44 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



tions concerning them. The general law of piratical acculturation finds innumera- 

 ble examples among the more primitive peoples of the world, and phases of it have 

 been recognized in the proposition that conquering tribes take the language of the 

 conquered. Other phases have been perceived, e. g., in the hypothesis of primitive 

 "marriage by capture." Various earlier students have noted that actual or cere-, 

 mouial capture of the bride is a part of marriage among certain tribes, and have 

 assumed that this was the initial form of mating among primitive peoples; later 

 researches have shown that, in the lowest of the four great culture stages, mating 

 is regulated by the females aud their male consanguineal kindred, so that mar- 

 riage by capture of brides can not occur; yet there is a step early in the stage of 

 paternal organization in which a certain form of marriage by capture has arisen in 

 America, and may easily have become prominent on other continents. When tribes 

 are in that unstable condition of amity resulting in peaceful interludes between 

 periods of strife — a stage characteristic of savagery and much of barbarism — the 

 intertribal association frequently results in irregular matches between members of 

 the alien tribes; commonly such mating is punished by one or both tribes, though 

 among many peoples there are special regulations under which the offense may be 

 condoned — e. g., the groom may be subjected to fine, to running the gantlet, to 

 ostracism until children are born, etc. Yet while both bride and groom incur dis- 

 pleasure and even risk of life through such matches, there is a chance of attendant 

 advantage which may counterbalance the risk; for it frequently happens that the 

 groom, especially if of the Aveaker tribe, eventually gains the amity and support of 

 his wife's kinsmen, while in some cases the elder men and elder women of one or 

 both tribes recognize the desirability of a coalition which can tend only to unite 

 the deities of both, and so benefit each in greater or lesser measure. Researches 

 among the American aborigines have already shown that, so far as this continent is 

 concerned, exogamy and endogamy are correlative, the former referring to the clan 

 and the latter to the tribe or other group ; they have also shown that the limitations 

 of exogamy and the extension of endogamy are ingenious devices for promoting 

 peace; and it is now becoming clearer that intertribal marriage, whether by 

 mutually airanged elopement or by capture of the bride, may be a means of extend- 

 ing endogamy and uniting aliens, and thereby of raising acculturation from the 

 piratical plane to that of amicable interchange. The applications of the law of 

 piratical acculturation are innumerable. In the light of the law, it becomes easy to 

 understand how inimical tribes are gradually brought to use similar weapons and 

 implements, to adopt similar modes of thinking and working, to worship similar 

 c.eities, and thus to be brought from complete dissonance to potential harmony when- 

 soever the exigency of primitive life may serve; and thus the course of that con- 

 vergent development, which is the most important lesson the American aborigines 

 have given to the world, is made clear. Some idea may be formed, also, of the his- 

 tory of piratical acculturation. 



WORK IN PHILOLOGY. 



Dr. Albert S. Gatschet has continued the preparation of a comparative vocabulary 

 of Algonquian dialects, making satisfactory progress. The Algonquian linguistic 

 stock was the most extensive of North America, both in the number of dialects 

 and in the area occupied by the tribes using them. For this and other reasons 

 the stock has been a source of much labor among philologists, and there has 

 been considerable diversity of opinion as to its classification. One of the tasks 

 undertaken by the Bureau early in its history was the review of Algonquian 

 linguistic material for the purpose of formulating a definite and satisfactory classi- 

 fication. Many vocabularies have been collected and compared; to aid in the 

 determination of affinities, grammatic material has also been obtained in consider- 

 able volume; and still further to elucidate relations, a body of records of myths and 

 ceremonies has been accumulated. The lexic, grammatic, and mythologic records of 



