Note 56 — Front matter

It is difficult to determine exactly the work here referred to. Without doubt in this instance, as in those which follow, Foster had access to Rev. S. R. Riggs’s Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language, published by the Smithsonian Institution as one of the Contributions to Knowledge, in 1852. Dr. Riggs was a close student of Siouan linguistics and published much material on the subject, his Dakota-English Dictionary being exhaustively edited with great care by J. O. Dorsey and published in final form in 1892 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. A comprehensive list of the published and manuscript material by Riggs, who was ably assisted by his wife, will be found in Pillings’s Siouan Bibliography, page 60 et seq., and in the S. D. Hist. Coll., Vol. II. At various intervals through the original work, Foster acknowledges his indebtedness to the first volume of the Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll. In this there is an excellent article by Riggs entitled The Dakota Language, from which considerable assistance was no doubt obtained.