REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 67 



It is desirable to increase the archeological Avork of the bureau 

 which thus far has attracted a <2:reat deal of attention and which is 

 one of the foremost departments of anthropological study. This 

 study should be extended to Florida and the coast States with a 

 view to determining the relationship of the antiquities of North and 

 Central America. The investigation of the southwestern portion of 

 Texas and the adjoining State of New Mexico should be exploited, 

 especially the contents of the new national monument near Carlsbad 

 which contains important archeological material. One important 

 problem is to follow the extension northward of the Huaxtec culture 

 along the shores of Tamaulipas and Texas to our southern mound 

 builders. 



During the fiscal year Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist, com- 

 pleted the translations of stories from his Koasati. Alabama, Hit- 

 chiti, Natchez, and Creek texts, and added to them the stories ob- 

 tained only in English and those in the Tuggle collection; he pro- 

 vided these stories with footnotes referring to similar tales among 

 other tribes, and prepared an introduction for the whole. In addi- 

 tion to this work he has edited and largely recast a manuscript on 

 Indian trails by the late Mr. W. E. Myer. Also, with the assistance 

 of Miss Atkins, he has begun incorporating into an alphabetical 

 card index all words in the Timucua language contained in the re- 

 ligious works of the Franciscan missionaries Pareja and Movilla — 

 nearly all that is left to us of this old Florida tongue. Nearly one- 

 third of the work has been completed. 



On the 1st of July, 1923, Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, was 

 on board the Sdgona en route to Labrador. He reached the North- 

 west River on July 4, where he found a few Nascapi Indians, one 

 from Davis Inlet, besides the ordinary Montagnais Indians of the 

 vicinity. From his work among these Indians it follows that the 

 language of the Nascapi and Davis Inlet Indians is the same, and 

 that instead of being a wholly distinct language it is nothing but a 

 Montagnais dialect. Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that the 

 dialects of the above-named Indians form a distinct unit as compared 

 to the Montagnais dialects of Lake St. John and Lake Mistassini, 

 as well as the so-called " Cree " of Rupert's House and the East Main 

 River, which really are not Cree at all but Montagnais dialects. 

 The report of some Indians to the west of the Nascapi speaking a 

 language unintelligible to them is worth investigating at a later 

 date. It may be noted that the folklore of the Indians of Labrador 

 contains more elements occurring among Central Algonquians than 

 has been suspected. The very simple social organization of the 

 Labrador Indians makes it very probable that the rather complex 

 ortranizations of the Central Algonquians are unoriginal and are 



