Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

39348

PREFACE.

As stated in the prefatory remarks to one of the earlier issues of the series of bibliographies of which this volume forms the fifth number, the writer undertook a number of years ago the compilation of a work to be published by the Bureau of Ethnology, which was to embrace within a single volume an authors' catalogue of all the material relating to the native North American languages. With this purpose in view he visited the principal public and private libraries of the United States, Canada, and northern Mexico, carried on an extensive correspondence with librarians, missionaries, and others interested in the subject, and examined such authorities, printed and manuscript, as were accessible. The results of these researches were embodied in a work entitled "Proof-sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians," the full title and description of which will be found on page 403 herewith. The amount of material obtained was so much greater than was anticipated that the volume proved cumbersome, and it was concluded to change the style of publication and to issue a series of bibliographies each relating to one of the more prominent groups of our native languages. Consequently but few of the "Proof-sheets" were distributed, and these were confined to persons who it was thought were in a position to aid in the preparation of the new series. New journeys were undertaken, the national libra ries of England, France, and a few of the larger private collections in both of these countries were consulted, many of the. libraries of this country and Canada were revisited, other correspondents were enlisted, much additional material was acquired, and the publication of the separate bibliographies was begun.

Of this series four numbers have been published, relating respectively, in order of publication, to the Eskimauan, Siouan, Iroquoian, and Muskogean families; this, the Algonquian, is the fifth, and the next in contemplation includes the languages belonging to the Athapascan stock.

The Algonquian speaking peoples covered a greater extent of country, perhaps, han those of any other of the linguistic stocks of North America, stretching from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Churchill River of Hudson Bay to Pamlico Sound in North Carolina; and the literature of their languages is by far the greatest in extent of any of the stocks north of Mexico, being equaled, if at all, by only one south of that line, namely, the Nahuatl. Probably every language of the family is on record, and of the more prominent, extensive record has been made. In two, the Massachusetts and the Cree, the whole bible has been printed, the former, by the way, being the first bible printed upon this continent. In two others, the Chippewa and the Micmac, nearly the whole of the scriptures has been printed, and portions thereof have appeared in a number of others. In the Abnaki, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Cree, Delaware, Micmac, and Nipissing, rather extensive dictionaries have been printed, and of the Abnaki, Nipissing, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montagnais, and Pottawotomi, there are manuscript dictionaries in existence. Of grammars, we have in print the Abnaki, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Cree, Massachusetts, Micmac, and Nipissing, and in manuscript, the Illinois, Menomonee, Montagnais, and Pottawotomi. In nearly every language of the family, prayer-books, hymnbooks, tracts, and scriptural texts have appeared, and several of them are represented by school-books of various kinds, i. e., primers, spellers, and readers; and in one of them, the Chippewa, there was printed in 1840 a geography for beginners.

III

« AnteriorContinuar »