WORK OF MR. JEREMIAH CURTIN.
Mr. Curtin spent the first two weeks of July at the Quapaw agency, Indian Territory, in making a collection of Modoc myths, which he had begun in the preceding winter, being part of a general collection of Indian myths begun in 1883. The number of Modoc myths obtained was nearly one hundred.
After finishing work at the Quapaw Agency, he returned to Washington, and shortly afterward was directed to proceed to northern California and obtain vocabularies of the Nosa and Kombo languages, and thence to Oregon to obtain vocabularies of the Wasco, Tyigh, and Tenina languages.
Work was begun on the Nosa language (Yanan family) at Redding, Cal., on October 11. The difficulties were very great, especially at first, owing to the fact that the Nosa are few in number, live far from one another, and have a very imperfect knowledge of English.
The Nosa were a prominent and rather numerous people until 1864, when all of them who could be found were massacred by white settlers, who organized two companies for the purpose of exterminating the tribe. Owing to a chance by which a few escaped and to the exertions of Mr. Benjamin Oliver, who secreted several in his cellar, about fifteen full blood Nosa survived.
Work on Nosa was continued in and around Redding until the end of November, when Round Mountain was visited to complete the Nosa vocabulary and obtain that of the Atsugei (Palaikan family), a very interesting language. Work at Round Mountain was finished on January 8 and Redding was revisited on January 9, preparatory to departing for Oregon.
Owing to the excessive severity of the winter and the snow blockades, which lasted six weeks, communication with Warm Spring was closed, and it was impossible to enter the reservation till January 27, when Sinnashee, a school and center of the Warm Spring Indian population, was reached.
At this place the Tyigh vocabulary (Shahaptian family) was collected. The Wasco (Chinookan family) was obtained at the agency headquarters near the Deschutes river. Tenina, being identical with the Tyigh language, was omitted. From April 18, at which date work at the Warm Spring agency was finished, until June 30, the time was devoted to collecting myths in the Klamath reservation and at Yreka.
During the whole period of work all the myths that could be found among the people whose languages were being investigated were reduced to writing. In this manner a large body of Nosa, Atsugei, Tyigh, and Wasco myths was collected. In the cases of Klamath and Shasti, myths were the objects directly in view.
The vocabularies were obtained with satisfactory completeness and the verbal systems worked out in detail.