406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 4 



ciated in science, have no data as to the tribes and exact localities. It 

 was thought enough to say the Rio Purus, the Rio Nt'gro, and many 

 specimens have the localization "Amazon River " ! 



In recent years several explorations of more or less extensive plan- 

 ning and facilities for ethnological research have been undertaken in 

 the area of the middle and upper Amazon and Orinoco River valleys. 

 One of the more notable of these was an expedition sent out by the 

 United States Department of Commerce to investigate the crude rub- 

 ber industry in its original home. Members of this expedition trav- 

 eled more than 20,000 miles on 37 distinct rivers of the Amazon 

 system. This expedition also ascended the Rio Branco as far as the 

 Campos country of the borderland of the Guianas. Another, the 

 Alexander Hamilton Rice Scientific Expedition, recently covered 

 the area drained by the Parima River and the headwaters of the 

 Amazon in northwestern Brazil. This expedition was accompanied 

 by the anthropologist, Dr. Koch-Gruenberg, well known for his ear- 

 lier explorations and careful observations on the ethnology of north- 

 west Brazil and Venezuela. It had as its object the surveying and 

 mapping of the Rio Branco and its western affluent, the Rio Urari- 

 coera, in order to ascertain whether any passage existed between 

 the headw^aters of this river and those of the Orinoco. The ethno- 

 logical activities of the Latin-American Expedition to eastern Peru 

 and Ecuador were in charge of M. W. Stirling, Chief of the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology, whose activities resulted in a collection of 

 type specimens of the material culture of the Chama, Jivaro, Aqua- 

 runa, and other tribes. Still another recent expedition was that con- 

 ducted by Herbert Spencer Dickey in much the same area as the one 

 just mentioned. But little has thus far been accomplished by way 

 of exploring the practically unknown area reaching from the interior 

 of the Guianas to the headwaters of the rivers draining into the 

 Amazon. 



Much of the ethnological field work among the tribes of north- 

 eastern South America has been done by European scholars, notably 

 Koch-Gruenberg, Nordenskiold, and Roth. The work of Walter 

 Edmund Roth deals mostly with the Indians of British Guiana, of 

 Arawak and Carib linguistic stocks, such as the Arecuna, Makusi, 

 the Wapisiana, and the Atorai. The Carib tribes studied by W. C. 

 Farabee, of the University of Pennsylvania, in more or less detail 

 as to environment and material culture, are the Macusis, Waiwais, 

 Waiwes, Parukutus, Kutcifinas, Chikenas, Katawians, Diaus, Tona- 

 yenas, Wakeras, Kumayenas, Urukucenas, Apalaiis, Macara, and 

 tribal remnants of the Zapara, Azumaras, and Porokotos. 



A large number of collections of ethnological specimens have been 

 accumulated by the United States National Museum from the tribes 



