Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/376

 44 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

��IN MEMORIAM: WALTER JAMES HOFFMAN.

By the death of Dr. W. J. Hoffman, which occurred at Reading, Pa., November 8, 1899, folk-lore in America lost an able and schol- arly investigator. He was born May 30, 1846, at Weidasville, Pa. Studying medicine with his father, the late Dr. W. F. Hoffman, of Reading, he followed in his footsteps as a physician. After graduat- ing (in 1866) from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession in Reading. At the out- break of the Franco-Prussian war he was commissioned surgeon in the Seventh Army Corps, and at the close was decorated by the Emperor for distinguished services. In 1871, upon his return to America, Dr. Hoffman was appointed acting assistant surgeon in the U. S. Army, and naturalist to the expedition for the exploration of Arizona, Nevada, etc. From August, 1872, till the spring of 1873, he was post surgeon at Grand River Agency (N. Dak.). After a short service with General Custer and Colonel Stanley he returned to Reading in November, 1873, and resumed the practice of medi- cine, which he kept up for four years. Late in 1877 he was given charge of the ethnological and mineralogical collections of the U. S. Geological Survey; and in 1879, when the Bureau of Eth- nology was created, he was made assistant ethnologist, which posi- tion he held for many years, a goodly portion of his time being devoted to field-work among the Mandans, Hidatsa, and Ankara, in 1 88 1 ; the tribes of California and Nevada, 1882; the Algonkian Indians of Michigan, 1883 ; the Indian tribes of Vancouver Island, Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada, 1884; the Ojibwa of Minnesota, 1887- 1890 ; the Menomoni of Wisconsin and Ojibwa of Minnesota, 1 890-1 891. Dr. Hoffman's special studies were largely concerned with sign language, pictography, secret societies, primitive ritual and primitive art, in all of which subjects he contributed notable papers to governmental and other scientific publications. Since his retirement (1895) from the Bureau of Ethnology Dr. Hoff- man served as United States consul at Mannheim, Germany, which position he held at his death. The cause of death is stated to be lung disease.

A list of Dr. Hoffman's principal publications having to do with folk-lore subjects, with appreciations of some of them, follows: —

1. Notes on the Migrations of the Dakotas. Proc. Amcr. Philol.

Assoc, 1877, pp. 15-17.

2. Comparison of Eskimo Pictographs with those of other Amer-

ican Aborigines. Trans. AntJirop. Soc. of Washington, vol. ii. (1883) pp. 128-146.

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