REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 63 



Harrington has in hand a comparative study of these languages 

 which is very bulky. 



Upon finishing the manuscript of the Kiowa paper, Mr. Harring- 

 ton took up the Taos material, aided by a set of excellent texts dic- 

 tated by Mr. K. Vargas, and comprising 400 typewritten pages. He 

 finished this for publication before the close of the fiscal year. 



On July 1, 1920, Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, was at Tama, 

 Iowa, engaged in researches among the Sauk and Fox of that State 

 and preparing for publication by the Bureau a manuscript entitled 

 " The Autobiography of a Fox Indian Woman," as far as practical 

 in the field. A good deal of the work on this had been done in the 

 previous fiscal year. Near the close of July he left for Saskatchewan, 

 Canada, where he made a reconnaissance of the Plains Cree at File 

 Hills Agency. From his study it appears that physically the Plains 

 Cree have a cephalic index of about 79, thus belonging to the so-called 

 Mississippi Valley type of North American Indian, which confirms 

 the results of Doctor Boas's work many years ago. Linguistically 

 Cree clearly belongs to the central division of Algonquian languages, 

 but it is not as archaic as has usually been believed. The folklore 

 and mythology here show from an analysis of the culture cycle that 

 both woodland and plains elements are to be found, as well as a few 

 plateau elements. Ethnologically we have the same combination, 

 save that plateau elements are lacking. 



Doctor Michelson returned to Washington at the close of August, 

 where he completed the autobiography mentioned above, and in 

 January submitted the manuscript for publication by the bureau. 

 The remainder of his time at Washington was spent working out 

 English translations of various Fox texts written in the current syl- 

 labary on mortuary customs and observances, as well as one or two 

 folk tales. 



Doctor Michelson left Washington in the latter part of May, 1921, 

 to renew his researches among the Sauk and Fox of Iowa. Arriving 

 at Tama near the end of the month, Doctor Michelson spent nearly 

 all his time on the Fox mortuary customs and observations, mentioned 

 above, with a view to their publication by the bureau. The Indian 

 texts were restored phonetically, the translations corrected where 

 needed, a grammatical analysis begun, and additional data secured, 

 so that with the close of the fiscal year only about two weeks more 

 field-work was necessary to complete the preparation of the volume 

 so far as practical in the field. He took advantage of a favorable 

 opportunity just before the end of the year to obtain data on the 

 society called " Ki-wa-ka-mo A-ki." 



While in the field and also in the office Doctor Michelson cor- 

 rected proofs of Bulletin 72, The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox 

 Indians. 



