REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 63 



phonetically the material extracted from Fetter, with the result that 

 it is now possible to formulate the transforming phonetic shifts with 

 greater nicety. He also measured a number of Cheyenne. Though 

 the number is not yet large enough to be absolutely decisive in a 

 statistical sense, there is good reason to believe that the vault of 

 their skulls is low, thus resembling the Dakota Sioux rather than 

 most Algonquian tribes. Some new data on Cheyenne social life 

 and mythology were obtained. It was his privilege to consult with 

 some other anthropologists in Oklahoma and to visit one museum. 



John P. Harrington, ethnologist, was engaged during the summer 

 of 1930 in the preparation of his report on the Indians who were 

 brought together at San Juan Bautista Mission in the first half of 

 the nineteenth century b}^ the Spanish-speaking padres from various 

 parts of San Benito County, Calif., and the adjacent region. A valu- 

 able vocabulary of the language, recorded by Father Felipe Arroyo 

 de la Cuesta, had already been published by the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution in the sixties of the last century, but aside from this vocabu- 

 lary there was little or nothing in print on these Indians. Elaborat- 

 ing a wealth of material obtained from Mrs. Asccncion Solorsano, 

 the last San Juan Indian who spoke the language, who died in 

 January, 1930, Mr. Flarrington prepared a report on all phases of 

 the life of these Indians, as far as reconstructable. This report tells 

 of the remarkable way in which the language and partial ethnog- 

 raphy were rescued from this sole survivor, and then proceeds to 

 the history, geography, and customs of the tribe, including all that 

 could be learned of former religion, ceremony, and mythology. 



Mrs. Solorsano was an Indian herb doctor, and a feature of the 

 work during the summer of 1929 had been to obtain specimens and 

 information to cover the ethnobotany of the tribe. Further speci- 

 mens were obtained in the summer of 1930 by Mrs. Dionisia Mon- 

 dragon and Miss Marta J. Herrera, daughter and granddaughter of 

 Mrs. Solorsano, and these were all identified by C. V. Morton, of the 

 National Herbarium. This section gives the treatment for curing 

 some 60 different ailments wnth these herbs and by other curious 

 means. It forms a nucleus for making comparative studies in 

 Indian medicine. 



At the end of January, 1931, Mr. Harrington left for California 

 for the purpose of continuing his studies in this region, this time 

 specializing on the Esselen and Antoniano Indians in the southern 

 part of Monterey County. Taking the specimens of San Juan 

 Bautista plants with him and arriving in wild-flower season, a thor- 

 ough collecting of plants was rewarded with a great mass of in- 

 formation which further elucidated much of the San Juan plant 

 material. This collecting was done in several places in southern 

 Monterey County and simultaneously in San Benito County. Seeds 



