25. Grammar of the Choctaw Language. By the Rev. Cyrus Byington. Edited from the original MS. by D. G. Brinton. pp. 56. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1870.
26. Contributions to a Grammer of the Muskokee Language. In Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, March, 1870.
27. The Floridian Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities. 8vo, cloth, pp. 202. Philadelphia, 1859.
28. The Taensa Grammar and Dictionary. A deception exposed. In American Antiquarian, March, 1885.
29. The Taensa Grammar and Dictionary. A reply to M. Lucien Adam. In American Antiquarian, September, 1885.
Within the area of the United States, my articles have been confined practically to two groups, the Algonkian dialects and those spoken in Florida and the Gulf States.
The Delaware Indians or Lenni Lenâpé, who occupied the valley of the Delaware River and the land east of it to the ocean, although long in peaceful association with the white settlers, were never studied, linguistically, except by the Moravian missionaries, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In examining the MSS. in the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, Pa., I discovered a MS. dictionary of their tongue, containing about 4,300 words. This I had carefully copied, and induced a native Delaware, an educated clergyman of the English Church, the Rev. Albert Seqaqkind Anthony, to pass a fortnight at my house, going over it with me, word by word. The MS. thus revised, was published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania as the first number of its “Student Series.” Various interesting items illustrating the beliefs and customs of the Delawares of the present day, communicated to me by Mr. Anthony, I collected into the article ([18]), “Lenâpé Conversations.”
A few years previous I had succeeded in obtaining the singular MS. referred to by C. S. Rafinesque, in 1836, as the “Painted Record” of the Delaware Indians, the Walum Olum, properly, “painted” or “red” “score.” This I reproduced in No. [17], with the accessories mentioned above (p. [9]). There is no doubt of the general authenticity of this record. A corroboration of it was sent me in March of this year (1898) by Dr. A. S. Gatschet, of the U. S. Bureau of American Ethnology. He writes:
“When the Delaware delegate, Johnnycake, was here for the last time, he told Mr. J. B. N. Hewitt (also attached to the Bureau) that some of the Lenâpé Indians, near Nowata, Cherokee Nation, had seen your publication on the Walum Olum. They belong to the oldest men of that tribe, and stated that the text was all right, and that they remembered the songs from their youth. They could give many additions, and said that a few passages were in the wrong order and had to be placed elsewhere to give them the full meaning they were intended to convey.”
This was cheering confirmation to me that my labor had not been expended on a fantastic composition of Rafinesque’s, as some have been inclined to think.