Mr. [James Mooney] has been occupied during the entire year, in conjunction with Col. Mallery, in that portion of the work of the Indian synonymy relating to the Algonquian and Iroquoian families.
Mr. [John N. B. Hewitt] has continued the linguistic work left unfinished by Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith. During the year he has been engaged in recording, translating, and tracing the derivation of Tuscarora words for a Tuscarora-English dictionary. He has thus far recorded about 8,000 words.
Mr. [Albert S. Gatschet] has devoted almost the entire year to the synonymy of Indian tribes, and has practically completed the section assigned to him, viz, the tribes of the southeastern United States.
Mr. [J. Owen Dorsey] continued his labors on the Indian synonymy cards of the Siouan, Caddoan, Athapascan, Kusan, Yakonan, and Takilman linguistic stocks. He resumed his preparation of the dictionary cards for contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. VI, Part II, and in connection therewith found it necessary to elaborate his additional ¢egiha texts, consisting of more than two hundred and fifty epistles, besides ten or more myths gained since 1880. This work was Interrupted in March, 1887, when he was obliged to undertake the arrangement of a new collection of Teton texts for publication. Mr. George Bushotter, a Dakota Indian, who speaks the Teton dialect, was employed by the Director from March 23, for the purpose of recording for future use of the Bureau some of the Teton myths and legends in the original. One hundred of these texts were thus written, and it devolved on Mr. Dorsey to prepare the interlinear translations of the texts, critical and explanatory notes, and other necessary linguistic material, as dictated by Mr. Bushotter. Besides writing the texts in the Teton dialects, Mr. Bushotter has been able to furnish numerous sketches as illustrations, all of which have been drawn and colored according to Indian ideas. His collection of sketches is the most extensive that has been gained from among the tribes of the Siouan family, and it is the first one contributed by an Indian.
Dr. [Walter J. Hoffman] and Mr. [Jeremiah Curtin], when not in the field as above mentioned, have continued to assist in the work of the synonymy of the Indian tribes.
[ ACCOMPANYING PAPERS.]
The papers contained in the present volume relate to the Pueblo and Navajo Indians, who occupy a large territory in the interior southwestern parts of the United States. The prehistoric archeology of the Pueblos in the special department of architecture is the most prominent single subject presented and discussed, but the papers also include studies of the history, mythology, and sociology of that people, as well as of their neighbors and hereditary enemies the Navajo. All of these correlated studies are set forth with detail and illustration.
[ A STUDY OF PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE, TUSAYAN AND CIBOLA, BY VICTOR MINDELEFF.]
This study relates to the ruins and inhabited towns found in that immense southwestern region composed of the arid plateaus which is approximately bounded on the east by the Rio Pecos and the west by the Colorado River, on the north by Central Utah, and which extends southward to yet undetermined limits in Mexico. The present paper is more directly confined to the ancient provinces of Tusayan and Cibola which are situated within the drainage of the Little Colorado River, and the intention is to follow and supplement it by studies of other typical groups in the region, but the necessary comparisons and generalizations now presented apply to all the varied features which are observed in the remains of Pueblo architecture now scattered over thousands of square miles. The work of surveying and platting in this vast field, together with the consequent coordination of studies and preparation of illustrations, has occupied the author and Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff a large amount of time since the year 1881, though it did not include all of their duties performed during that period.
The title of the paper, which only indicates architecture, fails to do justice to the broad and suggestive treatment of the subject. It would be expected, indeed required, that the surveys should be accurate in details and that the physical features of the region should be exhaustively described, but while all this is well done, much more matter of a different though related class, and of great value to ethnology, is furnished. The history, prehistoric and recent, the religion, the sociology and the arts of the people, with their home life and folklore, are studied and discussed in a manner which would be creditable in essays devoted to those special subjects, but are so employed as to be thoroughly appropriate to the elucidation of the general theme.