Published as an appendix to the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, Sessional Paper No. 21
During the early exploration and settlement of North America, multitudes of Indian tribes were encountered, having diverse customs and languages. Lack of knowledge of the aborigines and of their languages led to many curious errors on the part of the early explorers and settlers: names were applied to the Indians that had no relation whatever to their aboriginal names; sometimes nicknames were bestowed, owning perhaps to personal characteristics, fancied or real… Consequently, in the literature relating to the American Indians, thousands of such names are recorded the significance and application of which are to be understood only after much study.
This handbook is an outgrowth of the need for a comprehensive work on the subject of Canadian Indians. Only tribes residing wholly, or in part, in Canada are treated in this publication. Its aim is to give a brief description of every linguistic stock, confederacy, tribe, sub tribe or tribal division, and settlement known to history or even to tradition, as well as the origin and derivation of every name treated whenever such is known, and to records under each every form of the name and every other appellation that could be learned. These synonyms, in alphabetic order, are assembled as cross-references in Appendix III.
Under the tribal description one finds a brief account of the ethnic relations of the tribe, its history, its location at various periods, statistics of population, etc., are included. Accompanying each synonym (the earliest known date always being given) a reference to the authority is noted, and these references form practically a bibliography of the tribe for those who desire to pursue the subject further.
