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.