Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/38

X PREFATORY LETTER. of the Historical Societies of New York and of Massachusetts, were opened to me at all times, and their books and manuscripts communi- cate J without reserve. The War Department, both formerly and lately, communicated the materials in its possession; and I am indebted to many individuals, but especially to Mr. Du Ponceau, who, in the most liberal and friendly manner, put his valuable collection of manuscript vocabularies at my disposal, and gave me every information which he thought might be oi' any use to me. The form of a comparative vocabulary was adopted as far as practica- ble ; and, in preparing it, every source of information, whether in manu- script or in works already published, was resorted to. The selection of the words was necessarily controlled by the materials. Those and no others could be admitted, but such as were found in a number of the existing vocabularies, sufficient for the purpose intended. Some words of inferior importance were introduced, only because they were com- mon to almost all the vocabularies ; and many have been omitted, be- cause they were to be found only for a few dialects. This will account for the absence of abstract nouns, prepositions, &c, in the Comparative Vocabulary. The deficiency is partly supplied for the Southern and for the Iroquois tribes, by the Supplementary Vocabulary. Although the number of words in the comparative vocabulary (No. I.), which embraces fifty-three tribes, was reduced to one hundred and eighty, less than one- half of that number could be obtained for some of the languages. A lesser vocabulary (No. II.) of fifty-three words includes sixteen tribes. About the same number of words has been supplied by Umfreville, for four tribes, (No. III.) The miscellaneous vocabularies (No. IV.) in- clude seventeen, whose scanty vocabularies could not be arranged in the same form. Of the ninety languages or dialects of which specimens are thus given, I think that nine (marked (t and y) are duplicates, or only varieties. The Synopsis was originally intended to embrace all the tribes north of the semi-civilized Mexican nations. The want of materials soon confined the inquiry, towards the south, to the territory of the United States. The loss of the vocabularies collected by Lewis and Clarke has not been supplied. With the exception of the Salish, and of a few words of the Shoshonee and of the Chinook, we have as yet no knowl- edge of the Indian languages west of the Stony Mountains, within the United States. The only existing tribe in the United States, east of the Mississippi, of which the language has not been ascertained, is that of the Aliba- mons and Coosadas, consisting of five or six hundred souls, seated on the waters of the river Alabama, and who make part of the Creek con-