Aa UG TTT 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY. 
BY F. V. HAYDEN, M.D. 
CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Tur materials which compose the following chapters have been accumulated since the 
summer of 1855, and I now for the first time venture to present them for publication. 
They are named “ Contributions,” because they by no means exhaust the subjects treated, 
and also because they convey but little more than a glimpse of the beauty and fulness of 
the various Indian languages spoken in the Northwest. No opportunity will be left unim- 
proved in the future to verify or add to the materials already secured, although no effort 
has been spared to render the present memoir as accurate as possible. A very full Gram- 
mar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language has been published by the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, which it is but just’ to pronounce the most important contribution to Indian Phi- 
lology ever made in this country. To this work I am very much indebted for many 
valuable suggestions during the latter part of my researches. It can hardly be regarded 
as necessary to perform an equally laborious task for all the native languages of our con- 
tinent, neither could it be done except by intelligent missionaries, who have spent their 
lives with the Indians, and acquired a great degree of familiarity with their modes of ex- 
pression. With the Dakotas, who occupy so vast an area of our Northwestern country, 
educated missionaries have resided many years, and. have become able to converse with 
fluency in their own tongue, but this can be said with regard to very few of the North- 
western tribes. In the spring of 1860, some Lutheran missionaries attempted to establish 
a mission school and farm in the Crow district, near the eastern base of the Big Horn 
Mountains, but they had been in that country but a few months before the principal man 
of the enterprise, Rev. Mr. Brauninger, was killed by a roving war party of Dakotas, and 
thus the attempt to civilize the Crows was abandoned. Among the Blackfeet, at the 
present time, are some Catholic priests, who are laboring to instruct the youth in the 
English language, but as yet nothing has been done toward acquiring a knowledge of the 
native tongue. No permanent mission station has ever been established among the Assi- 
VOL. X11.—30 . 
