SYSTEMATIC RESEARCHES
M. W. Stirling, chief, left Washington during the latter part of January to continue his archeological researches in Florida. On the way south he took the opportunity to investigate a number of archeological sites in several of the Southern States, notably a group of mounds which had been reported in the vicinity of High Point, N. C. and two mound sites on Pine Island in the Tennessee River in northern Alabama.
A few days were spent in the vicinity of Montgomery, Ala., examining the early historic sites being investigated there by the Alabama Anthropological Society. A large mound had been reported in the vicinity of Flomaton, Ala.; this was visited and found to be a natural formation.
Continuing down the west coast of Florida, Mr. Stirling visited briefly the archeological sites at Crystal River, Safety Harbor, and Alligator Creek. The principal work for the season was commenced on February 5 on Blue Hill Island south of Key Marco, one of the northernmost of the Ten Thousand Island Group. A large sand burial mound was excavated and found to be of early post-Columbian Calusa origin. Excavation of the mound disclosed a number of interesting structural features quite unusual in Florida sand mounds. Six feet above the base of the mound a clay floor was encountered which gave evidence of having been the base of a temple structure, as it was surrounded by postholes and in some instances by the decayed remains of the wooden uprights still in place. This structure had evidently been destroyed and the mound subsequently enlarged by adding 6 feet more of sand above the original substructure. Numerous burials were encountered both above and below the clay floor. A few articles of European manufacture were recovered from the upper level of the mound. As none were recovered from beneath the temple floor, it is possible that the older section of the mound is of pre-Columbian age. Cultural material recovered was interesting though not abundant. This included characteristic pottery specimens, pendants and ornaments made from fossil shark teeth, shell dishes, cups, celts, and a few stone knives and arrowheads. Articles of European manufacture consisted of glass beads and iron axes of Spanish type. More than 250 burials were removed.
Following the completion of this work, Mr. Stirling went to the island of Haiti, where, in the company of H. W. Krieger, of the United States National Museum, he investigated archeological sites previously worked by Mr. Krieger in various parts of the island. Returning from Haiti to Florida, work was continued in the eastern part of the State, where a number of mounds were investigated between Miami and Cape Canaveral.
The most interesting discovery of the entire season consisted in locating two series of large geometric earthworks on the eastern side of the Everglades, not far from Indian town. One of these groups is one of the largest and best preserved works of this type now existing on the North American continent. It is hoped that at an early date the bureau will be able to begin excavations on this most interesting site. At the completion of this reconnaissance, Mr. Stirling returned to Washington, leaving almost immediately for Chicago in order to attend a meeting of the National Research Council, the purpose of which was to organize research on the subject of early man in America.
Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist, was engaged in field work in Louisiana from July 1 to August 14, 1930. It was found that Rosa Pierrette, the sole Indian acquainted with the Ofo language and the one from whom, in 1908, he obtained the only specimens of that language in existence, was dead, and the language therefore is dead also. A search was made for speakers of Atakapa, but all appeared to be gone except one old woman who could barely recall a few words. The Chitimacha Indians of Charenton were visited and a small amount of linguistic material was obtained from them. Of the Tunica at Marksville, only two or three are still able to use the old tongue, but one of these proved to be an ideal informant and Doctor Swanton obtained from him a number of short stories and one long story in native text. The rest of the time was spent at Kinder, where a considerable body of material in Koasati was obtained.
In view of the extinction of Atakapa as a spoken language, Doctor Swanton considered that the words, phrases, and text collected by Dr. A. S. Gatschet in 1886, which comprise by far the greater portion of the material in that tongue still preserved, should be published without delay and the greater part of the winter of 1930-31 was spent in editing it. To Gatschet’s material have been added the Eastern Atakapa words collected by Murray and the Akokisa vocabulary obtained by the French captain, Bérenger, and published by Du Terrage and Rivet. A bulletin containing all this is now in the hands of the printer.
Work has progressed on the tribal map of North America which is being copied by Mrs. E. C. M. Payne, and additions have been made to the text to accompany it.
Doctor Swanton is preparing the first draft of a Handbook of the Indians of the Southeast.
The closing weeks of the year were devoted to reading the proof of Bulletin 103, entitled “Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians.”
Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, was at work among the Kickapoo of Oklahoma at the beginning of the fiscal year. A really representative body of Kickapoo mythology is now available, and it is quite certain that it is more northern than Fox mythology. The ritualistic origin myths are still terra incognita. A good beginning has been made on Kickapoo social organization. In the middle of July Doctor Michelson went among the Foxes of Iowa. The object of the trip was to restore one Fox text phonetically and to obtain some new texts, in the current syllabic script, on Fox ceremonials, in both of which projects he was successful. Doctor Michelson returned to Washington August 4. He completed his memoir on the Fox WâpAnōwiweni and transmitted it for publication February 7. His paper, Contributions to Fox Ethnology, II, Bulletin 95 of the bureau, appeared in the course of the fiscal year.
The remainder of the time was largely taken up studying materials gathered previously and also in extracting from Petter’s Cheyenne Dictionary such stems and words as can be rigorously proved to be Algonquian. The material on the physical anthropology of the Cheyenne showed clearly the great variation that occurs among living races. A proper technique was worked out for determining the Cheyenne words of Algonquian origin. Though Petter’s alphabet is inadequate, it was possible to partially control this material by comparing it with that of Doctor Michelson. Approximately 700 of such words and stems were extracted. Though the technique mentioned above is very slow, Doctor Michelson is convinced that it is the correct procedure. It was entirely feasible to establish about 70 phonetic shifts which have transformed Cheyenne from normal Algonquian into divergent Algonquian.
Toward the close of May Doctor Michelson left for Oklahoma and renewed his work with the Cheyenne of that State. He restored phonetically the material extracted from Petter, with the result that it is now possible to formulate the transforming phonetic shifts with greater nicety. He also measured a number of Cheyenne. Though the number is not yet large enough to be absolutely decisive in a statistical sense, there is good reason to believe that the vault of their skulls is low, thus resembling the Dakota Sioux rather than most Algonquian tribes. Some new data on Cheyenne social life and mythology were obtained. It was his privilege to consult with some other anthropologists in Oklahoma and to visit one museum.
John P. Harrington, ethnologist, was engaged during the summer of 1930 in the preparation of his report on the Indians who were brought together at San Juan Bautista Mission in the first half of the nineteenth century by the Spanish-speaking padres from various parts of San Benito County, Calif., and the adjacent region. A valuable vocabulary of the language, recorded by Father Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta, had already been published by the Smithsonian Institution in the sixties of the last century, but aside from this vocabulary there was little or nothing in print on these Indians. Elaborating a wealth of material obtained from Mrs. Ascención Solórsano, the last San Juan Indian who spoke the language, who died in January, 1930, Mr. Harrington prepared a report on all phases of the life of these Indians, as far as reconstructable. This report tells of the remarkable way in which the language and partial ethnography were rescued from this sole survivor, and then proceeds to the history, geography, and customs of the tribe, including all that could be learned of former religion, ceremony, and mythology.
Mrs. Solórsano was an Indian herb doctor, and a feature of the work during the summer of 1929 had been to obtain specimens and information to cover the ethnobotany of the tribe. Further specimens were obtained in the summer of 1930 by Mrs. Dionisia Mondragón and Miss Marta J. Herrera, daughter and granddaughter of Mrs. Solórsano, and these were all identified by Mr. C. V. Morton, of the National Herbarium. This section gives the treatment for curing some 60 different ailments with these herbs and by other curious means. It forms a nucleus for making comparative studies in Indian medicine.
At the end of January, 1931, Mr. Harrington left for California for the purpose of continuing his studies in this region, this time specializing on the Esselen and Antoniano Indians in the southern part of Monterey County. Taking the specimens of San Juan Bautista plants with him and arriving in wild-flower season, a thorough collecting of plants was rewarded with a great mass of information which further elucidated much of the San Juan plant material. This collecting was done in several places in southern Monterey County and simultaneously in San Benito County. Seeds used for food were actually made up into the food product to get the primitive process, and the same method was followed in the study of medicines.
Along with the plants the field of ethnozoology was thoroughly covered and practically all the animals known to these Indians were identified. Specimens were obtained, especially of birds, which proved to be the most difficult field for identification in the collecting of animal names, and the skins were identified by the division of birds of the National Museum. Eight different kinds of snakes were known by name and identified.
One of the rarest features of the work was the obtaining of a number of old Indian place names in the Old Esselen country, the western tributary of the Salinas River known as the Arroyo Seco. A study of the place names resulted in the discovery that the Esselen were not a coastal but an inland people, inhabiting the Arroyo Seco and a section of the Salinas River and centered about Soledad Mission. They were one of the smallest tribes in California, and the name properly begins with an h; they were known in the San Juan Bautista from all that section of California. The expedition went from Monterey to the Aguage de Martin and from there climbed the mountain. Some 40 exposures were made of the various rocks connected with the ceremonies and the springs and camps, and several hundred pages of notes were taken down in California Spanish from Don Angel and others dealing with the history of these ceremonies and the life of Mariana and Joaquin Murrieta. On the way back to the coast the Cruz Cervantes ranch was visited, where Murrieta and Mariana were equipped by Don Cruz for starting their war against the Americans.
An examination of place names and village sites and linguistic studies occupied Mr. Harrington up to the end of June. Not only were vocabularies of early recording utilized but the invaluable records contained in the old mission books were, through the courtesy of Bishop McGinley, of Fresno, placed at the disposal of the Smithsonian Institution for copying, and a considerable part of these books has already been copied and revised with the aid of the oldest Indians.
Dr. F. H. H. Roberts, jr., archeologist, devoted the fiscal year to a number of activities. During the months of July, August, and September, excavations at a site on the Zuñi reservation, 16 miles northeast of the Indian village of Zuñi, were brought to a conclusion. The work had been started the latter part of May, 1930. At the end of the season’s field work the ruins of two houses, one containing 64 rooms, the other 20 rooms, and a number of ceremonial chambers had been cleared of the débris which had accumulated in them in the centuries which have passed since their abandonment.
Evidence showed that the largest of the houses had not been erected as a complete unit and that it was not occupied in its entirety at any time. The central block, together with a superceremonial chamber placed at its southern side, constituted the original block of the structure. Subsequent additions consisted of an east-and-west wing and a series of chambers south of the original portion and east of the great ceremonial chamber. Masonry in the walls of the latter portions was inferior to that in the original section. The outlines of the rooms in these same portions of the building were so irregular that they appeared to have been built by a different group of people. The walls in the original section were constructed in a style characteristic of the ruins in the Chaco Canyon, 85 miles northeast from the Zuñi region. The stonework in the latter portions of the building was suggestive of the type found in the ruins of the Upper Gila area to the south.
The small house did not give evidence of growth stages as distinct as those observed in the large building; it did show, however, that a fairly small structure had been added to on various occasions. The walls in this building were of the same nature as those in the later portions of the larger dwelling, except that the stones were more carefully dressed. This suggested that the small house may have been built by the same group which erected the later portions of the large one.
In addition to the two houses and seven small ceremonial chambers two great kivas were found. Only one of these was excavated. In the case of the other it was possible merely to trace the outer walls in order to obtain the size and position of the structure. The finding of these two great kivas was significant because investigations in the Southwest have shown that such structures are always associated with some form of the Chaco culture. The great kiva connected with the larger of the two dwellings revealed one of the essential characteristics of such structures when the débris which filled it was removed. It had an average diameter of 55 feet. The second of these large circular houses was completely detached from the other buildings in the village and had been placed in a court formed by the other structures. It averaged 78 feet in diameter, which makes it the largest yet discovered.
The excavations yielded 400 specimens of the people’s handicraft in addition to the information on house types. Included in the collection are pottery vessels, tools or implements of stone and bone, ornaments, and a number of stone images. The pottery is characterized by examples typical of the Chaco Canyon wares and also specimens characteristic of the Upper Gila region to the south. The summer’s investigations demonstrate that the village on the Zuñi reservation belongs to the great period of the prehistoric pueblos; that designated as Pueblo III in southwestern chronology. The evidence obtained also indicates that there was a fusion of two groups of people at this location: One, the first to arrive, came from the Chaco area in the north, and the other from the Upper Gila villages in the south. Charred timbers obtained from the ruins enabled Dr. A. E. Douglas, of the University of Arizona, to give the dates 1000 to 1030 A. D. for the life of the community.
Upon the completion of the above work one week was spent in making an archeological survey on the Zuñi reservation and in the region west and northwest from that district. As a result of the reconnaissance, a promising site for further investigations was found. Following this, a trip was made to Cortez, Colo., for the purpose of inspecting ruins being excavated by Lee Dawson near the opening into McElmo Canyon, 4 miles southwest from Cortez. It was found that Mr. Dawson had an unusually interesting group of unit-type houses on his property. Of particular interest were the kivas or ceremonial chambers associated with these structures. In many of them the walls had been ornamented with a series of paintings placed in bands encircling the walls. From Cortez the writer went to Denver and from there returned to Washington the middle of October.
During the winter months, galley, page, and final proofs were read on Bulletin 100, a report on work conducted during the summer of 1929, entitled “The Ruins of Kiatuthlanna, Eastern Arizona.” In addition, the specimens brought in from the summer field work were studied. Drawings and photographs were made of them for use in a report on the work. Six hundred pages of manuscript, entitled “The Village of the Great Kivas on the Zuñi Reservation, New Mexico,” was prepared. Thirty text figures were drawn to accompany this manuscript.
Doctor Roberts left Washington May 14, 1931, for Denver, Colo., for the purpose of inspecting and studying the specimens obtained by the Smithsonian Institution-University of Denver Cooperative Expedition in the summer of 1930 and also for the purpose of examining collections in the Colorado State Museum. He left Denver on May 25 for Santa Fe, N. Mex. At the latter place two days were spent in studying the collections at the Laboratory of Anthropology and at the Museum of New Mexico. From Santa Fe he proceeded to Gallup, N. Mex., where supplies were obtained for a field camp. From Gallup this material was taken to a site 3½ miles south of Allantown, Ariz., where a camp was established and excavations started on the remains of a large pithouse village. One refuse mound containing 12 burials with accompanying mortuary offerings and two pit houses had been investigated at the close of the fiscal year.
The pit houses were found to be characteristic of that type and quite comparable to those excavated in the Chaco Canyon in 1927, reported in Bulletin 92 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and to those excavated in eastern Arizona in the summer of 1929, described in Bulletin 100 of the bureau.
From July 1, 1930, to May 10, 1931, J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, was engaged in routine office work, and from the latter date to the end of the fiscal year he was engaged in field service on the Grant of the Six Nations on the Grand River in Ontario, Canada, and, briefly, on the Tuscarora reservation in western New York State.
Mr. Hewitt devoted much time and study to rearranging and retyping some of his native Iroquoian texts which critical revisions and additional data had made necessary to facilitate interlinear translations and to render such texts as legible as possible for the printer.
The texts so treated are the Cayuga version of the founding of the League of the Iroquois as dictated by the late Chief Abram Charles; the version of the Eulogy of the Founders as dictated by Chief Jacob Hess in Cayuga, and also his versions of the addresses introducing the several chants; also, four of the myths of the Wind and Vegetable Gods which are usually represented by wooden faces and husk faces (which are customarily misnamed masks, although their chief purpose is to represent, not to mask). The Onondaga texts of these myths were in great need of careful revision, for their relator was extremely careless in his use of the persons and the tenses of the verbs, frequently changing from the third to the second person and from past to future time by unconsciously employing the language of the rites peculiar to the faces; and also the decipherment of a set of pictographs or mnemonic figures, designed and employed by the late Chief Abram Charles, of the Grand River Reservation in Canada, to recall to his mind the official names and their order of the 49 federal chiefs of the Council of the League of the Iroquois, in chanting the Eulogy of the Founders of the League; and also to recall the 15 sections or burdens of the great Requickening Address of the Council of Condolence and Installation; this paper with illustrations is nearly ready for the printer; and also a critical study of the matter of the Onondaga and the Cayuga texts, giving the several variant versions of the events attending the birth and childhood and work of Deganawida. He was born of a virgin mother, which indicated that underlying them there appeared to be an ideal figure, although of course unexpressed. This discovery showed the need for thorough search in the field for a living tradition in which this ideal is fully expressed. Further search was deferred to field work. It was clear that such an ideal enhanced the beauty of the birth story of Deganawida and made more interesting the historicity of such a person. Mr. Hewitt had the great satisfaction of recovering such a tradition in his subsequent field researches. He found that the inferiority complex had precluded his present informants from expressing themselves during the lifetime of other informants, whose recent deaths opened their mouths without the fear of contradiction. The death of Abram Charles within the year made these shy informants vocal.
In January Matthew W. Stirling, chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, requested Mr. Hewitt to undertake the editing of the Manuscript Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz, of Berne, Switzerland, in the manner in which he had prepared the Edwin Thompson Denig Report on the Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri River, published in the Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. The Kurz manuscript was written in German during the years 1846 to 1852. The typed German text consists of 454 pages of large legal-cap size, while the English translation of it by Myrtis Jarrell occupies 780 pages. The journal is a narrative of Mr. Kurz’s experiences in a trip up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, and of his difficulties with the Indians while endeavoring to make drawings or pictures of them. There are 125 pen sketches of Indians and others accompanying the manuscript.
Mr. Hewitt represents the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, on the United States Geographic Board, and is a member of its executive committee. In connection with the forthcoming issue of the sixth report of this board much extra work had to be done by members of the executive committee. Mr. Hewitt prepared a memorandum for a portion of the introduction. Mr. Hewitt also devoted much time and study to the collection and preparation of data for official replies to correspondents of the bureau, some demanding long research. Miss Mae W. Tucker has assisted Mr. Hewitt in the care of the manuscript and phonograph and photograph records of the archives.
On May 10, 1931, Mr. Hewitt left Washington, D. C., on field duty and returned to the bureau July 2, 1931. During this trip he visited the Grand River grant of the Six Nations of Iroquois Indians dwelling near Brantford, Canada, and also the Tuscarora Reservation near Niagara Falls, N. Y.
Winslow M. Walker was appointed to the staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology as associate anthropologist in March, 1931. He resumed his research in Hawaiian archeology, begun during a year’s stay in the Hawaiian Islands in 1929, in preparation for a paper on Hawaiian sculpture.
In preparation for work in the field Mr. Walker undertook research in the early narratives of exploration in Louisiana and Arkansas. He left Washington May 29 to investigate some caves in the vicinity of Gilbert, Ark., in the Ozark Mountains, with the hope of being able to throw new light on the Ozark bluff dwellers and other early inhabitants of the caves. Sixteen caves were explored and excavations were made in several of the most promising. A large cave at Cedar Grove yielded several skeletons and a considerable number of stone, flint, and bone artifacts. As the fiscal year closed Mr. Walker was still engaged in excavating this cavern. He intends to make a brief survey of certain mounds and village sites along the Red River Valley in the northern part of Louisiana on the completion of his work in Arkansas.