REPORT OP THE SECRETARY 69 



script embraces Picurfs stories in native text such as are told to the 

 Indian children on winter evenings in their little isolated village in 

 northern New Mexico. The stories have high literary quality, and 

 many of them hold the attention of child or adult throughout. The 

 volume is thought to be practical for school use. The 12 songs ac- 

 companying the stories are beautifully rendered by Mr. Rosendo 

 Vargas, and are transcribed into musical notation by Miss H. H. 

 Roberts. 



Mr. Harrington also prepared an article on " How the World 

 Grew," which is an account of origins corresponding to the book of 

 Genesis of the Bible obtained from the Mission Indians of California. 



Mr. Cipriano Alvarado, a Quiche Indian of the highlands of 

 Guatemala, was brought to this country for the purpose of linguistic 

 study by Mr. William Gates, who kindly allowed Mr. Harrington to 

 obtain from him a large amount of text material in this language. 

 The Quiche is the direct descendant of the tongue of the ancient 

 temple builders of the Central American jungles. In working with 

 Mr. Alvarado with the kymograph, Mr. Harrington discovered that 

 the Quiche and other Mayan dialects possess tones exactly like those 

 of Chinese, and that these tones, as in the latter language, are often 

 the sole means of distinguishing words that are otherwise pho- 

 netically identical. Work was also done with Mr. Alvarado and 

 Mr. Gates on the pallophotophone, a machine recently invented by 

 Professor Hoxie, of the General Electric Co. The pallophotophone 

 proved of the greatest value for the study of tones in Indian and 

 other languages, and its reproduction of the voice is true for all the 

 sounds, even including s, h, and those of like timbre which are im- 

 perfectly rendered on the phonograph. 



On May 3 Mr. Harrington proceeded to Santa Barbara, Calif., for 

 the purpose of continuing his researches on the Indians of that State. 

 He succeeded in finding good informants for Indian songs as well as 

 stories and place names and obtained a large quantity of manuscript 

 material. This material consists of myths, place names, historical 

 notes, accounts of early life and customs, genealogies, and Indian 

 songs. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology is doing cooperative work 

 with the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, of New 

 York City, which obtained permission from the Hotel Ambassador 

 Corporation to excavate the famous Burton Mound on the beach at 

 Santa Barbara. This mound has always been known as the site of 

 the principal rancheria of the Santa Barbara Indians, but former 

 owners of the property refused permission to excavate it, and when 

 the Potter Hotel was erected in 1901 hope of archaeological investi- 

 gation seemed forever lost. The site was unexpectedly made again 



