SECRETARY'S REPORT 51 



condition of early northeastern Indian objects in Europe are striking. 



A secondary objective of Dr. Sturtevant's study in Europe was a 

 search for possible European prototypes of modern eastern North 

 American Indian artifacts. Although he visited seven museums of 

 peasant and folklore materials, this project was less successful than 

 the fii-st, both because of time limitations and because European col- 

 lecting and research in some important categories of artifacts (e.g., 

 basketry) are insufficiently developed. 



In November 1960, Dr. Sturtevant attended an informal conference 

 on Iroquois research in New Haven, Conn., the annual meeting of the 

 Southern Historical Association in Tulsa, Okla. (where he delivered 

 a paper on "History, Ethnohistory, and Folk History : Seminole Ex- 

 amples"), and the American Indian Ethnohistoric Conference in 

 Bloomington, Ind. He also visited several museums and archival col- 

 lections in Oklahoma City, Norman, and Tulsa. There are several 

 important collections of southeastern Indian artifacts and documents 

 in Oklahoma. 



Dr. Sturtevant also continued his research on various tribes of 

 eastern North America. His paper "The Significance of Ethnological 

 Similarities between Southeastern North America and the Antilles" 

 was issued as Yale University Publications in Anthropology No. 64 

 (1960), and shorter comments by him appeared in Bureau of American 

 Ethnology Bulletin 180 and in Current Anthropology, vol. 2, No. 3 

 (both 1961). A somewhat revised version of his "Anthropology as a 

 Career" (Smithsonian Publication 4343) was issued October 7, 1960. 



Dr. "Wallace L. Chafe, linguist, completed work on two manuscripts. 

 One of them, "Seneca Thanksgiving Eituals," which is in press as 

 Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 183, contains important 

 Seneca religious texts, as well as transcriptions of the music that 

 accompanies one of the rituals. The other, "Handbook of the Seneca 

 Language," a nontechnical description of Seneca orthography and 

 grammar with an extensive glossary of Seneca terms encountered in 

 the anthropological literature, will be published as a Bulletin of the 

 New York State Museum. Dr. Chafe also continued the preparation 

 of a Seneca dictionary. 



Beginning in October, Dr. Chafe mailed over 600 questionnaires in 

 a survey of the approximate numbers and ages of speakers of the 

 extant North American Indian languages. These were addressed to 

 individuals who have had contact with the various Indian groups. 

 The responses have been numerous and informative, and efforts are 

 now being made to fill in the gaps. Fieldwork for the project is 

 being conducted in cooperation with the American Philosophical 

 Society. 



Dr. Chafe spent considerable time throughout the year processing 

 Arikara and Caddo linguistic material already collected and preparing 



