1st. A great number of languages were spoken, and ofttimes the first names obtained for tribes were not the names used by themselves, but the names by which they were known to some other tribes.
2d. The governmental organization of the Indians was not understood, and the names for gentes, tribes, and confederacies were confounded.
3d. The advancing occupancy of the country by white men changed the habitat of the Indians, and in their migrations from point to point their names were changed.
Under these circumstances the nomenclature of Indian tribes became ponderous and the synonymy complex. To unravel this synonymy is a task of great magnitude. Early in the fiscal year the materials already collected on this subject were turned over to Professor Mason and clerical assistance given him, and he has prepared a card catalogue of North American tribes, exhibiting the synonymy, for use in the office. This is being constantly revised and enlarged, and will eventually be published.
Professor Mason is also engaged in editing a grammar and dictionary of the Chata language, by the late Rev. Cyrus Byington, the manuscript of which was by Mrs. Byington turned over to the Bureau of Ethnology. The dictionary is Chata-English, and Professor Mason has prepared an English-Chata of about ten thousand words. He has also undertaken to enlarge the grammar by a further study of the language among the Indians themselves.
THE STUDY OF GESTURE SPEECH, BY BREVET LIEUT. COL. GARRICK MALLERY, U.S.A.
The growth of the languages of civilized peoples in their later stages may be learned from the study of recorded literature; and by comparative methods many interesting facts may be discovered pertaining to periods anterior to the development of writing.
In the study of peoples who have not passed beyond the tribal condition, laws of linguistic growth anterior to the written stage may be discovered. Thus, by the study of the languages of tribes and the languages of nations, the methods and laws of development are discovered from the low condition represented by the most savage tribe to the highest condition existing in the speech of civilized man. But there is a development of language anterior to this—a prehistoric condition—of profound interest to the scholar, because in it the beginnings of language—the first steps in the organization of articulate speech—are involved.
On this prehistoric stage, light is thrown from four sources:
1st. Infant speech, in which the development of the language of the race is epitomized.