REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 61 



year to year. While there was found no evidence that anyone ever 

 lived in it, an adjacent cliff dwelling afforded every indication that 

 it was inhabited by at least two clans. New Fire House belongs to 

 the same group of ceremonial buildings as Sun Temple, except that 

 it is situated in a cliff and not on top of the mesa. 



The features that have led to the identification of this ruin as one 

 devoted to New Fire rites are the large walled fire pit full of ashes 

 in the middle of the court and the resemblances of phallic and other 

 pictures on the walls of the rooms to those still surviving among the 

 Hopi in the New Fire cult. 



Mr. James Mooney, ethnologist, remained in the office throughout 

 the year, engaged chiefly in the elaboration of material relating to 

 the Heraldry of the Kiowa and the Peyote Cult of the Southern 

 Plains tribes. 



In connection with the preparation of the Denig Assiniboin man- 

 uscript for publication, a correspondence was carried on with mem- 

 bers of the Denig family and others for the purpose of gathering all 

 available information concerning the history and personality of the 

 author. A valuable complement to the Denig work is the German 

 manuscript journal of the Swiss artist, Friedrich Kurz, who visited 

 the upper Missouri in 1851-52, spending some months with Denig 

 at Fort Union. A copy of the original journal, now in the museum 

 of Bern, was made some years ago by direction of Mr. David I. 

 Bushnell, jr., who sold it to the bureau. 



The usual amount of correspondence in answer to requests for va- 

 ried ethnologic information received attention. Among these may 

 be noted requests from the War Department for Indian designs for 

 regimental flags for two newly organized regiments. 



In the latter part of October and throughout November, 1919, Dr. 

 John R. S wanton, ethnologist, was at Anadarko, Okla., wfeere lie 

 recorded about 270 pages of text in the Wichita language and 100 

 in Kichai, besides considerable vocabulary material in both. It 

 should be remarked that the Kichai language is rapidly becoming 

 extinct, being now spoken fluently by not over a dozen persons. 



During the summer preceding this expedition he was engaged in 

 the extraction and card-cataloguing of words from his Natchez texts, 

 and after his return he prepared a grammatical sketch of the 

 Natchez language, complete as far as the material on hand will 

 permit, but withheld from publication for a final review with the 

 help of Indian informants. This language is now spoken by only 

 three persons. 



He also completed a sketch of the Chitimacha language, the rough 

 draft of which had already been prepared, and began the extraction 

 and recording of words from his texts in the Koasati language. 



