42 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. 



Ethnologic researches among tlie North American Indians were con- 

 tinued by tlie Smithsonian Institution, in compliance with acts of Con- 

 gress, during the year 18S9-'90, under the direction of Maj. J. W. Pow- 

 ell, Director of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



The work of the Bureau of Ethnology during the year has proceeded 

 along accustomed lines. Investigations in relation to the Sign Lan- 

 guage and Pictography of the American Indian, preliminary reports of 

 which subjects have appeared in annual reports of the Bureau, 

 have been discontinued and the final results of this study will soon 

 appear. Investigations of the Mounds of the eastern United States 

 have also been practically brought to an end and the final discussion 

 of the subject will speedily be published. 



The archneologic researches which have been inaugurated in the vicin- 

 ity of Washington have already been fruitful of results of more than 

 local interest. Excavations into the quarry sites and workshops of 

 the district have shown that the class of archa^ologic objects from this 

 vicinity, which have hitherto been assumed to be paheolithic and to 

 represent the rude implements of primitive man, are in fact nothing 

 but the "rejects" of much more recent times; and that however far 

 back in point of time some of them may date, they are not separable 

 from the rejects of the historic Indian. 



As usual, considerable attention has been paid to the collection of 

 linguistic material, both because it is thought that languages form the 

 only safe basis for classifying peoples, and because no material relating 

 to our Indians is vanishing with such rapidity. The latter reason has 

 also impelled the collection of Indian mythology. Myths are hardly 

 more etiduring than the languages in which they are preserved. Though 

 they may persist to some extent after a language decays and falls into 

 partial disuse, it is only in a degraded and emasculated form that de- 

 I)rives them of their chief value, as embodying the religious ideas and 

 the philosophy of primitive peoples. 



The medicine practices of the Indian have also received much atten- 

 tion and a large number of the plants used in the Indian Materia 

 Mcdica have been collected, preserved, and their Indian and botanical 

 names obtained. In addition, the formulas and secret practices attend- 

 ing their use have been carefully recorded. As was to be ex})ected, it 

 has been found that so intimately interwoven are the Indian systems 

 of religion and medicine that it is practically impossible to say wliere 

 the one ends and the other begins. It has also been demonstrated that 

 contrary to popular belief, the chief and almost sole eflacacy possessed 

 by so-called Indian medicine lies, not in the inherent virtue of the 



