36 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



sports, games, and fine arts. The definitions and the classification of esthetology 

 have been forniulated and printed in such manner as to facilitate examination and 

 further (hscussion on the part of the collaborators of the Bureau and other students, 

 with a view to final revision and incorporation in a future report, embracing the 

 more systematic results of the researches. 



In continuing his researches concerning the collections made in the Florida muck- 

 beds, Mr. Frank Hatnilton Gushing has been led to comparative study of a wide 

 range of those products of primitive handicraft expressing symbolic ideas in form, 

 function, and decoration; and certain of his generalizations are of much importance 

 in that they afford a satisfactory basis for the classification and interpretation of many 

 of the protean artifacts of primitive origin. His researches indicate that the primi- 

 tive implement-maker is actuated by a few dominant ideas, influenced largely by 

 habit, and measurably controlled by simple associations; so that the products of his 

 handiwork, when arranged by function and motive, may readily be grouped in a 

 limited nundier of categories, which are, at the same time, convenient and significant. 

 The type of ideative association is exempli Hed by the tomahawk-calumet, which is 

 at once a war weapon and an appurtenance of peace, and hence serves as a symbolic 

 exjjression of willingness for war and readiness for peace, at the option of the other 

 party; the war concept is emi)hasized by decorative motives, usually derived from 

 strong and swift animals, while the peace concept is strengthened by emblems in the 

 form of feathers of small birds or other decorative symbols derived from gentle ani- 

 mals; and the antithetic symbolism serves to keep alive the opposing sentiments of 

 amity and enmity in the primitive mind. In this and other cases, the recognition of 

 motive on the part of the maker enables the student to reduce the chaos of protean 

 forms of primitive artifacts to definite order. Although his work has been somewhat 

 retarded by ill health, Mr. Cushing's progress in researches has been satisfactory, and 

 some of his more important results are ready for publication. 



When compelled to abandon fieldwork, for reasons already noted. Dr. J. Walter 

 Fewkes turned attention to the collections made during earlier seasons, and began 

 the preparation of a memoir on the decorative symbolism of Pueblo pottery. This 

 memoir was nearly ready for publication at the close of the fiscal year; it embraces 

 various new interj^retations of importance, the account of which is reserved for a 

 future report. 



WORK IN TECHNOLOGY. 



As before noted, the Director made observations on the aboriginal technology 

 revealed in the contents of shell mounds and tumuli of Maine during the earlier part 

 of the fiscal year; and these observations, with other data, were subsequently utilized 

 in defining the science. The technical activities are intimately interrelated, and 

 combine to form a complex group, which is commonly assumed to be irresolvable 

 with scientific precision, but the relations of the activities are so well displayed in 

 primitive culture like that of the American aborigines as to suggest a convenient 

 arrangement for the use of investigators, and such an arrangement has been formu- 

 lated and placed within reach of the collaborators and others for subjection to the 

 test of actual use. In this arrangement, industries are classified as (1) simple pro- 

 duction or substantiation, (2) construction, (3) mechanics, (4) commerce, and (5) 

 the preservation, reconstruction, and improvement of the human body by a series 

 of processes conveniently connoted by the term medicine. Provision has been made 

 for completing and adding details to the outline already prepared, in a form suitable 

 for publication in a future report. 



Mr. Cushing's researches have served to illumine those early stages in the growth 

 of industries in which utility was but vaguely perceived, and in which processes were 

 largely ceremonial or symbolic, as when the hunter sought success by imitating the 

 attitude and actions, or by arming himself with the beak or claws of a raptorial 



