258 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



in any region depends much on the climate and the natural productions 

 of that region. The arctic provinces have one culture, the tropical 

 another; the arid plains have one group of activities, the humid regions 

 another. The inland district has a race of hunters and develops hunt- 

 ing arts; the maritime people becomes a race of fishers and develops 

 fishers' arts, and so on. Culture is thus so much the outgrowth of the 

 region that its products may be assembled by geographical areas, and 

 these may be large or small as occasion demands. The continents, 

 great islands, and groups of islands are subdivided into minor areas. 

 These an 1 called by anthropologists "specialization areas,"' because the}^ 

 have given special characters to the culture developed within them. 

 They have nothing to do with political lines, and they disregard mod- 

 ern civilization because it has broken over all natural limits and by 

 means of railroads and ships carries its generalized culture to the ends 

 of the earth. But as these areas are largely those in which special- 

 ized cultures have had their inception and earhy development, it is by 

 these that the student can best study and the curator can best illustrate 

 the phenomena of humanity. Within the space assigned to each of 

 these geographic groups in the museum should be assembled illustra- 

 tions of everything the area produces, no matter what the race, the 

 nation, the culture stage, or the time represented, excepting always 

 the intrusive generalized elements of civilization which must be treated 

 separately in museums of national histoid. 



Geo-ethnic ai^rangement. — Now, the museum materials intended to 

 illustrate a given geographic-ethnic territory should be such in char- 

 acter and so arranged that the student or visitor passing through the 

 hall or halls in which they are installed may gather quickly a clear 

 impression of the people and the culture of the area represented. I say 

 first ''people, 11 because after all it is the people we are stud} r ing, and a 

 displa}" of all the culture phenomena of a region without some definite 

 illustration of the people concerned would be wholly unsatisfactory. 

 The man himself as he appears in his everyday life is the best illus- 

 tration of his own place in history, for his physical aspect, the expres- 

 sion of his face, the care of his person, his clothes, his occupations, 

 his general appearance and social relations tell the story with much 

 clearness. 



So, since we can not display the people themselves, we should begin 

 each of our ethnical exhibits by building a lay-figure group, showing 

 a typical family of the area illustrated — the men, the women, and the 

 children engaged in ordinary occupations and surrounded by the 

 things they make and use and love. Physical characters should be 

 portrayed with all possible accuracy, and a correct impression of the 

 disposition and social attitude of the members of the group should be 

 given. Around this family group should be arranged in separate 

 cases series of objects illustrating the arts, industries, and history of 

 the people represented. 



