36 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



Grande was a shallow reef when Columbus visited Cuba, and could not have 

 been inhabited at that time. The discoverer passed very near it on his second 

 voyage, when his course lay from the Isle of Pines to Jamaica, but he reported 

 neither name nor people. 



Dr. Fewkes returned to Washington in April and spent the remainder of the 

 year in completing his report on Casa Grande. 



Dr. John R. Swanton. ethnologist, devoted the first quarter of the year 

 chiefly to collecting material from libraries and archives, as the basis of his 

 study of the Creek Indians. From the latter part of September until early in 

 December he was engaged in field research among the Creek, Natchez, Tonkawa, 

 and Alibamu Indians in Oklahoma and Texas, and also remained a short time 

 with the remnant of the Tunica and Chitimacha in Louisiana, and made a few 

 side trips in search of tribes which have been lost to sight within recent years. 

 On his return to "Washington, Dr. Swanton transcribed the linguistic and 

 ethnologic material collected during his field excursion, read the proofs of 

 Bulletins 44, 46, and 47, added to the literary material regarding the Creek 

 Indians, collected additional data for a tribal map of the Indians of the United 

 States, and initiated a study of the Natchez language with the special object 

 of comparing it with the other dialects of the Muskhogean family. Dr. Swan- 

 ton also spent some time in studying the Chitimacha and Tunica languages. 



From July, 1910, until the middle of April, 1911, Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, 

 ethnologist, was engaged in the completion of a paper on Dress and Adorn- 

 ment of the Pueblo Indians, in the elaboration of her report on Zuni Plants 

 and Their Uses, and in transcribing her field notes pertaining to Zuni religious 

 concepts and the mythology and ethnology of the Taos Indians. 



Mrs. Stevenson left Washington on April 12 and proceeded directly to the 

 country of the Tewa Indians, in the valley of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, 

 for the purpose of continuing her investigation of those people. Until the close 

 of the fiscal -year her energies were devoted to the pueblo of San Udefonso and 

 incidentally to Santa Clara, information particularly in regard to the Tewa 

 calendar system, ceremonies, and material culture being gained. Mrs. Steven- 

 son finds that the worship of the San Udefonso Indians includes the same 

 celestial bodies as are held sacred by the Zuni and other Pueblos. From the 

 foundation laid during her previous researches among the Tewa, Mrs. Steven- 

 son reports that she has experienced little difficulty in obtaining an insight 

 into the esoteric life of these people, and is daily adding to her store of 

 knowledge respecting their religion and sociology. A complete record of 

 obstetrical practices of the Tewa has been made, and it is found that they are 

 as elaborate as related practices of the Taos people. The San Udefonso in- 

 habitants do not seem to have changed their early customs regarding land 

 tenure, and they adhere tenaciously to their marriage customs and birth rites, 

 notwithstanding the long period during which missionaries have been among 

 them. It is expected that, of her many lines of study among the Tewa tribes, 

 the subject of their material culture will produce the first results for publi- 

 cation. 



After completing some special articles on ethnologic topics for the closing 

 pages of Part 2 of the Handbook of American Indians, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, 

 ethnologist, pursued the study of the history of the tribes formerly dwelling 

 in the Susquehanna and upper Ohio valleys. Progress in these researches was 

 interrupted by the necessity of assigning him to the editorial revision and 

 annotation of a collection of 120 legends, traditions, and myths of the Seneca 

 Indians, recorded in 1S84 and 1885 by the late Jeremiah Curtin. At the close 

 of the year this work was far advanced, only about 150 pages of a total of 

 1,400 pages remaining to be treated. It is designed to publish this material. 



