74 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



In the course of his reconnoissance of central and southern Arizona Dr. 

 Frank Russell gave especial attention to the architectural features of the 

 ruins, and defined a number of types, of which one or two are new to 

 southwestern archaeology. The work was still in progress at the close of 

 the fiscal year. 



WORK IN SOCIOLOGY. 



A portion of the year was employed ]jy the Director in reviewing the 

 abundant data in the Bureau archives relating to aboriginal institutions, 

 and in systemizing the principles of sociology in the light of these data. 

 One of the lines of inquiry, rendered important not only by inherent 

 interest but by current problems growing out of the recent expansion of 

 the territory of the United States, relates to slavery among the primitive 

 peoples, and the researches render it clear that the relationships so desig- 

 nated vary widely with intellectual plane or culture grade — indeed, the 

 social subordination of lower culture is so unlike the slavery of civilization 

 that the application of the same designation to both institutions is quite 

 misleading. In the slavery of civilization the slaves are not only aliens 

 but chattels, whose personal ownership is definitely establishe<l and main- 

 tained through laws relating to tenure, bequest, conveyance, etc., but in 

 savage society, in which personal proprietary rights are inchoate or non- 

 existent, in which the tenure inheres practically or absolutely in the 

 group, in which bequest is hardly, if at all, recognized, and in which 

 thrift sense is lacking and property sense involved Avith mythic factors, 

 such slavery is simply impossible. True, there are many recorded in- 

 stances of slavery among lower tribes, but most of these rest on casual or 

 superficial observation, or on other testimony stopping short of inquiry 

 into the precise nature of the relations between the supposed slaveholders 

 and the supposed slaves, while the convenience of the common term for 

 the expression of social inequality has contriljuted to mislead recorders 

 and (still more seriously) readers. To understand the so-called slavery of 

 savagery it is necessary to grasp the mode of social organization charac- 

 teristic of that culture grade. As shown chiefly through the researches 

 among the American aborigines, such organization is based primarily on 

 consanguinity (actual or imputed), and secondarily on age; and the rela- 

 tions growing out of these factors are kept constantly in the mind of every 

 member of each clan and tribe by habitual forms of a^ldress. So the con- 

 stituent individuals of a given clan are fathers and mothers, sons and 

 daughters, brothers and sisters, and these relationships are constantly 

 indicated in salutations, and even in ordinary conversation (the precise 

 relationship to the speaker being commonly expressed also by a pronomi- 

 nal element). At the same time it is constantly borne in mind that father 

 and son, mother and daughter, are not coordinate, the former being the 

 superior by reason of greater age; similarly brethren are classed as elder 

 brothers and younger brothers, while the female kindred of the same 

 generation are classed as elder sisters and younger sisters, and the elder 

 are always deemed superior, the younger inferior, in rank. By simple 

 and practical extension of the system, the relative ages of all persons in 

 the clan are kept in mind; and since, according to the universal usage of 



