KEPOET OP THE SECRETARY. 39 



by death some specially loved and favored relative and seeks a ceremonial 

 expression of sympathy from the entire tribe. It is the intention to procure 

 the songs and rituals of this ceremony, and specimens of the standards 

 employed in its performance. 



Altogether Mr. La Flesche has made excellent progress in his study of the 

 Osage people, and the results are already shedding light on the organization 

 and the origin and function of the ceremonies of this important tribe. 



The special researches of the bureau in the field of linguistics were conducted 

 by Dr. Franz Boas, honorary philologist, one of the immediate and tangible 

 results of which was the publication of Part 1 of the Handbook of American 

 Indian Languages. It seems desirable to restate at the present time the 

 development of the plan and the object of this work. 



Through the efforts of the late Maj. Powell and his collaborators a great 

 number of vocabularies and a few grammars of American Indian languages 

 had been accumulated, but no attempt had been made to give a succinct 

 description of the morphology of all the languages of the continent. In order 

 to do this, a series of publications was necessary. The subject matter had to 

 be represented by a number of grammatical sketches, such as are now being 

 assembled in the Handbook of American Indian Languages. To substantiate 

 the inductions contained in this grammar, collections of texts are indispensable 

 to the student, and finally a series of extended vocabularies are required. The 

 plan, as developed between 1890 and 1900, contemplated the assembling in the 

 bulletin series of the bureau of a series of texts which were to form the basis 

 of the handbook. Of this series, Dr. Boas's Chinook, Kathlamet, and Tsimshian 

 Texts, and Swanton's Haida and Tlingit Texts, subsequently published, form a 

 part, but at the time Swantou's Texts* appeared it was believed by Secretary 

 Langley that material, of this kind was too technical in character to warrant 

 publication in a governmental series. It was, therefore, decided to discontinue 

 the text series in the bulletins of the bureau and to divert them to the Publica- 

 tions of the American Ethnological Society and the Columbia University Con- 

 tributions to Anthropology. Other series were commenced by the University 

 of California and the University of Pennsylvania. The method of publication 

 pursued at the present time, though different from that first planned, is 

 acceptable, since all the material is accessible to students, and the bureau is 

 saved the expeuse of publication. 



Dr. Boas has been enabled to base all the sketches in the first volume of his 

 handbook on accompanying text series, as follows: 



(1) Athapascan. Text published by the University of California. 



(2) Tlingit. Text published by the Bureau of American Ethnology, but too 

 late to be used systematically. 



(3) Haida. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



(4) Tsimshian. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology and 

 the American Ethnological Society. 



(5) Kwakiutl. Texts published by the Jesup Expedition and in the Colum- 

 bia University series. 



(6) Chinook. Texts published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



(7) Maidu. Texts published by the American Ethnological Society, but too 

 late to be used. 



(8) Algonquian. Texts published by the American Ethnological Society. 



(9) Sioux. Texts in Contributions to North American Ethnology. 



(10) Eskimo. Texts in " Meddelelser om Gr0nland," but not used system- 

 atically. 



Although Dr. Boas has urged the desirability of undertaking the publication 

 of the series of vocabularies, no definite steps have yet been taken toward the 



