Doctor Fewkes has now collected sufficient material in Cuba to indicate that its western end, including the Isle of Pines, was once inhabited by a cave-dwelling people, [[18]]low in culture and without agriculture. His observations support the belief that this people were in that condition when Columbus visited the Isle of Pines and that they were survivors of the Guanahatibibes, a cave-dwelling population formerly occupying the whole of Cuba and represented in Porto Rico and other islands of the West Indies.
Doctor Fewkes also visited several of the coral keys southwest of the Isle of Pines, but, finding no aboriginal traces, he crossed the channel to Cayman Grande, about 250 miles from Nueva Gerona. The Cayman group consists of coral islands built on a submarine continuation of the mountains of Santiago Province, Cuba. A cave with Indian bones and pottery, probably of Carib origin, was found near Boddentown on the eastern end of the island, and a few stone implements were obtained from natives, but as these specimens may have been brought from adjacent shores they afford little evidence of a former aboriginal population of Cayman Grande. The elevation of the Cayman Islands, computed from the annual accretion, would indicate that Cayman Grande was a shallow reef when Columbus visited Cuba, and could not have been inhabited at that time. The discoverer passed very near it on his second voyage, when his course lay from the Isle of Pines to Jamaica, but he reported neither name nor people.
Doctor Fewkes returned to Washington in April and spent the remainder of the year in completing his report on Casa Grande.
Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist, devoted the first quarter of the year chiefly to collecting material from libraries and archives, as the basis of his study of the Creek Indians. From the latter part of September until early in December he was engaged in field research among the Creek, Natchez, Tonkawa, and Alibamu Indians in Oklahoma and Texas, and also remained a short time with the remnant of the Tunica and Chitimacha in Louisiana, and made a few side trips in search of tribes which have been lost to sight within recent years. On his return to Washington, Doctor Swanton transcribed the linguistic and ethnologic material collected during his field excursion, read the proofs of Bulletins [[19]]44, 46, and 47, added to the literary material regarding the Creek Indians, collected additional data for a tribal map of the Indians of the United States, and initiated a study of the Natchez language with the special object of comparing it with the other dialects of the Muskhogean family. Doctor Swanton also spent some time in studying the Chitimacha and Tunica languages.
From July, 1910, until the middle of April, 1911, Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, ethnologist, was engaged in the completion of a paper on Dress and Adornment of the Pueblo Indians, in the elaboration of her report on Zuñi Plants and Their Uses, and in transcribing her field notes pertaining to Zuñi religious concepts and the mythology and ethnology of the Taos Indians.
Mrs. Stevenson left Washington on April 12 and proceeded directly to the country of the Tewa Indians, in the valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, for the purpose of continuing her investigation of those people. Until the close of the fiscal year her energies were devoted to the pueblo of San Ildefonso and incidentally to Santa Clara, information particularly in regard to the Tewa calendar system, ceremonies, and material culture being gained. Mrs. Stevenson finds that the worship of the San Ildefonso Indians includes the same celestial bodies as are held sacred by the Zuñi and other Pueblos. From the foundation laid during her previous researches among the Tewa, Mrs. Stevenson reports that she has experienced little difficulty in obtaining an insight into the esoteric life of these people, and is daily adding to her store of knowledge respecting their religion and sociology. A complete record of obstetrical practices of the Tewa has been made, and it is found that they are as elaborate as related practices of the Taos people. The San Ildefonso inhabitants do not seem to have changed their early customs regarding land tenure, and they adhere tenaciously to their marriage customs and birth rites, notwithstanding the long period during which missionaries have been among them. It is expected that, of her many lines of study among the Tewa [[20]]tribes, the subject of their material culture will produce the first results for publication.
After completing some special articles on ethnologic topics for the closing pages of Part 2 of the Handbook of American Indians, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, pursued the study of the history of the tribes formerly dwelling in the Susquehanna and upper Ohio valleys. Progress in these researches was interrupted by the necessity of assigning him to the editorial revision and annotation of a collection of about 120 legends, traditions, and myths of the Seneca Indians, recorded in 1884 and 1885 by the late Jeremiah Curtin. At the close of the year this work was far advanced, only about 150 pages of a total of 1,400 pages remaining to be treated. As opportunity afforded, Mr. Hewitt also resumed the preparation of his sketch of the grammar of the Iroquois for incorporation in the Handbook of American Indian Languages.
As in previous years, Mr. Hewitt prepared and collected data for replies to numerous correspondents requesting special information, particularly in regard to the Iroquois and Algonquian tribes. Mr. Hewitt also had charge of the important collection of 1,716 manuscripts of the bureau, cataloguing new accessions and keeping a record of those withdrawn in the progress of the bureau’s researches. During the year, 378 manuscripts were thus made use of by the members of the bureau and its collaborators. Exclusive of the numerous manuscripts prepared by the staff of the bureau and by those in collaboration with it, referred to in this report, 12 items were added during the year. These pertain to the Pawnee, Chippewa, Zuñi, and Tewa tribes, and relate to music, sociology, economics, and linguistics.
The beginning of the fiscal year found Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, conducting ethnological and linguistic investigations among the Piegan Indians of Montana, whence he proceeded to the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho, thence to the Menominee of Wisconsin, and finally to the Micmac of Restigouche, Canada—all [[21]]Algonquian tribes, the need of a more definite linguistic classification of which has long been felt. Doctor Michelson returned to Washington at the close of November and immediately commenced the elaboration of his field notes, one of the results of which is a manuscript bearing the title “A Linguistic Classification of the Algonquian Tribes,” submitted for publication in the Twenty-eighth Annual Report. Also in connection with his Algonquian work Doctor Michelson devoted attention to the further revision of the material pertaining to the Fox grammar, by the late Dr. William Jones, the outline of which is incorporated in the Handbook of American Indian Languages. During the winter Doctor Michelson took advantage of the presence in Washington of a deputation of Chippewa Indians from White Earth, Minnesota, by enlisting their services in gaining an insight into the social organization of that tribe and also in adding to the bureau’s accumulation of Chippewa linguistic data. Toward the close of June, 1911, Doctor Michelson proceeded to the Sauk and Fox Reservation in Iowa for the purpose of continuing his study of that Algonquian group.
The months of July and August and half of September, 1910, were spent by Dr. Paul Radin, ethnologist, among the Winnebago Indians of Nebraska and Wisconsin, his efforts being devoted to a continuation of his studies of the culture of those people, with special reference to their ceremonial and social organization and their general social customs. Part of the time was devoted to a study of the Winnebago material culture, but little progress was made in this direction, as few objects of aboriginal origin are now possessed by these people, consequently the study must be completed by examination of their objects preserved in museums and private collections. A beginning in this direction was made by Doctor Radin during the latter half of September and in October at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. During the remainder of the fiscal year Doctor Radin was engaged in arranging the ethnological material gathered by him during the several years [[22]]he has devoted to the Winnebago tribe, and in the preparation of a monograph on the Medicine ceremony of the Winnebago and a memoir on the ethnology of the Winnebago tribe in general. In June, 1911, he again took the field in Wisconsin for the purpose of obtaining the data necessary to complete the tribal monograph. Both these manuscripts, it is expected, will be finished by the close of the present calendar year.