In the present work, Mr. Gatschet has carried out a much needed
investigation. The tribes who inhabited the watershed of the north
shore of the Mexican Gulf must always occupy a prominent place in the
study of American Ethnology, as possibly connecting the races of North
and South America, and those of the Valley of the Mississippi with
those of Anahuac and Mayapan.
Years ago the general editor of this series stated, in various
publications, the problems that region offers, and on finding the
remarkable legend of Chekilli, translated it and published it, as
pointing to a solution of some of the questions involved. This legend
has, at his request, been taken by Mr. Gatschet as a centre around
which to group the ethnography of that whole territory, as well as a
careful analysis of the legend and its language.
The first volume contains the general discussion of the subject, and
closes with the Creek version of the Legend and its translation. The
second will contain the Hitchiti Version, the Notes, and Vocabulary.
One statement of the author, overlooked in the proof reading, seems of
sufficient importance to be corrected here. The _Choctaw Grammar_ of
the late Rev. Cyrus Byington was published _complete_, and from his
_last revision_ (1866-68), not as an extract from his first draft, as
stated on page 117. The full particulars are given in the Introduction
to the Grammar.