ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 177 



missionaries asing the native languages, and native teachers acquainted 

 with English, so that the necessary philological material actually exists, 

 and only the labour of writing it down is required to preserve it from 

 destruction. A general effort, if now made, would save the record of 

 several dialects on the point of disappearance. It is suggested by the 

 Committee that inquiry should be made for lists of words &c. hitherto 

 unpublished ; that the terms and phrases possessed by interpreters should 

 be taken down ; that sentences and narratives should be copied with the 

 utmost care as to pronunciation and accent, and translated word by 

 word. 



Particular attention is asked to two points in the examination of these 

 languages. Care is required to separate from the general mass of words 

 such as have a dii'ect natural origin, such as interjections expressing 

 emotion, and words imitating natural sounds, as, for instance, the names 

 of birds and beasts, derived from their notes or cries. It is desirable in 

 such words to notice how close the spoken word comes to the sound 

 imitated, for resemblances which are obvious from the lips of the native 

 speaker are apt to be less recognisable when reduced to writing. It is 

 also of interest to notice the significance of names of places and persons, 

 which often contain interesting traces of the past history of families and 

 tribes. 



An ethnographic map, based on language, and showing as nearly as 

 possible the precise areas occupied by the various tribes speaking distinct 

 idioms, is a desideratum, and, if properly completed, will be an acquisi- 

 tion of the greatest value. Several partial maps have been published, 

 mostly of the region west of the Rocky Mountains. Among these may 

 be specially mentioned two maps by Mr. W. H. Dall, given in the first 

 volume of the ' Contributions to North American Ethnology,' published 

 by the United States Government — one of which relates to the tribes of 

 Alaska and the adjoining region, and the other to the tribes of Washing- 

 ton Territory and the country immediately north of it. These are con- 

 nected through British Columbia by the excellent map which accom- 

 panies the Comparative Vocabularies of Drs. Tolmie and Dawson. A 

 small map, by Dr. Franz Boas, in ' Science ' for March 25, 1887, with 

 the accompanying report, adds some useful particulars concerning the 

 coast tribes of that province. With the additions which different ob- 

 servers can supply for the various portions of the country, a complete 

 tribal and language map of the whole Dominion might soon be con- 

 stinjcted. In forming such a map, it is desirable that the various lin- 

 guistic 'stocks,' or families of languages, completely distinct in grammar 

 and vocabulary, should be distinguished by different colours. East of 

 the mountains the number of these stocks is small, but west of them it is 

 remarkably large. Besides showing the distinct stocks, the map should 

 also show the several allied languages which compose each stock. Thus, 

 of the widespread Algonkin family, there are in the territories west of 

 Lake Superior at least three languages, the Ojibway, the Cree, and the 

 Blackfoot, all materially differing from one another. If, in the proposed 

 map, the Algonkin portion should be coloured yellow, the subdivisions in 

 which these separate languages are spoken might be marked off by 

 boundary lines (perhaps clotted lines) of another colour, say blue or red. 

 It would be proper to give the areas occupied by the different tribes 

 as they stood before the displacements caused by the whites. Following 

 the example set by Gallatin in his Synopsis, it will be well to select 

 1887. If 



