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This small book features a collection of the first known vocabularies of the Mohawk language dating from the mid-17th century. It features a 1635 vocabulary of about 200 words from the anonymous Journey into the Mohawk and Oneida Country, ascribed to Harmen van den Bogaert. The volume also includes Wassenaer's numerals and month names of 1624, and 15 words and phrases from Megapolensis's list of 1644.

This volume reproduces a vocabulary recorded by an English merchant named Thomas Ridout who compiled a list of 400 Shawnee words in the late-18th century. Ridout was taken prisoner by the Shawnees and adopted by a chief named Kakinathucca. He subsequently learned to speak their language and recorded his vocabulary on scraps of tea paper. This vocabulary was first printed as an appendix to Ridout's letters in 1890, and is one of the earliest major vocabularies of the Shawnee language.

This edition collects a number of small but valuable examples of the Virginia Siouan languages. It includes two small vocabularies of about 50 words each by Edward Sapir and Leo Frachtenberg, both published in 1913. Also included are 7 translated Saponi place-names collected by William Byrd on the Virginia-North Carolina border in 1728, and 2 words of Moneton or Tomahitan obtained by Abraham Wood during an expedition into southern West Virginian 1674.