Catalogue Of Linguistic Manuscripts In The Library Of The Bureau Of Ethnology. (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (Pages 553-578)) — Background and Themes

The Vocabulary as a Standardized Tool

The catalog repeatedly references two printed forms: Schoolcraft's 25-page quarto of 350 words and Gibbs's folio of 180 words. These were not mere lists but instruments designed to elicit comparable data across languages. The entries show that many manuscripts were returned "on Smithsonian form," indicating a centralized effort to standardize collection. The word counts vary—100, 150, 180, 200, 211, even 411—suggesting that collectors sometimes adapted the template. The presence of multiple versions for the same language (e.g., two Makah vocabularies, one with 200 words in quarto, another with 180 in folio) hints at iterative refinement or independent submissions.

Provenance and the Field Collector

Each entry ties a manuscript to a specific person and often a place or event. George Gibbs's entries dominate, with vocabularies collected from the Klamath River to Fraser's River, and notes on informants like "Iritaba, a chief, in New York, 1863." Other collectors include military officers (Gen. W. B. Hazen), missionaries (Rev. William Hamilton), and scientists (Grove Karl Gilbert). The catalog thus maps a network of contributors, many working under government auspices. The occasional remark—"Collected at the Gila River Reservation during 1871"—anchors the linguistic data in a specific historical moment.

Format as Evidence of Use

The physical description of each manuscript—number of leaves, folio or quarto size—is not mere bibliography. It suggests how the vocabularies were meant to be used: folio leaves for field notes, quarto for more polished copies. Some entries note interlinear translations or grammatical notes, as with Grossman's Pimo-English work "accompanied by a few grammatic notes and three stories with interlinear English translation." The catalog thus preserves not just word lists but the material traces of linguistic fieldwork in the 19th century.

Geographic and Linguistic Range

The catalog covers languages from the Arctic (Eskimo of Davis Strait) to the Southwest (Cocopa, Pimo) and the Pacific Coast (Makah, Klikatat). The entries for Gibbs alone span the Northwest, California, and the Colorado River. The list includes both well-known languages like Chippewa and obscure ones like Toanhootch. The range reflects the Bureau's ambition to document all Native languages of North America, but the uneven word counts and occasional single-manuscript entries also reveal gaps. The catalog is as much a record of what was collected as of what remained unknown.

Readers should approach this catalog not as a finished work but as a window into the process of 19th-century linguistic salvage. The entries reward attention to small details: the shift from 180 to 200 words, the reuse of forms, the names of informants. For researchers, it offers a starting point for tracing the provenance of specific vocabularies and understanding the institutional framework that shaped early American ethnolinguistics.

Reading this catalog of linguistic manuscripts, I remembered my grandfather’s shelf of neglected notebooks—his own quiet archive of forgotten names and dates. Flipping through such dry lists feels like touching a ghost. This same sensation washed over me once while browsing the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of" Volume 2, Slice 6 — Edition Insights, where old entries whisper of a world far more certain than ours.