of riding signifies a horse, or the 

 pretence of smoking signifies a pipe. The best collections of gesture- 

 language have been made among the wild hunters of the American 

 prairies (see accounts in Tylor's 'Early History of Mankind,' and the 

 special treatise of Mallery, ' Sign-language among the North American 

 Indians '). There is still a considerable use of gesture-language within 

 the Dominion of Canada as a means of intercourse between native tribes 

 ignorant of one another's language, and any observer who will learn 

 to master this interesting mode of communication, as used in the wild 

 districts of the Rocky Mountains, and will record the precise signs 

 and their order, may contribute important evidence to the study of 

 thought and language. The observer must take care that he fully under- 

 stands the signs he sees, which through familiar use are often reduced to 

 the slightest indication ; for instance, a Sioux will indicate old age by 

 holding out his closed right hand, knuckles upward — a gesture which a 

 European would not understand till it was more fully shown to him that 

 the sign refers to the attitude of an old man leaning on a staff. The 

 sequence of the gesture-signs is as important as the signs themselves, and 

 there is no better way of contributing to this subject than to get a skilled 

 sign-interpreter to tell in gestures one of his stories of travelling, hunt- 

 ing, or fighting, and carefully to write down the description of these 

 signs in order with their interpretations. 



Coming now to the philological record of native languages, it must be 

 noticed that small vocabularies &c., drawn up by travellers, are useful as 

 materials in move thorough work, but that the treatment of a language is 

 not complete till it has been reduced to a regular grammar and dictionary. 

 As to several Canadian languages this has been done, especially by the 

 learned missionaries Fathers Barraga, Lacombe, Cuoq, and Petitot, who 

 have published excellent works on the Ojibway, Cree, Iroquois, and Atha- 

 pascan (Denedinjie) languages respectively; while Howse's Grammar is 

 a standard Algonkin authority, and it is hoped that the knowledge of 

 Mr. McLean and others of the Blackfoot language may be embodied in 

 a special work. On the other hand, the study of languages west of 

 the Rocky Mountains is in a most imperfect state. Nothing proves 

 this better than the volume of ' Comparative Vocabularies of the Indian 

 Tribes of British Columbia,' by W. Fraser Tolmie and George M. 

 Dawson, published by the Geological and Natural History Survey of 

 Canada. These vocabularies of the Thlinkit, Tshimsian, Haida, Kwakiool, 

 Kawitshin, Aht, Tshinook, and other languages are important contributions 

 to philology, well worth the pains and cost of collecting and printing ; but 

 the mere fact that it was desirable to publish these vocabularies of a few 

 pages shows the absence of the full grammars and dictionaries which ought 

 to be found. This want is felt even in districts where there are white 



