REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 63 



appreciate his history, language, sociology, music, religion, and 

 various arts and industries. It is obligatory for the bureau to pre- 

 serve accurate records of customs indigenous to America that are 

 rapidly being lost in the settlement of the former homes of the 

 Indians by members of the white race. The value of this material 

 will increase in coming j^ears, for the records that are now being 

 made are final and in many cases will be the sole objective informa- 

 tion that posterity will have of the Indian and his customs. This 

 work is imperative, for within the past few decades a great deal of 

 information of this kind has disappeared unrecorded, and the prob- 

 ability is that this generation will witness the death of most aborigi- 

 nal survivals in culture. 



While the ideal of the bureau is the acquisition of knowledge and 

 the publication of the same through reports, there has grown up a 

 great deal of work on related subjects that absorbs more or less of 

 the time of the chief and his staff. Information is sought from all 

 quarters regarding the Indians, and urgent calls from State insti- 

 tutions and universities asking for advice and help in local prob- 

 lems have been more numerous than at any other time in the his- 

 tory of the institution. Routine office work has assumed in the past 

 ten years a larger relative proportion than in former decades. Va- 

 rious agencies have quickened interest in the problems considered 

 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The great increase in travel 

 resulting from the development of the automobile and the founda- 

 tion of national parks has intensified the desire to " see America 

 first." Our parks and Indian reservations have been visited in the 

 past few years by an ever increasing number of travelers. This has 

 stimulated a demand on the part of the general public for accurate 

 information on the history and customs of the Indians, which the 

 bureau endeavors to supply. 



It can not be expected, when the office work has grown to such mag- 

 nitude and the appropriations have remained practically the same 

 as they were before the war, that the quantity of research in the field 

 can equal that of former years, but the chief has endeavored to have 

 as many of the staff in the field as he can and to publish the reports 

 of their work as rapidly as feasible. It is self-evident that the 

 acquisition of knowledge regarding the Indians, even if not pub- 

 lished, is a most valuable asset, notwithstanding the fact that it must 

 be stored in the archives to await a more favorable time for pub- 

 lication. 



The first duty of the chief being administrative and his time 

 for a large part of the year being occupied with routine matters, 

 he does not have much opportunity for field work, but notwithstand- 

 ing this fact scientific work of a limited nature has been done by him 



