FOREWORD
In 1907, the Bureau of
American Ethnology published Part I (972 pages) of the Handbook of
American Indians North of Mexico and, in 1910, published Part II (1221
pages). This work which can be correctly characterized as monumental,
was begun in 1873, and was completed in 1910, thirty-seven years later.
The history of the undertaking is set forth in the Preface and need not
be repeated here.
As it contained an
enormous amount of information relating to the Indians of Canada,
geographical as well as ethnological, it was decided that the Geographic
Board would republish this portion. Mr. F. W. Hodge having courteously
accorded permission to reprint, the undersigned volunteered to supervise
the publication.
In publishing this work
some changes have been made to bring the orthography into accord with
English usage. Thus the 'u' has been inserted in such words as colour,
favour, labour, etc. The forms discs, boulder, draughtsman, etc., were
substituted for disks, bowlder, draftsman, etc.
As, in the original
publication, the articles respecting Treaties, Dept. of Indian Affairs
and Indian Reserves dealt almost altogether with the United States, new
articles relative to Canadian conditions have been inserted, also a list
of Indian reserves in Canada. Where in the original, minor errors of
geographical description were noted, the corrections were inserted
without special note but historical statements that the editor deemed
erroneous are corrected in foot-notes.
A new map showing the
territory occupied by the Aborigines of Canada, Alaska and Greenland has
been compiled by the editor. It is a revision of the map -prepared for
the Atlas of Canada, 1906, but was printed before Mr. Stefansson's
return from the Arctic. The information furnished by him, has,
therefore, been noted in red by an over-printing.
Maps showing the areas
in which the Indian title has been quieted by treaties with the native
inhabitants have been compiled for this volume.
It is hoped that this
work will form the basis of a more comprehensive publication which will
deal with the Indians of Canada in greater detail than the scope of the
present work permits.
JAMES WHITE
PREFACE
During the early
exploration and settlement of North America, a multitude of Indian
tribes were encountered, having diverse customs and languages, Lack of
knowledge of the aborigines and of their languages led to many curious
errors on the part of the early explorers and settlers: names were
applied to the Indians that had no relation whatever to their aboriginal
names; sometimes nicknames were bestowed, owing perhaps to personal
characteristics, fancied or real; sometimes tribes came to be known by
names given by other tribes, which were often opprobrious; frequently
the designation by which a tribal group was known to itself was
employed, and as such names are oftentimes unpronounceable by alien
tongues and unrepresentable by civilized alphabets, the result was a
sorry corruption, varying according as the sounds were impressed on
Spanish, English, French, Dutch, German, Russian, or Swedish ears.
Sometimes, again, bands of a single tribe were given distinctive tribal
names, while clans and gentes were often regarded as independent
autonomous groups to which separate tribe designations likewise were
applied. Consequently, in the literature relating to the American
Indians, which is practically coextensive with the literature of the
first three centuries of the New World, thousands of such names are
recorded the significance and application of which are to be understood
only after much study.
The need of a
comprehensive work on the subject has been felt ever since scientific
interest in the Indians was first aroused. Many lists of tribes have
been published, but the scientific student, as well as the general
reader, until the present time has been practically without the means of
knowing any more about a given confederacy, tribe, clan, or settlement
of Indians than was to be gleaned from casual references to it.
The work of which this
Handbook is an outgrowth had its inception as early as 1873, when Prof.
Otis T. Mason, now of the United States National Museum, began the
preparation of a list of the tribal names mentioned in the vast
literature pertaining to the Indians, and in due time several thousand
names were recorded with references to the works in which they appear.
The work was continued by him until after the establishment of the
Bureau, when other duties compelled its suspension. Later, the task was
assigned to Col. Garrick Mallery, who, however, soon abandoned it for
investigations in a field which proved to be his life work, namely, the
pictography and sign language of the American Indians.
Meanwhile Mr. James
Mooney was engaged in compiling a similar list of tribes with their
synonymy, classified chiefly on a geographic basis and covering the
entire Western Hemisphere—a work begun in 1873 and continued for twelve
years before either he or the members of the Bureau of American
Ethnology knew of the labours of each other in this field.
Soon after the
organization of the Bureau in 1879, the work of recording a tribal
synonymy was formally assigned to Mr. Henry W. Henshaw. Up to this time
a complete linguistic classification of the tribes north of Mexico,
particularly in the West and Northwest, was not possible, since
sufficient data had not been gathered for determining their linguistic
affinities. Mr. Henshaw soon perceived that a linguistic classification
of the Indian tribes, a work long contemplated by Major Powell, must
precede and form the basis for a tribal synonymy, and to him, therefore,
as a necessary preliminary, was intrusted the supervision of such a
linguistic classification. By 1885 the Bureau's researches in this
direction had reached a stage that warranted the grouping of practically
all the known tribes by linguistic stocks. This classification is
published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau, and on it is
based, with few exceptions, the present Handbook.
Immediately on the
completion of the linguistic classification, the entire force of the
Bureau, under Mr. Henshaw's immediate direction, was assigned to the
work that had now grown into a Dictionary and Synonymy of the Indian
Tribes North of Mexico. As his special field Mr. Henshaw devoted
attention to several of the Californian stocks, and to those of the
North Pacific coast, north of Oregon, including the Eskimo. To Mr.
Mooney were given the great and historically important Algonquian and
Iroquoian families, and through his wide general knowledge of Indian
history and customs he rendered aid in many other directions. A list of
Linguistic Families of the Indian Tribes North of Mexico with
Provisional List of the Principal Tribal Names and Synonyms (55 pp.
octavo), was at once printed for use by the collaborators of the Bureau
in connection with the complete compilation, and, although the list does
not include the Californian tribes, it proved of great service in the
earlier stages of the work. The 2,500 tribal names and synonyms
appearing in this list were taken chiefly from Mr. Mooney's manuscript;
the linguistic classification was the result of the work that the Bureau
had been conducting under Mr. Henshaw's supervision.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey
assumed charge of the work on the Siouan, Caddoan, and Athapascan
stocks; Dr. W. J. Hoffman, under the personal direction of Major Powell,
devoted his energies to the Shoshonean family, and Mr. Jeremiah Curtin,
by reason of his familiarity with a number of the Californian tribes,
rendered direct aid to Mr. Henshaw in that field. Dr. Albert S. Gatschet
employed his time and long experience in the preparation of the material
pertaining to the Muskhogean tribes of southeastern United States, the
Yuman tribes of the lower Colorado drainage and of Lower California, and
various smaller linguistic groups. To Col. Garrick Mallery were assigned
the French authors bearing on the general subject. With such aid the
work received a pronounced impetus, and before the close of 1885 a large
body of additional material had been recorded. Four years later the
elaboration of the material pertaining to the Yuman, Piman, Keresan,
Tanoan, and Zunian stocks of the extreme Southwest was placed in charge
of Mr. F. W. Hodge, who brought it to completion.
The work was continued
under Mr. Henshaw's supervision until, in 1893, ill health compelled his
abandonment of the task. This is the more to be regretted as Mr. Henshaw
had in course of preparation, a classification and nomenclature of the
minor divisions of the linguistic stocks, which is essential to a propei
presentation and a clear understanding of the subject. After Mr.
Henshaw's relinquishment of the work, Mr. Hodge was given entire charge
of it. But other official duties of members of the staff prevented the
Handbook as a whole from making marked progress until 1899, when Dr.
Cyrus Thomas was intrusted with the task of revising the recorded
material bearing on the Algonquian, Siouan, and Muskhogean families.
In 1902 the work on the
Handbook was again systematically taken up, at the instance of Secretary
Langley, who detailed Mr, Hodge, at that time connected immediately with
the Smithsonian Institution, to undertake its general editorial
supervision. The scope of the subject-matter was enlarged to include the
relations between the aborigines and the Government; their archaeology,
manners, customs, arts, and industries; brief biographies of Indians of
note; and words of aboriginal origin that have found their way into the
English language. It was proposed also to include Indian names that are
purely geographic, but by reason of the vast number of these it was
subsequently deemed advisable to embody them eventually in an
independent work. Moreover, it was provided that the work should be
illustrated as adequately as time and the illustrative material
available would admit, a feature not originally contemplated. To fully
cover this vast field at the present time h impossible, by reason of the
fact that research among the native tribes, notwithstanding the
extensive and important work that has been accomplished in recent years,
has not advanced far beyond the first stage, even when is taken into
account the sum of knowledge derived from the researches of the Bureau
and of other institutions, as well as of individuals.
The lack of
completeness of our present knowledge of the tribes was, perhaps never
better shown than when an attempt was made to carry out the enlarged
plan of the Handbook. With its limited force the Bureau could scarcely
hope to cover the entire range of the subject within a reasonable time;
consequently various specialists not directly connected with the Bureau
were invited to assist in invitation that was accepted in a manner most
gratifying. It is owing to the generous aid of these students that a
work so complete as the Handbook is intended to be, was made possible,
and, to them, the Bureau owes its deep appreciation. That the Handbook
has many imperfections there is no doubt, but it is hoped that in future
editions the weak points may be strengthened and the gaps filled, until,
as researches among the tribes are continued, the compilation will
eventually represent a complete summary of existing knowledge respecting
the aborigines of northern America.
The scope of the
Handbook is as comprehensive as its function necessitates. It treats of
all the tribes north of Mexico, including the Eskimo, and those tribes
south of the boundary more or less affiliated with those in the United
States. It has been the aim to give a brief description of every
linguistic stock, codfederacy, tribe, subtribe or tribal division, and
settlement knows to history or even to tradition, as well as the origin
and derivation of every name treated whenever such is known, and to
record under each every form of the name and every other appellation
that could be learned. These synonyms, in alphabetic order, are
assembled as cross references in Appendix III.
Under the tribal
descriptions a brief account of the ethnic relations of the tribe its
history, its location at various periods, statistics of population,
etc., are included. Accompanying each synonym (the earliest known date
always being given) a reference to the authority is noted, and these
references form practically a bibliography of the tribe for those who
desire to pursue the subject further. It is not claimed that every
spelling of every tribal name that occurs in print is given, but it is
believed that a sufficient number of forms is recorded to enable the
student to identify practically every name by which any group of Indians
has been known, as well as to trace the origin of many of the terms that
have been incorporated into our geographic nomenclature.
The contributors, in
addition to those who have rendered valued assistance by affording
information, correcting proofs, and in other ways, are as follows, the
names being arranged in the alphabetical order of the initials attached
to the signed articles:
F. W. Hodge
Bureau of American Ethnology
December, 1906
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