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Show XLVI ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR by the Iroquois of Canada, are not sufficiently extensive for classification, and are chiefly valuable as illustrating the antiquity and universality of that medium of communication. The results of Colonel Mallery's study of pictographs are sufficiently indicated in his paper on that subject published in the present volume. In the whole of these studies Colonel Mallery has been assisted by Dr. W. J. Hoffman. Mrs. ERMINNIE A. SMITH, who had already collected a vocabulary of eight thousand words in the Tuscarora dialect and a great number in Onondaga and Seneca, found their synonyms in Mohawk in the manuscript dictionary of Father Marcoux before mentioned. From this dictionary she translated over twelve thousand words into English, rewriting the Mohawk and changing the old manner of spelling employed by the missionaries into the phonetic system prescribed by the Bureau for transcribing Indian words. Some of the words preserved in this dictionary have long since fallen into disuse and many are such as would be used only in the service of the church. Those containing records of old customs or which are suggestive of Indian characteristics have been carefully analyzed and noted by Mrs. Smith in this translation. A chrestomathy of the Mohawk dialect has also been carefully filled out by Mrs. Smith during the year. This contains the names of many towns and their derivations, as well as a large number of names of trees, plants, and shrubs, names of the months, days, & c, and their connotation. A table containing a large number of words in use among the isolated Mohawk of CaughnaWaga and their synonyms as used by the Mohawk on the " Six Nations Reserve," Ontario, Canada, exhibits as complete differences in words representing the same object or thought between these two separated portions of one tribe as exists between corresponding words in different dialects. The completion of this Iroquoian dictionary composed of synonyms of the six dialects may be expected to reveal many important facts regarding the formation of dialects and relating to Indian languages in general. Rev. J. OWEN DORSET was engaged during much of the year |