90 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



tuto Etnologico as a part of the regular curriculum of this organiza- 

 tion. A number of Colombian towns and villages were surveyed for 

 possible field work, and final decision was made on the village of Kota, 

 about 20 kilometers to the north of Bogota. This is a typical mestizo 

 village of the Savanna of Bogota, representative of much of rural 

 Colombian life, and conveniently close to Bogota so that short vacation 

 periods as well as long field periods are possible. During March and 

 April Mr. Erasmus devoted his time to the health-center research 

 described in the introduction, working in the Ricuarte barrio of 

 Bogota, and in the Magdalena River port of La Dorada. 



Guatemala. — Late in 1950, upon the request of Dr. Antonio Gou- 

 baud-Carrera, Guatemalan Ambassador to the United States, the tem- 

 porary detail of an Institute ethnologist to Guatemala became pos- 

 sible. Accordingly, Richard N. Adams joined the staff, arriving in 

 that country in December. In the seven months at his disposal Dr. 

 Adams gave a general course in the Institute de Antropologia e His- 

 toria. A series of special lectures was also given to personnel of the 

 Institute Indigenista. Dr. Adams also supervised field research in 

 several villages, including La Magdalena, near Guatemala City, in 

 which the Central American Institute of Nutrition is carrying out 

 long-range investigations. This work was designed to shed light on 

 the cultural factor in a program aimed at bettering the nutritional 

 and general health practices of the peoples concerned, and in gather- 

 ing data applicable to similar projects in other Central American 

 countries. Because of budgetary limitations it was, unfortunately, 

 necessary to drop Dr. Adams from the Institute staff at the end of the 

 fiscal year. Fortunately, it was possible to make arrangements for 

 him to continue his Guatemalan work by means of a Department of 

 State specialist grant. 



Mexico. — During the fall of 1950 Dr. Isabel T. Kelly, Institute rep- 

 resentative, continued preparation of the second volume on the Taj in 

 Totonac Indians, the first volume of which was sent to the printer in 

 June 1950. In March 1951 she participated in health-center analyses, 

 studying the Beatriz Velasquez Aleman Center in Mexico City, and 

 that in the suburb of Xochimilco. Late in the winter she made a recon- 

 naissance trip through the Sierra de Puebla and selected the highland 

 Totonac village of San Marcos Eloxochitlan for field work. In April 

 a 3-month period of field work was initiated, in which five students 

 from the P]scuela Nacional de Antropologia participated. This study 

 of a highland Totonac community will, among other things, in con- 

 junction with the lowland Taj in Totonac afford data on the relation- 

 ship of environment to culture. 



Dr. William Wonderly joined the Institute in March 1951 to teach 

 linguistics at the Escuela Nacional. This was the first time that lin- 

 guistics had been taught in Mexico under Institute of Social Anthro- 



