After the investigations made in company with the Director, as mentioned above, Mr. Stevenson proceeded with a party to the ancient province of Tusayan, in Arizona, to study the characteristics of the Moki tribes, its inhabitants, and to make collections of such implements and utensils as illustrate their arts and industries. Several months were spent among the villages, resulting in a large collection of rare objects, all of which were selected with special reference to their anthropologic importance. This collection contains many articles novel in character and with uses differing from any heretofore obtained, and forms an important addition to the collections in the National Museum.

A study of their religious ceremonials and mythology was made, of which full notes were taken. Sketches were made of their masks and other objects which could not be obtained for the collection.

Mrs. Stevenson was also enabled to obtain a minute description of the celebrated dance, or medicine ceremony, of the Navajos, called the Yéibit-cai. She made complete sketches of the sand altars, masks, and other objects employed in this ceremonial.

[ WORK OF MESSRS. VICTOR MINDELEFF AND COSMOS MINDELEFF.]

Mr. Victor Mindeleff, who had been engaged for several years in investigating the architecture of the pueblos and the ruins of the southwest, was at the beginning of the fiscal year at work among the Moki towns in Arizona, in charge of a party. Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff left Washington on July 6 for the same locality. He was placed in charge of the surveying necessary in the Stone Village region, and the result of his work is included in the general report of that division.

Visits were paid to the Moki villages in succession, obtaining drawings of some constructional details, and also traditions bearing on the ruins in that vicinity. The main camp was established near Mashongnavi, one of the Moki villages. A large ruined pueblo, formerly occupied by the Mashongnavi, was here surveyed. No standing walls are found at the present time, and many portions of the plan are entirely obliterated. Typical fragments of pottery were collected.

Following this work, four other ruined pueblos were surveyed, and such portions of them as clearly indicated dividing walls were drawn on the ground plans.

Many of the ruins in this vicinity, according to the traditions of the Mokis, have been occupied in comparatively recent times—-a number of them having been abandoned since the Spanish conquest of the country. In several cases the villages now occupied are not upon the same sites as those first visited by the Spaniards, although retaining the same names.

While the work of surveying was in progress, in charge of Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff, Mr. Victor Mindeleff made a visit of several days at Keam Canyon, there to meet a number of the Navajo Indians to explain the purpose of the work and allay the suspicions of these Indians, a necessary precaution, as some of the proposed work was laid out in Canyon de Chelly, in the heart of their reservation. Recent restrictions to which they had been subjected, as a consequence of new surveys of the reservation line, had made them especially distrustful of parties equipped with instruments for surveying. Incidental to explanations of the purpose of the work, an opportunity was afforded of obtaining a number of mythologic notes, and also interesting data regarding the construction of their “hogans,” with the rules prescribing the arrangement of each part of the frame and other particulars. A number of ceremonial songs are sung at the building of these houses, but of these only one could be secured, which was obtained in the original and translated. Whenever opportunity occurred, during the progress of the work, photographs and diagrams of construction of “hogans” were procured.

On August 17 the ceremony of the snake-dance took place at Mashongnavi, similar in every detail to that performed at Walpi, and differing only in the number of participants. Several instantaneous negatives of the various phases of the dance were secured. On the following day the same ceremony was performed on a larger scale at Walpi, the easternmost of the Moki villages.