Note 270 — I. VOCABULARIES OF SOME OF THE TRIBES OF NORTHWESTERN AMERICA, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE (continued 2)

In the original German edition, the first paragraph and its accompanying note (270) form the only introduction to Maximilian's account of the Indian sign language. As this account had already been Englished by an expert in this field, the late Colonel Garrick Mallery, I have adopted the latter's version, found in his "Sign Language of the Indians of the Upper Missouri in 1832," in American Antiquarian, ii (Chicago, 1879-80), pp. 218-228. Mallery's version was also incorporated in his "Collection of Gesture-Signs and Signals of the North American Indians with some Comparisons" (Washington: Bureau of Ethnology, 1880). A few of the descriptions are also referred to in his "Introduction to the Study of Sign Language among the North American Indians, as illustrating the Gesture Speech of Mankind," published in the same year by the Bureau of Ethnology. The opinion of Maximilian's work entertained by so eminent an authority as Colonel Mallery is of course interesting and valuable, and it has seemed proper to reprint here the pertinent part of his introduction to the American Antiquarian article. This introduction will also be found in substance in his "Gesture-Signs" and "Sign Language," cited above. Reference to the pages in the "Gesture-Signs" (G. S.) and in the "Sign Language" (S. L.), where each description is given, are here indicated in parentheses.—Trans.