HENDERSON r 
eee ETHNOZOOLOGY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 9 
generations with modern scientific ideas of species, their interrela- 
tions, and the development of various groups of species from com- 
mon sources. In discussing such matters, one’s words, whether 
one speaks in his own language or attempts to apply a primitive 
language, represent definite mental concepts, but may convey to 
primitive people, who have not such concepts, ideas quite foreign 
to those intended. So also we are in constant danger of uncon- 
sciously injecting our own concepts into the words used by our 
informants in expressing their ideas. It is exceedingly difficult to 
question them about abstract ideas without framing the queries so as 
to suggest one’s own views and thus color the replies. 
Care must be taken to avoid mistaking descriptive or comparative 
terms for names. When an Indian informant is shown a foreign 
species with which he is not familiar, he may, as is the case with a 
representative of any other race, designate it by what appears to be 
a name but which on analysis proves to be a descriptive or com- 
parative word or phrase and not a native name for the species, as 
when a small white marine shell is exhibited and a word is applied 
which means that it looks hike bone. 
That the Indians have been close observers of animals is shown 
by the fact that they have developed names for almost all the parts of 
birds and mammals, as claws, whiskers, foot-pads, etc. 
If work in ethnozoology is to be maintained on a. scientific 
basis and an accurate estimate made of the Indian’s knowledge of 
Nature, definite determinations of the species of plants and animals 
discussed must be made. Much of the work hitherto done in obtain- 
ing the names of plants and animals has been worthless, because no 
attempt was made to discover and record with certainty the kind 
of plants and animals to which the names are applied. Much 
more important than mere nomenclature is the idea of which nomen- 
clature is but an attempted expression. The best way certainly is 
to get the information in the field, so far as possible by showing the 
Indian informants the animal in its natural environment. Specimens 
thus identified and discussed should then be scientifically identified 
and preserved for future reference. 
CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS 
There is no word meaning ‘animal’. ’Anima@y or animal (<Span. 
animal) is sometimes heard. 
No word meaning ‘mammal’ is in use. Bats are considered birds. 
Towa, ‘human being’, distinguishes man from other animals, and 
sometimes Tewa or again all Indians from other kinds of men. 
He: pay now applies to large domestic animals, as horses, cattle, 
swine. What it referred to in pre-European times is uncertain. 
