4 ETtlNOLOGY. 



employed in North America : that of flattening the head by pressure 

 on the forcliead, as practised among the Chinooks and other tribes ia 

 Oregon and Wa-^hington Territory, and that of elongating it, peculiar 

 to a few on the northern end of Vancouver island. 



Specimens of Art, etc. — Another department to which the In- 

 stitution wishes to direct the attention of collectors, is that of the 

 weapons, implements, and utensils, the various manufactures, orna- 

 ' ments, dresses, <fec., of the Indian tribes. 



Such a collection may naturally be arranged under three periods. 

 The first, that of the races which had already passed away before the 

 discovery of the continent by Europeans, or whose extinction may be 

 considered as coeval with that event ; next, of the tribes who have 

 disappeared with the settlement of the Atlantic States and the country 

 between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi ; and finally, that of the 

 present time, or that of the yet existing nations, confined to the north- 

 ern and western portions of the continent and to Mexico. 



It is among the last that the greatest variety exists, and of which 

 it is especially important to make immediate collections, as many 

 articles are of a perishable nature, and the tribes themselves are 

 passing away or exchanging their own manufactures for those of the 

 white race. It is hardly necessary to specify any as of particular in- 

 terest, for almost every thing has its value in giving completeness to a 

 collection. Among the most noticeable, however, are dresses and 

 ornaments, bows and arrows, lances, war-clubs, knives, and weapons 

 of all kinds, saddles with their furniture, models of lodges, parflesh 

 packing covers and bags, cradles, mats, baskets of all sorts, gambling 

 implements, models of canoes (as nearly as possible in their true pro- 

 portions), paddles, fish-hooks and nets, fish-spears and gigs, pottery, 

 pipes, the carvings in wood and stone of the Pacific coast Indians, 

 and the wax and clay models of those of Mexico, tools used in dressing 

 skins and in other manufactures, metates or stone mortars, &c., &c. 



In making these collections, care should be taken to specify the 

 tribes from which they are obtained, and where any doubt may exist, 

 the particular use to which each is applied. Thus, for instance, among 

 the Californians, one form of basket is used for holding water ; another 

 for sweeping the seeds from various plants and grasses ; a third, as 

 their receptacle during the process of collection ; a fourth, for storage ; 

 still another, in which to pound the seeds; again, one to boil the por- 

 ridge made from the flour; and finally, others as dishes from which 

 the preparation is eaten. It will also be desirable to ascertain the 

 luilian names mveu to each article. 



