EXHIBIT AT PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 201 



save in a few cases. It is therefore fell that the exhibil is not yet 

 complete an<l that many changes will be necessary to briny- it up to a 

 satisfactory standard. It was impossible, in the short time allotted 



for the work, to secure life masks of the people, save in a very few 

 cases, hut the sculptors were required to reproduce the physical type 

 in each instance as accurately as the available drawings and photo- 

 graphs would permit. Especial effori was made to give a correct 

 impression of the group as a whole, rather than to present portraits of 

 individuals, which can be better presented in other ways. Life masks, 

 as ordinarily taken, convey no clear notion of tin; people. The faces 

 are distorted and expressionless, the eyes are closed, and the lips 

 compressed. Like the ordinary studio photograph of primitive 

 sitters, the mask serves chiefly to misrepresent the native countenance 

 and disposition; besides, the individual face is not necessarily a good 

 type of a group. Good types may, however, be worked out by the 

 skilful artist and sculptor, who alone can adequately presenl these 

 little-understood people as they really are and with reasonable unity 

 in pose and expression. 



The lack of appropriate and complete costumes, especially for the 

 women and children, proved the most serious drawback. An attempt 

 was made to remedy this by sending collectors to the field, but only 

 one of four expeditions sent out returned in time to be of service in 

 the preparation of this exhibit. 



It is well understood that for exposition purposes the assemblage of 

 family groups — or larger units of the living peoples would be far 

 superior to lay-figure exhibits. The real family, clothed in its own 

 costumes, engaged in its own occupations, and surrounded by its 

 actual belongings, would form the best possible illustration of a peo- 

 ple; but such an exhibit, covering the whole American Held, would 

 require much time for its preparation as well as the expenditure of 

 large sums of money. Furthermore, from the museum point of view, 

 the creation of a set of adequate and artistic lay-figure groups forms a 

 permanent exhibit which, set up in the museum, continues to please 

 and instruct for generations; whereas the real people, howsoever 

 well assembled, must scatter at the close of the exposition, and nothing 

 is left for future museum display. Such assemblages of our native 

 peoples as those of the World's Columbian, the Trans-Mississippi, and 

 the Pan-American expositions are highly interesting and instructive, 

 but their influence is soon lost, since they reach onPj the audience o\' 

 the season. 



Future expositions may essay the bringing together of living repre- 

 sentatives of type tribes, scientifically presented and free from the 

 commercial incubus, but to secure satisfactory results the work must 

 needs begin not less than two years before the opening of the expo 

 sition. 



