Prof. CYRUS THOMAS was engaged during the year, except the few weeks he
was in the field, in the preparation of his general report and in
correspondence relating to the archeology of the district before
specified. He also finished a paper published in the Sixth Annual Report
of this Bureau under the title, “Aids to the study of the Maya Codices,”
and a special report on the “Burial mounds of the northern sections of
the United States.” The latter has appeared in the Fifth Annual Report
of the Bureau.
Mrs. V. L. THOMAS, in addition to her duties as clerk, has been employed
in preparing a catalogue of the ancient works in that part of the United
States east of the Rocky Mountains. This catalogue, now nearly complete,
is intended to give the localities and character of all the antiquities
in the region mentioned, including discoveries which have been noted in
publications, as well as those mentioned in the reports of work done
under the Bureau.
Mr. JAMES C. PILLING continued to give a large share of his time and
attention throughout the year to the “Bibliography of the languages of
the North American Indians,” which has been adverted to in previous
reports. The advance “proofsheets” of this work, printed in the last
fiscal year, were distributed to collaborators and have been the means
of obtaining the active cooperation of many persons throughout this and
other countries who are interested in linguistic and bibliographic
science. They have thus elicited a large number of additions,
corrections, suggestions, and criticisms, all of which have received
careful consideration.
Mr. FRANK H. CUSHING was engaged in the preparation, from the large
amount of Zuñi material collected by him during several years, of papers
upon the language, mythology, and institutions of that people.
Mrs. ERMINNIE A. SMITH continued her study of the Iroquoian languages.
The first part of her final contribution on the subject was intended to
be a Tuscarora grammar and dictionary. The first portion of the
dictionary was completed, and had been forwarded to the Bureau when her
sudden and lamented death occurred on June 9, 1886, at her home in
Jersey City. Her former assistant, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, of Tuscarora
descent, has been engaged to complete the work she so successfully
began, and it is expected that the results of her long labors in the
field will be published without delay.
Mr. CHARLES C. ROYCE resigned his connection with the Bureau in the
early part of the year, thereby delaying the completion of the work upon
the primal title of the Indian tribes to lands within the United States
and the methods of procuring their relinquishment, the scope and value
of which have before been explained. Mr. Royce, before his departure
from Washington, completed a paper on the “Cherokee Nation of Indians,”
which has appeared in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau.
Dr. H. C. YARROW was still engaged in preparing the material for the
final volume upon the mortuary customs of the North American Indians, in
the prosecution of which the large amount of information received and
obtained from various sources has been carefully classified and arranged
under proper divisions, so that the manuscript is now being rapidly put
into shape for publication.
Dr. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, U.S. Army, continued to prepare for publication
the copious notes obtained by him during former years in the Navajo
country, his chief work being upon a grammar and dictionary of the
Navajo language. He also wrote several papers, one of which, a “Chant
upon the Mountains,” has been published in the Fifth Annual Report.
Mr. W. H. HOLMES continued his work in the office during the year,
superintending the illustration of the various publications of the
Bureau. His scientific studies have been confined principally to the
field of American archeologic art. Two fully illustrated papers have
been finished and have appeared in the Sixth Annual Report of the
Bureau. They are upon “Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui,
Colombia,” and “A study of the textile art in its relations to the
development of form and ornament.” Mr. Holmes has, in addition,
continued his duties as curator of aboriginal pottery in the National
Museum.
Mr. VICTOR MINDELEFF, when not in the field, prepared reports on the
Tusayan and Cibola architectural groups. These, when completed, are to
be fully illustrated by a series of plans and drawings now being
prepared from the field-notes and other material. In this work it is
proposed to discuss the architecture in detail, particularly in the case
of the modern pueblos, where many of the constructional devices of the
old builders still survive. The examination of these details will be
found to throw light on obscure features of many ruined pueblos whose
state of preservation is such as to exhibit but little detail in
themselves.
In connection with the classification and arrangement of new material
from Canyon de Chelly, a paper was prepared on the cliff ruins of that
region.
Mr. COSMOS MINDELEFF has been in charge of the modeling room during the
last year. Upon his return from the field a series of models to
illustrate the Chaco ruins, architecturally the most important in the
Southwest, was commenced. Two of these, viz, the ruin of Wejegi and that
of a small pueblo near Pueblo Alto, have been finished and duplicates
have been deposited in the National Museum. The third, a large model of
Peñasco Blanco, is still uncompleted. All of these models are made from
entirely new surveys made in the summer of 1884. The scale used in the
previous series--the inhabited pueblos and the cliff ruins--though
larger than usually adopted for this class of work, has shown so much
more detail and has proved generally so satisfactory, that it has been
continued in the Chaco Ruin group, bringing the entire series of models
made by the Bureau to a uniform scale of 1:60, or one inch to five feet.
In addition to this the work of duplicating the existing models of the
Bureau for purposes of exchange was commenced. Three of these have been
completed, and two others are about half finished.
Mr. E. W. NELSON was engaged upon a report of his investigations among
the Eskimo tribes of Alaska. A part of this report, consisting of an
English-Eskimo dictionary, he has already forwarded.
* * * * *
As hereinafter explained, the year was principally devoted to the
synonymy of the Indian tribes, the special studies of several officers
of the Bureau being suspended so that their whole time might be employed
in that direction. In the year 1885, however, and at subsequent
intervals, their work was as follows:
Col. GARRICK MALLERY, U.S. Army, continued the study, by researches and
correspondence, of sign language and pictography. A comprehensive,
though preliminary, paper on the latter subject has been printed, with
copious illustrations, in the Fourth Annual Report.
Mr. H. W. HENSHAW was engaged during the year in work upon the synonymy
of Indian tribes, as specified below.
Mr. ALBERT S. GATSCHET continued to revise and perfect his grammar and
dictionary of the Klamath language, a large part of which work is in
print. He also took down vocabularies from Indian delegates present in
this city on tribal business, and thus succeeded in incorporating into
the collections of the Bureau of Ethnology linguistic material from the
Alibamu, Hitchiti, Muskoki, and Seneca languages.
Rev. J. OWEN DORSEY pursued his work on the Ȼegiha language. Having the
aid of a Winnebago Indian for some time he enlarged his vocabulary of
that language and recorded grammatical notes. He also reported upon
works submitted to his examination upon the Tuscarora, Micmac, and
Cherokee languages.
Mr. JAMES MOONEY, who had been officially connected with the Bureau
since the early part of the fiscal year, was also engaged upon
linguistic work.