REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 49 



oldest raeu of the tribe was also employed to prepare the feather wands used in the 

 eagle dance, the pipe dance of the prairie tribes, and the calumet dance spoken of by 

 the early Jesuit writers, which has now been discontinued among the Cherokees for 

 about thirty years. These wands were deposited in the National Museum as a part 

 of the Cherokee collection, obtained on various visits to the reservation. 



A considerable amount of iniscellaneous information in regard to myths, dances, 

 etc., was obtained, and a special study was made of their geographic nomenclature for 

 the purpose of preparing an aboriginal map of the old Cherokee country. With this 

 object a visit was made to the outlying Indian settlements, especially thatouCheowah 

 River, in Graham County, North Caroliiui, and individuals originally from widely- 

 separated districts were interviewed. 'Ihe maps of the Geological Survey, on a scale 

 of 2 miles to an inch, were used in the work, and the result is a collection of probably 

 more than oue thousand Cherokee names of localities within the former territory of 

 the tribe, given in the correct form, with the meaning of the names and whatever 

 local legends are connected. In North Carolina practically every local name now 

 known to the Cherokees has been obtained, every prominent peak or rock, and every 

 cove ^ud noted bend in a stream having a distinctive name. For Georgia and a por- 

 tion of Tennessee the names must be obtained chiefly from old Indians now living in 

 the Indian Territory. It may be noted hero that as a rule the Cherokees and some 

 other tribes have no names for rivers or settlements. The name belongs to the dis- 

 trict and is applied alike to the stream, town, or mountain h)cated in it. When the 

 people of a settlement remove, the old name remains behind, and the town in its 

 new location takes the name attached to the new district. Each district along a 

 river has a distinct name, while the river as a whole has noue, the whole tendency 

 in Indian languages being to specialize. The last six weeks of this field season were 

 spent by Mr. Mooney in visiting various points in North and South Carolina, Georgia, 

 Tennessee, and Alabama, within the former limits of the Cherokees, for the purpose of 

 locating mounds, graves, and other antiquities for an arclneologic map of their ter- 

 ritory, and collecting from former traders and old residents materials for a historic 

 sketch of the tribe. 



Mr. Jeremiah Curtin spent July, and until August 28, 188D, at various points on the 

 Klamath River, from Orleans Bar to Martin's Ferry, Humboldt County, California, 

 in collecting myths and reviewing vocabularies of the Weitspekan aud Ehuikan lan- 

 guages. From August 30 to September 10 ho was at Blue Lake and Areata, Hum- 

 boldt County, California, engaged in taking down a Wishoshkan vocabulary and 

 collecting information concerning the Indians of the region thereabout. Arriving in 

 Rouud Valley, Mendocino County, California, September 16, he remained there till 

 October Ifi, and took vocabularies of the Yuki aud Palaihnihan language. From 

 Round Valley ho went to Niles, Alameda County, California, where he obtained partial 

 vocabularies of three languages formerly spoken in that region. Of these oue was 

 spoken at Suisun, another was kindred to tho Mariposan, a third was Costanoan. 

 On October 27 he arrived in Redding, Shasta County, California, where he obtained a 

 considerable addition to his material previously collected in the form of myths and 

 additions to the Palaihnihan vocabulary. During this work he visited also Round 

 Mountain. On January 10, 1890, he returned to office work. 



From July 10 to November 9, 1889, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt was engaged in field work. 

 Until September 7 he was on the Onondaga reservation, near Syracuse, New York, 

 where legends, tales, and myths were collected and I'ecorded in the vernacular; also 

 accounts of the religious ceremonies and funeral rites were obtained, the terms form- 

 ing the Onondagan scheme of relationships of affinity and consangniuity were 

 recorded, and valuable matter pertaining to the league aud its wampum record was 

 also collected. 



From the last mentioned date to the 9th of November he was engaged on the Grand 

 River reservation in Canada, where he successfully made special effort to obtain tho 

 chants aud speeches used in the condolence council of the league. The religious doc- 



n. Mis. 129 4 



