[[26]]
Although Doctor Boas has urged the desirability of undertaking the publication of the series of vocabularies, no definite steps have yet been taken toward the realization of this plan, owing largely to lack of funds for the employment of assistants in preparing the materials. It is hoped, however, that such a series of vocabularies, based on the published grammars and on the series of texts above referred to, may be prepared for publication in the near future. Much of the preliminary work has been done. There are, for example, extended manuscript dictionaries of the Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Chinook, and Sioux, but none of them is yet ready for the printer.
The work on Part 2 of the Handbook of American Indian Languages is progressing satisfactorily. The sketch of the Takelma is in page form (pp. 1–296), but Doctor Boas has undertaken the correlation of this sketch with the Takelma Texts, which meanwhile have been published by the University of Pennsylvania, and a considerable amount of work remains to be done to finish this revision. The Coos grammar is in galleys. The Coos Texts are at the present writing being printed by the American Ethnological Society, and here also references are being inserted. Dr. Leo J. Frachtenberg has continued his collection of material for the handbook with commendable energy and intelligence. The field work has been financially aided by Columbia University, partly through a gift made by Mrs. Henry Villard and partly through funds provided by Mr. Homer E. Sargent. It has also been possible to utilize for the work on the Alsea the collections made at a former time by Prof. Livingston Farrand on an expedition supported by the late Mr. Henry Villard. On his last expedition Doctor Frachtenberg was able to determine that the Siuslaw is an independent stock, although morphologically affiliated with the Alsea, Coos, and Siuslaw group. He also collected extensive material on the Alsea and Molala.
The most important result, which is appearing more and more clearly from the investigations carried out under the direction of Doctor Boas, lies in the fact that it will be possible to classify American languages on a basis wider than [[27]]that of linguistic stocks. In 1893 Doctor Boas called attention to the fact that a number of languages in northern British Columbia seem to have certain morphological traits in common, by which they are sharply differentiated from all the neighboring languages, although the evidence for a common origin of the stocks is unsatisfactory. Doctor Boas and his assistants have followed this observation, and it can now be shown that throughout the continent languages may be classed in wider morphological groups. It is interesting to note that phonetic groups may be distinguished in a similar manner, but these do not coincide with the morphological groups. These observations are in accord with the results of modern inquiries in Africa and Asia, where the influence of Hamitic phonetics on languages of the Sudan and the influence of Sumerian on early Babylonian have been traced in a similar manner. Analogous conditions seem to prevail also in South Africa, where the phonetics of the Bushman languages have influenced the neighboring Bantu languages. In this way a number of entirely new and fundamental problems in linguistic ethnography have been formulated, the solution of which is of the greatest importance for a clear understanding of the early history of the American Continent.
The Handbook of American Indian Languages as planned at the present time deals exclusively with an analytical study of the morphology of each linguistic family, without any attempt at a detailed discussion of phonetic processes, their influence upon the development of the language, and the relation of dialects. Doctor Boas recommends that the present Handbook of American Indian Languages be followed by a series of handbooks each devoted to a single linguistic stock, in which the development of each language, so far as it can be traced by comparative studies, should be treated.
The study of aboriginal American music was conducted among the Chippewa Indians by Miss Frances Densmore, who extended her field of work previously begun among that people and elaborated the system of analyzing their songs. After spending several weeks on the Lac du Flambeau [[28]]Reservation in Wisconsin she accompanied the Chippewa from that reservation to the Menominee Reservation in the same State, where the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa ceremonially presented two drums to the Menominee. This ceremony was closely observed, photographs being taken and the speeches of presentation translated, and the songs of the ceremony were recorded by Miss Densmore on a phonograph after the return of the drum party to Lac du Flambeau. Many of the songs are of Sioux origin, as the ceremony was adopted from that people; consequently the songs were analyzed separately from those of Chippewa origin. Numerous old war songs were recorded at Lac du Flambeau, also songs said to have been composed during dreams, and others used as accompaniments to games and dances. The analytical tables published during the year in Bulletin 45, Chippewa Music, have been combined by Miss Densmore with those of songs collected during the year 1910–11, making a total of 340 Chippewa songs under analysis. These are analyzed in 12 tables, showing the structure, tone material, melodic progression, and rhythm of the songs, the rhythm of the drum, the relation between the metric unit of the voice and drum, and other points bearing on the development and form of primitive musical expression. This material is now almost ready for publication. The Sioux songs of the Drum-presentation ceremony, similarly analyzed, constitute the beginning of an analytical study of the Sioux music, which will be continued and extended during the fiscal year 1911–12.
Miss Alice C. Fletcher and Mr. La Flesche conducted the final proof revision of their monograph on the Omaha tribe, to accompany the Twenty-seventh Annual Report, which was in press at the close of the fiscal year. This memoir will comprise 658 printed pages and will form the most complete monograph of a single tribe that has yet appeared.
Mr. J. P. Dunn, whose studies of the Algonquian tribes of the Middle West have been mentioned in previous reports, deemed it advisable, before continuing his investigation [[29]]of the languages of the tribes comprising the former Illinois confederacy, to await the completion of the copying of the anonymous manuscript Miami-French Dictionary, attributed to Père Joseph Ignatius Le Boulanger, in the John Carter Brown Library at Providence, Rhode Island. Through the courteous permission of Mr. George Parker Winship, librarian, the bureau has been enabled to commence the copying of this manuscript, the difficult task being assigned to Miss Margaret Bingham Stillwell, under Mr. Winship’s immediate direction. At the close of the fiscal year 20½ pages of the original (comprising 95 pages of transcript), of the total of 155 pages of the dictionary proper, were finished and submitted to the bureau. It is hoped that on the completion of the copying the bureau will have a basis for the study of the Miami and related languages that would not be possible among the greatly modified remnant of the Indians still speaking them.
Prof. Howard M. Ballou, of Honolulu, has continued the preparation of the List of Works Relating to Hawaii, undertaken in collaboration with the late Dr. Cyrus Thomas, and during the year submitted the titles of many early publications, including those of obscure books printed in the Hawaiian language.
Mr. John P. Harrington, of the School of American Archæology, proceeded in March to the Colorado Valley in Arizona and California for the purpose of continuing his studies, commenced a few years before, among the Mohave Indians, and incidentally to make collections for the United States National Museum. Mr. Harrington was still among these Indians at the close of July, and the results of his studies, which cover every phase of the life of this interesting people, are to be placed at the disposal of the bureau for publication.