Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/378

 46 Jotimal of American Folk-Lore.

folk-medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans of particular interest and value. His " Comparison of Eskimo Pictographs with those of other American Aborigines " (No. 2), together with the much more elaborate and extended " Graphic Art of the Eskimo " (No. 22), are scientific studies of the highest importance, the last being a perfect mine of information about and reproduction of aboriginal graphic art. The author's studies of the folk-lore and shamanism of the Ojibwa (Nos. 6, 10, 13) naturally led to the publication of his com- prehensive and authoritative account of the " Grand Medicine So- ciety " of the Ojibwa (No. 18), perhaps his magnum opus, a work of great research and acumen. A valuable study of the mythology of the Menomonis (No. 14), another Algonkian tribe, was followed by the remarkably complete and connected account of these Indians appearing in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- nology, — the chief part is devoted to folk-lore and mythology. The "Beginnings of Writing," published in 1895, is an excellent study of the development of pictography and the graphic art, chiefly among the aborigines of America.

Besides the works noted above, Dr. Hoffman was also the author of several papers on aboriginal linguistics, archaeology, etc. He was an active or an honorary member of many learned societies in

America and in Europe.

Alex. F. Chamberlain.

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