236 proceedings: anthropological society 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 458th regular meeting was held in the New National Museum, 

 February 6, 1912. Professor Mitchell Carrell presented a paper en- 

 titled The excavations at Knossos or labyrinth of Minos, illustrated. 



On February 20 the retiring president, Dr. J. W. Fewkes, made an 

 address on Great stone monuments in history and geography, in the New 

 National Museum. This paper wi 1 appear in full elsewhere. 



The 459th regular meeting was held in the New National Museum, 

 March 12, Miss Densmore read a paper on the Sun dance of the Teton 

 Sioux. This was based upon a study made among the Teton Sioux on 

 the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota and represents the usage 

 in that band of the tribe. The study was conducted in a series of coun- 

 cils to which the old leaders of the tribe came from a radius of about 100 

 miles. Fifteen reliable men were selected to give the account of the 

 dance, their authority being established by interviews with about forty 

 members of the tribe, in widely separated localities. Those who took 

 part in the councils were men who bore upon their bodies the scars of 

 their participation in the sun dance tortures, and among them were the 

 man who acted as intercessor in the ceremony and the man who "did the 

 cutting of those who fulfilled vows, " both men being the only Tetons living 

 who had performed these official acts. The men comprising the sun 

 dance council, with the speaker and an interpreter, visited the site of the 

 last sun dance held by the Teton Sioux in 1882, the site being identified 

 by the Indians. The place where the dance pole was erected, the out- 

 line of the "shade-house" and the location of the "sacred place" were 

 recognized and measurement showed them to be correct, according to 

 the usual plot of the sun dance grounds. 



This dance was held annually by the Sioux and was distinctly a religious 

 ceremony. The fulfilling of vows of torture was an important part of 

 the ceremony, the vows having been made by men in danger on the war- 

 path. When making the vow they asked for a safe return and that they 

 might find the members of their family alive and well, and the fulfilment 

 of the vow was required whether the prayer was granted or denied. 



The paper was illustrated by songs of the sun dance which had been 

 recorded by the phonograph and were played on the piano. Many of 

 these were ceremonial songs and known only to the man who sang them 

 for the speaker. One of these men has died since the songs were recorded. 

 A collection of old ceremonial articles used in the sun dance was also 

 exhibited. 



The 460th regular meeting was held April 10 in the New National Mu- 

 seum. Professor Pittier delivered an address on Notes on the native 

 tribes of Panama, with all of whom he came in contact in the course of 

 his recent travels in the Canal Zone. 



There is much confusion current as to the number of the so-called 

 tribes and the stocks to which they are related . The many names recorded 

 correspond in fact not to distinct tribes, but merely to villages, names of 

 chiefs, or, in a general way, to what the old Spanish chroniclers used to 

 design as "parcialidades." 



