Popular Science Monthly/Volume 41/July 1892/Anthropological Work in America

1216640Popular Science Monthly Volume 41 July 1892 — Anthropological Work in America1892Frederick Starr

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.


JULY, 1892.


ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

By Prof. FREDERICK STARR.

THE object of this article is not to present a history of anthropology in America, but to sketch briefly some of the work at present done, so as to show the aims and methods of our workers in the science.

That anthropology is yearly attracting greater attention among us is shown by the way in which institutions of learning are recognizing its importance. Not many years ago a scientific journal made the statement that but one institution of learning in the United States, the University of Rochester, had the science upon its curriculum. The way in which it was introduced there is somewhat interesting. At that time the scientific work offered to students at Rochester was admittedly insufficient in quantity, but the way seemed hardly clear to the employment of any additional teaching force to do extra work. At this stage of affairs Prof. Joseph Gilmore, in charge of the Department of Rhetoric and English Literature, offered, in some degree at least, to meet the need, to announce an optional course in anthropology. The work was very elementary, extending over but a single term, and covering the field considered in De Quatrefages's little volume, The Natural History of Man. From the beginning the course was a favorite one, and many students elected it, The effect was good and the example has been followed. Since that time instruction in anthropology has entered into the work of a considerable number of American colleges and universities. It is suggestive to inquire how and why it has been introduced. At Yale, Prof. Sumner has for several years given such courses, because he felt that students unacquainted with the science could not profitably undertake his work in political science and economics. At Union College, Prof. Hoffman has found it necessary to give lectures on anthropology, as preliminary to the best work in psychology. At the University of Mississippi we believe it has been introduced as fundamental to historical study. In one way or another the subject has been crowding itself into the curricula, until now, in addition to the institutions already mentioned, Brown, Harvard, Clark, Vermont, and the University of Pennsylvania offer facilities for such study. At the new University of Chicago anthropology Prof. W. G. Sumner. is to be recognized, and several courses, covering a wide field, will probably be offered. The work at two or three of the universities deserves special notice. At Yale, Prof. W. G. Sumner gives two courses of instruction in alternate years one for undergraduates, the other for graduate students. The elementary course is based upon Tylor's Anthropology and Joly's Man before Metals, both of which are carefully read by the students, and form the basis of class-work. Lectures, discussions, and preparation of original papers upon selected topics make a suggestive and excellent course. Supplementary reading of important French and German writers is arranged for such students as desire to do the best work. In the second course similar methods are pursued, and the required reading consists of Topinard's Anthropology and Letourneau's Sociology. These two courses are deservedly popular with the students. The instruction work in anthropology at Harvard is an outgrowth of the Peabody Museum of American Ethnology. Of the museum itself we shall speak later. The work of Harvard University is divided into twelve departments, of which the most recently established is the Department of American Archæology and Ethnology. This department is equal in rank to any in the university, being on the same footing as the Department of Ancient Languages, or the Department of Mathematics. Graduate work leading to a Ph. D. degree is offered. We quote the following announcement from the latest catalogue:

"A course of special training in archæology and ethnology, requiring three years for its completion, will be given by Prof. Putnam. It will be carried on by work in the laboratory and museum, lectures, field-work, and exploration, and in the third year by some special research. The ability to use French and Spanish will be necessary. For this course a knowledge of elementary chemistry, geology, botany, zoölogy, drawing, and surveying is required, and courses in ancient history, ancient arts, and classical archæology are recommended as useful." Students are now pursuing such study at Harvard under Prof. Putnam's direction. Since the establishment of this department a fellowship at Harvard University has been founded by Mrs. Mary C. Thaw, of Pittsburgh. Founded largely from personal admiration of Miss Alice C. Fletcher, and appreciation of her work, the fellowship is to be held by this lady during her life. In the event of Miss Prof. F. W. Putnam. Fletcher's death, "the income from the fund of thirty thousand dollars is to be paid as a salary to such person as shall be appointed by the trustees of the museum to carry on the same line of work and research relating to the Indian race of America, or other ethnological and archæological investigations." At the University of Pennsylvania a special chair of American Archaeology and Linguistics is held by Dr. D. G. Brinton, than whom no man in America is better qualified to offer courses in Indian languages. The broadest anthropological work at present offered in an American institution is that conducted by Dr. Franz Boas at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Dr. Boas received his training in anthropological study in Germany. Although partial to work in the direction of comparative mythology and linguistics, he is thoroughly trained in the methods of ethnography and physical anthropology. A great traveler and an excellent field-student, he has done admirable work among the Eskimos and the tribes of the northwest coast of America. For several years he has directed an exploration among these people, supported by a fund supplied by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and his animal reports, published by that body, have been veritable storehouses of new and valuable information. Dr. Boas has lately prepared an important work upon the Mythology of Albert S. Gatschet. North America, which will soon appear from the press. Dr. Boas is in charge of the Physical Anthropology Section of the Department of Ethnology and Archæology of the World's Columbian Exposition of Chicago. In connection with this work he plans to gather such a mass of anthropometric data concerning the red man as has never before been brought together. Within the next few months he hopes to have fully twenty thousand Indians of different tribes carefully measured. Important facts may be discovered from a careful study of the material thus secured. Dr. Boas at present lectures to a class of students upon statistics in anthropology and other sciences; how to secure, tabulate, and use them. Special graduate students are put at work in his laboratory, which is fairly equipped, upon some line of original research and study, the results of which may be published as contributions to science.

Museums in ethnography and anthropology are not yet numerous in America. Collections of considerable size and worthy of special notice exist at Cambridge, Salem, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Davenport. Of very great importance is the Peabody Museum of American Ethnology at Cambridge, connected with Harvard University, and under direction of Prof. Frederick W. Putnam. At first a zoölogist, especially interested in fishes. Prof. Putnam has long since laid aside everything except archæology. The present work and importance of the museum are mainly due to him. Nine large rooms are filled with valuable collections, a great part of which have been gathered under his personal supervision. No man has done so much to bring about the careful and systematic method of excavation of mounds now followed as he. To refer to all the objects of special interest in this museum would take us far beyond our limits. Among the collections are magnificent series from the mounds of Ohio and the stone graves of Tennessee; complete altars of baked clay from Ohio "altar mounds"; Kentucky cavern finds; interesting series from the caverns of southern California, comprising perishable objects seldom preserved, such as a feather head-dress, basketry, wooden objects, and a wonderful lot of bone whistles found in a single basket; Flint's interesting gatherings from Nicaragua; collections from the old cities of Yucatan; the Agassiz collection from ancient Peruvian graves; the rich yield from the Madisonville cemetery: Wyman's collection from the fresh-water shell-heaps of the St. John's River, Fla.; and the famous Abbott collection from New Jersey, the basis of Dr. Abbott's paper, The Stone Age in New Jersey. Two other series deserve especial mention—the one of specimens from Honduras, some of the pottery in which is exceedingly interesting as showing a field for exploration scarcely known to our archæologists. Prof. Putnam has made arrangements with the Government of Honduras whereby the museum has the exclusive right of archæological exploration in that country for a term of ten years. Dr. D. G. Brinton. Mr. Saville, the museum assistant, is now in that field. Very important is the great collection of American "palæoliths." Here are Dr. Abbott's argillite implements from the Trenton gravels, and the skulls from the same locality; Miss Babbitt's quartzite flakes and rude implements from the Minnesota drift deposits; and the Ohio, Indiana, and Delaware specimens from post-glacial or glacial deposits. Nowhere else is there any such an exhibit of these rude, early types, which have caused so much bitter discussion. We have spoken only of American collections, but there are also in this museum series illustrative of European archæology, fine specimens from the South Seas, and a Semitic museum, which deserve more than a passing reference. The museum has published annual reports for twenty-four years; some of them have contained papers of much value. At present octavo monographs by such writers as Mrs. Zelia Nuttall and Mr. A. S. Gatschet are also published by the museum. One important and original accomplishment of the museum remains to be mentioned. In Adams County, Ohio, on a high bluff at some distance from the nearest railroad town, is the Great Serpent Mound, in some respects the most remarkable monument of antiquity in America. It was in danger of destruction, Dr. C. C. Abbott. when Prof. Putnam made an appeal for funds for its purchase and preservation. Ladies of Boston responded to the appeal, the money needed was raised, and paid over to the museum, which made the purchase. The place has been pleasantly laid out as Serpent Mound Park, and the old monument itself has been carefully surveyed, restored, and put into a condition to withstand the destroying action of time and the elements. Prof. Putnam is Director of the Department of Ethnology of the Columbian Exposition, and in connection with its work has kept parties in the field excavating mounds and gathering material. His plan of display is a vast one, and a most instructive and interesting object lesson in American anthropology (ethnography, physical anthropology, archæology) is sure to be prepared.

New York is not so much a center of anthropological work as it should be. At the American Museum of Natural History there is much good material. Here one may see what is left in America of the Squier and Davis collection from the Ohio mounds, containing many specimens figured in the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley; the Squier collection from Peru, comprising a wonderfully fine lot of greenstone carvings; the collection of Colonel C. C. Jones, made chiefly in Georgia, numbering five thousand specimens, and the basis of his book, The Antiquities of the Southern Indians; a remarkable collection in European archæology, including series from the river gravels and caves of France, from the lake dwellings of Switzerland, and from the famous localities of Denmark; the Emmons collection from Alaska, which is perhaps the best collection from the Tlingits; the Sturgis collection from the South Seas, recently purchased by the museum, and far larger than any other in America, and surpassed by few in Europe. Besides these collections belonging to the museum, and on display, there are in the building two remarkable and extensive series belonging to private collectors—men of wealth—Mr. James Terry and Mr. Andrew E. Douglass. The Terry collection is mainly the personal gathering of the owner, and is particularly rich in Pacific coast specimens. The Douglass collection is made up of exceedingly choice stone implements from every part of the United States, and it is unsurpassed in the number of rare and beautiful objects—banner-stones, bird and bar amulets, hematites, and grooved axes. These two collections will no doubt ultimately become the property of the museum. Notwithstanding its treasures in material collections, the museum has never published one line of contribution to anthropological science, nor has it undertaken, apart from a few Prof. Edward S. Morse. lectures to its membership any educational work in the subject.

In Philadelphia a vast amount of work has been done by a few individual workers, with no pecuniary return, and with but very little financial backing. What is there has been brought about by truly heroic work from love of the cause. The work is mainly done at the Philadelphia Academy of Science or at the University of Pennsylvania. At the academy is the Morton collection of crania, gathered by our earliest great anthropologist, and at that time one of the largest in the world; here, too, are the collections in archæology gathered by Poinsett, Vaux, and Haldeman. For several seasons, including the present one, Dr. D. G. Brinton has presented at the academy courses of lectures upon some ethnological subject. The most active work in Philadelphia at present, however, is at the university. In reference to it, Mr. Culin, who is one of its heartiest supporters, writes us:

"The chief center is the new Department of Archæology and Palæontology of the University of Pennsylvania, which is maintained by an independent organization—the University Archæological Association. This department covers a broad field. It has had an expedition for two years in Babylonia; it contributes annually to the Egyptian Exploration Fund.; and has carried on explorations in various parts of the United States. In two years it has established a museum in four sections—American, Babylonian, Major J. W. Powell Egyptian, and Oriental—with remarkably full collections in each. It has just opened a loan exhibition of objects used in worship, intended as the first of a series of such special exhibitions of an educational character in which the resources of the museum and of private collections will be made accessible and displayed."

An unusual number of active societies exist in Philadelphia, which more or less directly assist anthropological science. Such are the American Philosophical Society, Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, and the Oriental Club. In all of these, so far as anthropological work is concerned, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton is a moving spirit. Dr. Brinton scarcely needs an introduction to American readers; no one has done more to make anthropology known to the people and to raise up other workers. His writings upon American religions are delightful reading. For several years he has edited a most important work, the Library of American Aboriginal Literature; of this some eight volumes have appeared. Each volume is devoted to some one literary production of the American race. The original text is printed in full; and a translation, critical notes, and a vocabulary make the subject available to the student. Dr. Brinton has lately issued two little volumes—Races and Peoples and The American Race—of popular but scholarly character. The other workers in Philadelphia who are best known are the curators of the departments of the University Museum, Dr. C. C. Abbott, Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, and Mr. Stewart Culin. Dr. Jastrow is one of the best Semitic scholars in America. Mrs. Stevenson is perhaps our only lady Egyptologist. She may justly be compared in that held to Miss Edwards, of England. Her lectures on Egyptian subjects have made a sensation.

To the work of Dr. C. C. Abbott we briefly referred in connection with the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. Dr. Abbott lived for many years at Trenton, gathering a great collection of archaeological specimens from the State of New Jersey. The series, now at Cambridge, numbered many thousands of Garrick Mallery. specimens, and was the basis for The Stone Age in New Jersey and for the later book Primitive Industry. In 1875 Dr. Abbott found the first argillite palæolithic implements in the Trenton gravel. This gravel is said by geologists to date back to the close of the Glacial Period, and any evidence of human workmanship in undisturbed gravels of that kind carries the existence of man in the Eastern United States back to a considerable antiquity. A lively warfare has been waged against these "finds." It has been questioned whether the objects were of human workmanship, and whether they were really of the same age as the gravels. But similar implements have been found in similar deposits in other States within the glaciated area, and each new discovery tends to establish those which preceded it. Since his connection with the University Museum, Dr. Abbott has continued field-work in the Delaware Valley, and has lately made many interesting discoveries, such as workshops where argillite implements (non-palæolithic, but ancient) were made and quarries where the Indians gathered their materials for arrow-heads and spear-heads. Dr. Abbott aims to exhaust the archaeology of the Delaware Valley before he ends his work. Such thorough study of limited areas is what we most need in American archaeology. After such work has been done for each section of the United States, then, and then only, can our students reach sure conclusions.

The loan exhibition of religious objects above mentioned is mainly due to the energy and efforts of Mr. Stewart Culin, who finds his most interesting work in the neglected fields of popular superstitions and games, and who is an earnest student of comparative religion. The exhibition was formally opened on March Kith, when crowds of visitors were present. The collection is the first of its kind publicly shown in America. It is on the general plan of the Musée Guimet in Paris, and, although not to be compared with that in size, it presents some valuable features that are lacking there. Some eight hundred objects illustrated Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, the fetich-worship of South Africa, the Shamanism of North America, the idolatry of Polynesia, and the old religions of Egypt. There has been much hard work given to this display, and great credit is due those who have been interested in its preparation.

While we speak of work done by noble individual effort and sacrifice, and without the assistance of Government or of wealthy organizations, we must describe what is done at Salem and at Davenport. No museum in America has exerted a greater influence Frank Hamilton Cushing. than that in Salem, Massachusetts. A large proportion of the most active scientific men in our country, directly or indirectly, owe much of their first impulse and enthusiasm to some department of its work. In 1799 the Salem East India Marine Society was organized, with a membership confined to persons who had actually navigated the seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn as masters or supercargoes of vessels belonging to Salem. Those were the palmy days of commercial supremacy and the seas were dotted with vessels from the old town. The third of the objects stated as reasons for organizing the society was "to form a museum of natural and artificial curiosities, particularly such as are to be found beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn." The museum began November, 1799, with a gift of objects from Sumatra by Captain Jonathan Carnes. In course of time much choice material in ethnography was brought here—particularly from the South Sea Islands, China, India, Africa, and South America. Meantime, the Essex Institute was gathering collections in other lines and from the neighboring district. In 1867 the collections of the two organizations were combined in the old East India Marine Society Hall, becoming the property of the new organization—the Peabody Academy of Science. The academy Prof. O. T. Mason. has gone on quietly but constantly, with little blowing of trumpets, and good work has been done. Lately an additional exhibition hall has been built, and in it are displayed the ethnographical collections. No one in America who is engaged in studying the ethnography of the South Sea Islands can afford to neglect this series. Prof. Edward S. Morse, whose chief contributions to ethnography are his paper on Methods of Arrow Release and his book on Japanese Homes, is the director of the academy, and Mr. John Robinson is in charge of the museum. Some day the story of the Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Science will be an interesting chapter in the history of science in the United States. It has never had a large donation in money, and much of its work has been done by poor men. It has had a constant struggle to survive. It is certainly fit to live, for there, with no trained anthropologist or professional ethnographer to direct or develop a definite plan of work, has grown up an excellent collection in archæology. Probably nowhere except in Salisbury, England, is there so large a series of "curved-base pipes" of stone from the mounds; nowhere else is there so interesting a series of copper axes wrapped in cloth; nowhere, except at Washington, so fine a series of pottery from the Arkansas mounds, nor many much better collections of mound crania. Nor has the academy been silent. Notwithstanding its money poverty it has published valuable Transactions, by the exchange of which it has gathered a creditable library.

Washington has become a great scientific center, and of the whole circle of sciences none is more cultivated there than anthropology. Under Major Powell—a remarkable organizer and an indefatigable worker—has been organized the Bureau of Ethnology, with its band of workers each in some special line. Work is actively conducted both in the field and office, and the results are published as papers in the annual reports, as bulletins, or as monographs. Major Powell himself is our best authority on the Utes. For years he has been mainly interested in linguistics, and his Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages has led to the gathering of many vocabularies. The mass of linguistic material in the possession of the bureau is almost incredible. In his last annual report Major Powell presents a paper upon the Linguistic Families North of Mexico. This paper Hon. Thomas Wilson. is accompanied by a map showing the conclusions he reaches. The best-known linguist in the employ of the Bureau of Ethnology is Mr. Albert S. Gatschet, whose studies are most thorough and critical. Mr. Gatschet is by birth a Swiss, and has devoted his time since 1875 to the study of anthropology and the American races and languages. Of his more important works, the earliest is the Migration Legend of the Creeks, in two octavo volumes; the original Creek text, translation, vocabulary, and critical notes upon the language and ethnology of this important tribe compose the work. Very recently the Government has published his great work upon The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon, in two quarto parts. Mr. H. W. Henshaw, the general assistant in the bureau, has also collected much linguistic material, especially in California. One of the most complete studies, the results of which the bureau is printing, is that of Rev. J. Owen Dorsey among the Omahas. Mr. Dorsey has already published extensively upon the language and the sociology of this people, but he has still much material. Mr. James Mooney has made a special study during three field seasons of the Cherokees of the North Carolina Mountains, and his report upon their ceremonials has just appeared. One of the brightest workers of the bureau is Mrs. Stevenson, whose husband was one of the most indefatigable collectors in the Pueblo regions. Mrs. Stevenson's Religious Life of the Zuñi Child is a very good bit of work. Two of the bureau force have been particularly interested in pictography—Colonel Garrick Mallery and Dr. W. J. Hoffman. The former was fortunately sent to the seat of the Dakota war in 1870. He there found a rude and interesting native picture record, which he published in 1877 under the title A Calendar of the Dakota Nation. At its founding, during that same year, he was invited to a position in the Bureau of Ethnology. He has continued his study of picture-writing and has investigated gesture language, and by publication and encouraging research has added much to the knowledge of both subjects. Through his Israelite and Indian (Vice-Presidential Address before the American Association) and other articles published in these pages, Colonel Mallery is already known to the readers of this journal. With Colonel Mallery, Dr. Dr. J. Walter Fewkes. Hoffman has been much interested in picture-writing, but he has also written upon a wide range of subjects in ethnology, archæology, and folk lore. His most important contribution is The Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwas. W. H. Holmes is an artist, and his papers upon art in pottery and textile fabrics are among the most delightful in American archæology. Mr. Frank Cushing, as a village boy in western New York, was a hunter of Indian relics on the old village sites of the Iroquois; invited to the Smithsonian Institution, he was sent to New Mexico to study Pueblo life. The story of his life at Zuñi, his adoption, his initiation into mysteries, his conduct of an "aboriginal pilgrimage" to the Ocean of Sunrise, has been told and retold in magazine articles. At the establishment of the Hemenway Southwestern Archæological Exploration, in January, 1887, Mr. Cushing was placed in charge of its work and conducted it for two years, first in the Salado and Gila Valleys in Arizona, and later at Zuñi and its neighborhood. Two years of such work brought on a serious illness, from which Mr. Cushing is only now recovering. Some results of his work were published in the report of the meeting of the International Congress of Americanists for 1888. From these years of experience Mr. dishing has gained a stock of information, little of which has yet been published. At present he is again officially connected with the Bureau of Ethnology. We have only suggested the Adolf F. Bandelier. work of this bureau, and have not even mentioned some workers who have done good work.

The collections made by Government workers go to three museums—the material in physical anthropology to the Army Medical Museum, that in ethnography to the United States National Museum, and that in prehistoric archaeology to the Smithsonian Institution. The Army Medical Museum is a great collection, beautifully arranged. There is much material here to interest the anthropologist—many fine anatomical specimens; a wonderful series to illustrate the effects of gunshot wounds and their healing; a goodly number of monstrosities; most important of all are the skeletons and crania of North American tribes more—than two thousand of the latter.

Prof. Otis T. Mason is in charge of the ethnological treasures at the United States National Museum. He is a most systematic worker, and his card catalogue of references to literature of ethnography is well worthy of study. His annual summaries of anthropological progress are exceedingly valuable. More than any other American ethnographer he has carefully studied casing, display, and labeling. Where, as in the Eskimo series, the material from any given region or tribe is large in amount and varied in character, the arrangement is geographical. In general, however, the idea in the arrangement is to show culture history. This idea, so admirably carried out in Oxford, is scarcely found elsewhere in American museums. Some of the series are excellent; the development of the knife, the history of musical instruments, the history of fire-producing instruments are good. Some cases tell the story of a whole technique; thus the case of Guadalajara (Mexico) pottery shows by specimens and by small figures of potters at work every step in the manufacture. A point that Prof. Mason particularly wishes to emphasize is the way in which primitive man works. Thus he is not content with securing the various fire-making machines, but he must have Mr. Hough demonstrate their use by actually making fire with them. So he has encouraged Mr. Maguire to illustrate how stone tools were made by making them. One is astounded by the vast collections in this museum—there is a bewildering wealth of material. All that is received is divided into three series—the smallest is displayed in cases; the second, much larger and wonderfully rich, is placed in drawers for students to use; the third is stored away for purposes of exchange. The museum publishes its own Transactions, in which many valuable monographs appear.

The Curator of Prehistoric Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution is the Hon. Thomas Wilson, who at one time represented our Government in Europe. While there he had unusual opportunities for field-work in the famous localities, for study of museums, and for acquaintance with the workers. He has charge of a vast mass of material. Here are surface-found specimens from every State in the Union; the beautiful objects from the Mrs. Zelia Nuttall. mounds which supplied the illustrations for Holmes's Art in Shell; the famous copper plates from the Etowah mounds; the Perkins collection of copper implements from Wisconsin; the Latimer collection of stone implements from Porto Rico; good series from Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America. Here, too, are the results of Dr. Cyrus Thomas's mound explorations and Warren K. Moorehead's deposit. A large space is devoted to Mr. Mindeleff's wonderfully natural and interesting miniature reproductions of the pueblos of New Mexico. There is, in fact, such a wealth of material that one is confused by its very abundance. Mr. Wilson has done a very wise and instructive thing in arranging "synoptical cases." These are table-cases, placed in two groups, one on each side of the entrance-door. In one is given, by a few carefully selected, carefully labeled, and illustratedly explained specimens, a synopsis of the prehistoric archæology of Europe, the arrangement following De Mortillet's classification. In the second group of cases a similar synoptical arrangement illustrates American archæology. As to the general collection, it is arranged strictly on a geographical basis, specimens from one State being together. Under this grouping a sub-classification according to form or type is carried out. One important work undertaken by Mr. Wilson deserves mention. From specimens in the museum a series of about one hundred has Miss Alice Fletcher. been selected, from which copies in plaster have been carefully made. One hundred such sets of casts have been prepared, and printed labels accompany them. These sets of casts are to be distributed to various institutions of learning in the United States, and considerable public interest in archaeology should be the result.

To complete our sketch we must refer to some individual explorations or work, and to anthropological periodicals. The Hemenway Archæological Exploration has been mentioned. This important work is supported by Mrs. Hemenway, of Boston. At present Dr. J. Walter Fewkes is the director of the work, which is centered upon the living tribes in the Moki pueblos. Dr. Fewkes is admirably qualified for the task, as he has had a thorough training in scientific methods of study. His field-work is excellent, and his own taste leads him to investigate the exceedingly interesting but difficult subject of the significance of the religious-dance ceremonials. Dr. Fewkes is perhaps the first scientist who has used the phonograph in taking down the religious music of a barbarous tribe. He has gathered considerable Zuñi music in this way, which Mr. Benjamin Ives Gilman has studied carefully. The results of this study as well as those of Dr. Fewkes's own work are published in the Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology, the official organ of the exploration. Work in the Southwest presents many attractions, and a recently organized expedition under, Mr. Warren K. Moorehead, is now in the field. This expedition is, we believe, the child of a New York journal—the Illustrated American. Its object is a thorough study of the cliff-buildings of the Colorado district. Mr. Moorehead is one of the most enthusiastic of our young archaeologists, and has already done admirable work in Ohio mound exploration. He was for some time with Mr. Wilson at the Smithsonian Institution, and has recently been making some remarkably successful excavations for the World's Fair. The Colorado expedition started February 29th, and is to be in progress for some months.

Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, by parentage a Frenchman, is one of our most scholarly and critical students in that most difficult field—Spanish America. He has been markedly successful both in field-work and in study of the old Spanish records. Following the line of criticism so ably used by the late Lewis H. Morgan, Mr. Bandelier has destroyed much of the romance of Aztec and Peruvian history; but from the ruins he has reconstructed pictures of these most interesting societies that are lifelike, and Rev. S. D. Peet. far more in accordance with the genius of the American race than the old ones. His papers—at first published in the annual reports of the Peabody Museum, but latterly in the publications of the American Archæological Institute—are models of scholarship. Mr. Bandelier is now planning an important exploration into Peru-Ecuador. It is to be hoped that he may have no difficulty in finding the financial support that he needs.

Two ladies are doing remarkable work in American anthropology. Mrs. Zelia Nuttall works in the same field as Mr. Bandelier. Although an American, Mrs. Nuttall lives at Dresden, Germany. She surrounds herself with an Aztec atmosphere; her library, one of the richest in Mexican works in existence, is cased in pieces of furniture whose forms and decorations are drawn from Mexican architecture. On all relating to Mexican archæology and history she is an authority. Two of the Peabody Museum monographs are by her one upon a curious feather head-dress, the other upon the Mexican throwing-stick, or atlatl. Recently Mrs. Nuttall had the pleasure of discovering at the old castle of Ambras (Germany) a fine shield of ancient Mexican feather-work. In the last number of the Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie she publishes an exhaustive and handsomely illustrated article upon the subject of feather Sir Daniel Wilson. shields from Mexico. In a recent visit to Florence. Italy, Mrs. Nuttall discovered in the library an Aztec manuscript with pictures. It turned out to be a treatise upon dress and ornament, and contains a text in Spanish letters. This, reprinted in fac-simile, with critical notes and an English translation, Mrs. Nuttall will present at the next congress of Americanists in October. Miss Alice C. Fletcher, although a fellow of Harvard University, assistant of the Peabody Museum, and employed in the Indian Bureau, is really a free lance in American ethnology. She is more—she is a firm friend of the Indian, and has shown herself so in many, many ways. As special Indian agent she has personally located five thousand Indians upon their own lands under the "Land in Severalty Bill." Her studies in sociology and religious beliefs among the Ponkas, Winnebagoes, etc., have been scientifically carried on. She is about to publish a work upon Ponka music, that has occupied much time and hard labor during several years back. All who know Miss Fletcher or who are acquainted with her work expect this work to be a most valuable contribution to knowledge.

Three periodicals in America busy themselves with anthropology—the American Antiquarian, the American Anthropologist, and the Journal of American Folk-lore. The Journal of American Folk-lore is the organ of the American Folk-lore Society, and is under the editorship of Mr. W. W. Newell. The American Anthropologist has grown out of the Anthropological Society of Washington; it is coming to be more and more a representative journal of our national work in the field of anthropology. The American Antiquarian deserves a longer notice, because it is the pioneer journal. Mainly occupied with American archæology, it has always been open to papers in other departments. From the beginning it has been under the editorship of the Rev. Stephen D. Peet, who has worked hard to put it where it now is, and who deserves hearty support in an undertaking which has never been a money success. Mr. Peet has himself been a field-worker and an original thinker. His field of labor is one that was for years left almost untouched, although none is more interesting—the effigy mounds of Wisconsin. Years ago Dr. Lapham prepared a work on the subject, which was very creditable for that time. Mr. Peet has gone over the same ground, and has resurveyed the groups. But he has done much more: he has surveyed many new groups, has made a careful study of the animal forms represented and of their attitudes, and has tried to work out their significance. The theories he suggests are certainly entitled to consideration, and his study deserves recognition and higher praise than it has yet received.

Nor are our Canadian neighbors neglecting anthropology. Sir Daniel Wilson's works, Prehistoric Man and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, were training-books for the present generation of scholars. Very recently he has added an interesting contribution to a curious field in his little book Left-handedness.

Another veteran worker whom we love to recognize is Horatio Hale, who, half a century ago, went around the world as the ethnologist of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition. Of him Dr. Brinton, in the dedication of his recent little book on Races and Peoples, justly says, "His many and valuable contributions to linguistics and ethnography place him to-day among the foremost authorities on these sciences." Both, in advanced years, preserve the zeal for scientific progress, which shows itself in the planning and directing of anthropological investigations, in the founding of collections such as those of Toronto University and the Canadian Institute, and in the development of such students as David Boyle and Mr. Chamberlain. This archaeological collection of the Canadian Institute at Toronto is a surprisingly rich and interesting one, and the annual reports regarding it are becoming valued contributions to archaeological literature. In one of the more recent of these reports Mr. Chamberlain presents a valuable bibliography of Canadian work in anthropology—a long list of valuable papers. We only regret that we have not the space to refer to some of them and to their authors in detail.

Such, briefly sketched, is some of the work Americans are doing in the great field of anthropological science.