| OCR Text |
Show XXXVI ANNUAL REPORT OP THE DIRECTOR Dr. W. J. Hoflman worked upon the Shoshonean tribes, aided by the Director's personal supervision. Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, to whom was assigned the California tribes, also gave assistance in other sections. % Each of the gentlemen named has been able to contribute largely to the results by his personal experience and investigations in the field, there being numerous regions concerning which published accounts are meager and unsatisfactory. The main source of the material to be dealt with has, however, been necessarily derived from books. A vast amount of the current literature pertaining to the North American Indians has been examined, amounting to over one thousand volumes, with a view to the extraction of the tribal names and the historical data necessary to fix their precise application. The work at the present time is well advanced toward completion. The examination of literature for the collation of synonyms may be regarded as practically done. The tables of synonymy and the accounts of the tribes have been completed for more than one- half the number of linguistic families. ACCOMPANYING PAPERS. LINGUISTIC FAMILIES OF NORTH AMERICA. In harmony with custom, three scientific papers accompany this report, designed to illustrate the nature, methods and spirit of the researches conducted by the Bureau. The first is on the " Classification of the North American Languages." It is by no means a final paper on the subject, but is intended rather to give an account of the present status of the subject, and to place before the workers in this field of scholarship the data now existing and the conclusions already reached, so as to constitute a point of departure for new work. With this end in view Mr. Pilling is engaged upon the bibliography of the subject and is rapidly publishing the same, and Mr. Hen-shaw is employed on the tribal synonymy. Altogether it is hoped that this work will inaugurate a new era in the investigation of the subject by making available the vast body of |
