A PAGE OF MUSEUM HISTORY 



DEVELOPMENT DURING THE PAST THREE YEARS OF THE 

 AMERICAN MUSEUM'S WORK ON THE INDIANS OF 

 THE SOUTHWEST 



By Clark Wissler 



Photographs by Pliny E. Goddard, Howard McCormick and Joseph K. Dixon 



THERE has been much progress in the Museum's work in the South- 

 west since 1909 when Mr. Archer M. Huntington provided funds for 

 investigation and collecting among the Indians of New Mexico, 

 Arizona and Northern Mexico. Up to that time the Museum had done 

 nothing in the Southwest since the Hyde expedition (1895-1900). The work 

 of that expedition resulted chiefly in the collections obtained by the exca- 

 vation of the prehistoric ruins of Pueblo Bonito which were unique in many 

 respects. Among them we may mention the unusual number of turquoise 

 beads and mosaics and the white and black cylindrical pottery jars, all of 

 which form a part of the present permanent exhibit in the Southwest hall. 

 Aside from a few random groups of specimens this was all the Museum had 

 from the Indians of that region. The modern Pueblo Indians were repre- 

 sented by a small series of pottery, but little else, while from the Navajo 

 and Apache there was scarcely a single piece except the Douglas collection 

 of Apache baskets. 



When funds for taking up systematic work came to the Museum in 1909, 

 a plan was worked out for a vigorous attack upon the problems, both of the 

 prehistoric and the historic natives. Among the historic peoples, very 

 little had been done on the ethnology of the Rio Grande pueblos, though 

 Hopi and Zuhi, farther west had been vigorously exploited by several 

 museums. Although a great deal of collecting had been done by others 

 among the Navajo and Apache, no one had made a serious study of these 

 tribes. Several investigators had worked over a few localities containing 

 the ruins of prehistoric peoples, but notwithstanding some very competent 

 men were thus engaged, the field is so extensive that only a beginning was the 

 result. In formulating a plan for future work, the Museum desired first 

 of all, to take up problems not as yet begun by other institutions in the region, 

 and least of all to break into the field already occupied by others. It was 

 felt by all that if the Museum selected new fields its work could be made to 

 cooperate with that of other institutions and thus advance the work of 

 science as a whole. No one was then working among the Apache, Navajo 

 and Papago of the more nomadic tribes, so this culture was taken as one of 

 the problems. Dr. P. E. Goddard was called to the Museum from the 

 University of California to take up the Apache, he being the best qualified 

 man in the country for that work. His former work had been among the 



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