AMEKICAN INDIAN COSTUMES IN THE UNITED STATES 

 NATIONAL MUSEUM 



By Hekbeet W. Kriegeb 

 United States National Museum 



[With 36 plates] 



One of the earliest accessions to the ethnological collections in the 

 United States National Museum was obtained by the United States 

 Exploring Expedition under the command of Admiral Charles 

 Wilkes, United States Navy. This collection was gathered in 1838- 

 1842 and includes objects of personal adornment and dress from sev- 

 eral of the Indian tribes of. the Pacific northwest coast. Another 

 important early accession was the material collected in 1851 by 

 Lieuts. William Herndon and Lardner Gibbon, United States Navy, 

 from Indian tribes occupying the tropical lowlands along the 

 Amazon River and its principal tributaries in Brazil. This collec- 

 tion loses somewhat in value because tribal designations are for the 

 most part not included with the specimens. 



The first accession to be received by the Institution from the Arctic 

 was the collection of Dr. Isaac Hayes, which includes objects of 

 dress from the Greenland and Smith Sound Eskimo. The collection 

 of Dr. William H. Dall from the Aleuts and the Eskimo of western 

 Alaska and the Bering Sea coast, and also from the Tinne tribes 

 of the Yukon Valley, was the forerunner of the great collections 

 made from the tribes of the Arctic by E. W. Nelson, E. P. Murdoch, 

 J. H. Turner, and P. H. Ray. To this list of collections from east- 

 ern, western, and central Eskimo groups should be added the valuable 

 accessions from the Yukon and Mackenzie River valleys made by 

 Bernard R. Ross and E. A. Preble. Then followed the George T. 

 Emmons collection from southeast Alaska consisting of objects of 

 native dress, blankets, and miscellaneous articles of personal adorn- 

 ment from the Tlingit, Haida, and other Pacific northwest coast 

 tribes. Among the earlier important collections from the same area 

 are those made by Judge James Swan and by J. J. McLean. The 

 collections forwarded to the National Museum by the agents of the 

 Hudson Bay Co. from the Athapascan Indians and other northwest 

 tribes of the upper plateau region are equally important. 



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