54 ANI^UAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN IlsSTrrUTION, 1940 



picture of prehistoric Eskimo culture of the intermediate Thule-Punuk 

 stage, the age of which may be estimated at around a thousand years. 

 The material from Kurigitavik, together with that from two earlier 

 sites, has provided needed information on the transition from the 

 Birnirk stage to the Thule, and collections from several later sites 

 reveal the changes leading up to the culture of modern times. 



Manuscripts completed during the year included a general paper 

 summarizing the archeological evidence bearing on the origin of the 

 Eskimo and the cultural position of this group in relation to neighbor- 

 ing peoples in Asia and America; and shorter papers on Eskimo art, 

 on the voyages of Vitus Bering (for the Smithsonian radio series), 

 and on prehistoric Indian crania from the Southeast. 



Early in July 1939 Dr. William N. Fenton, associate anthropolo- 

 gist, left for Salamanca, N. Y., to conduct ethnobotanical studies 

 among the Iroquois Indians of New York and Canada. He visited 

 the Senecas of Allegany and Cornplanter Reservations, in southwest- 

 ern New York and Pennsylvania, and the Mohawks of St. Regis 

 Reservation, N. Y., and Caughnawaga, Province of Quebec. He 

 called briefly on the Hurons of Lorette and the Mohawks of Oka, 

 Lake of the Two Mountains, near Montreal. At Ottawa he studied 

 the extensive catalog of Iroquois ethnological photographs in the 

 National Museum of Canada. The month of August was passed 

 among the Iroquois of Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, where he 

 worked with Simeon Gibson, interpreter to the late J. N. B. Hewitt. 

 About a hundred herbarium specimens were collected ; when identi- 

 fied at the National Hebarium, these proved to be largely duplicates 

 of medical plants gathered in previous years of field work among the 

 Senecas. Moreover, interesting similarities of plant use and termi- 

 nology were noted among Seneca, Mohawk, and Cayuga-Onondaga 

 rem.nants who now live on widely separated reservations. Such 

 resemblances suggest older basic Iroquois botanical concepts and 

 medical practices. Photographs illustrating various activities in 

 Iroquois herbalism comprise part of 100 negatives that were taken 

 in the field. The early notes of F. W. Waugh were reviewed with 

 Mohawk and Cayuga informants, and some paradigm.s in the several 

 Iroquois dialects were recorded for comparative purposes. Returning 

 to Allegany for the Green Corn Festival, Dr. Fenton reached 

 Washington in mid-September. 



During the winter's office work, Dr. Fenton read in the historical 

 literature and located towns of the several Iroquois bands at successive 

 periods in their history, with a view to outlining the major cultural 

 problems arising from Iroquois tribal movements and conquests. This 

 study, now published, attempts to begin for the Northeast the type of 

 systematic approach that Dr. Swanton has accomplished for the 

 Southeast. Dr. Fenton also published A Further Quest for Iroquois 



