IIEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 67 



In the course of liin stay in the Hopi Village, Dr. Fewkes was so fortunate as to 

 discover a series of hieratic paintings, primarily representing the tribal pantheon, 

 but connected incidentally with the tribal history. The paintings were executed by 

 an aged shaman as a sort of personal record akin to the calendars, or winter-counts, 

 which play so large, yet so obscure, a role in Indian life; and they would doubtless 

 have been sacrificed on the death of the artist had not Dr. Fewkes discovered them 

 and succeeded, after much difticulty, in securing them. The series comprises some 

 four hundred representations, mostly on separate sheets; the pictures partake of the 

 characteristics of the petroglyphs and calendaric inscriptions such as those described 

 by the late Colonel Mallery; they also present suggestive similarities to the codices 

 of more southerly regions. It is the design to incorporate the entire series, repro- 

 duced in facsimile, in an early report. 



One of the Ix'st known contributions to American aboriginal linguistics is the 

 Elliot Bible, published in the Natick language in 1685. This ctontril)ution was sup- 

 plemented in a highly notable way during the present centnrj' through the laliors of 

 the late James Hanmiond Trumbull, who compiled from the Bible, with the aid of 

 other sources of information at his command, a vocabulary of the Natick tongue. 

 Unfortunately for students, this compilation was not published, but on the death of 

 Dr. Trumbull, in 1897, it passed into the custody of the American Antiquarian 

 Society, at Worcester, Massachusetts. Here it attracted the attention of scholars 

 and publicists, including Dr. Edward Everett Hale; and it was proposed by Dr. Hale, 

 with others, to offer the manuscript to the Bureau for publication. Among the 

 scholars interested in this and cognate ])ublications relating to the aborigines was 

 the Hon. Ernest W. Roberts, Representative of the Seventh INIassachusetts district 

 in the Congress; and at his instance authority was granted for resuming the publica- 

 tion of bulletins by the Bureau. Accordingly, when Dr. Hale, early in 1900, brought 

 the valuable manuscript of the Trumbull Dictionary to Washington it was assigned 

 for publication as the first of the new series of bulletins. Before the close of the 

 fiscal year the compositon was well under way, while Dr. Hale was engaged in the 

 preparation of a liistorical introduction. 



Another contribution of the first importance to knowledge of the al)original Ameri- 

 can languages is the vocabulary of the Maya tongue, compiled during the earlier 

 decades of Spanish occupation and well known to scholars (though never 2)rinted) 

 as the Diccionario de Motul. Two or three copies of the work are extant in manu- 

 script; one of these passed into the possession of the late Dr. Carlos H. Berendt about 

 the middle of the present century, and in the course of a lengthy stay in Yucatan 

 he undertook to revise and complete the vocabulary and to bring it up to date by 

 the introduction of all Maya terms in modern use. Dr. Berendt' s additions nearly 

 doubled the volume of the original manuscript, and greatly enhanced its value; 

 unfortunately he died before his plan for publication was carried out. Before his 

 death, however, he turned the manuscript over to the late Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, of 

 Philadelphia, in order that it might he published in that ethnologist's Library of 

 Aboriginal American Literature. Finding the work too extensive for his facilities, 

 Dr. Brinton made a jirovisional arrangement, before his death, in July, 1899, to trans- 

 fer the manuscript to the Bureau; and after his decease the arrangement was carried 

 out by his legatees and executors, including the University of Pennsylvania, to which 

 institution his valuable library was bequeathed. Both the original vocabulary and 

 Dr. Berendt' s supplement are in Maya-Spanish and Spanish-Maya; and, as a neces- 

 sary preliminary to publication by the Bureau, a transcription was begun by Miss 

 Jessie E. Thomas, assistant liV^rarian, a student of the Maya language. Toward the 

 close of the fiscal year Senor Andonaro Molina, of Merida, Yucatan, an eminent 

 student of the Maya language, visited this coimtry, and, learning of the proposal to 

 publish the Diccionario de INIotul, came to Washington to proffer his services in any 

 further revision of the material that might seem desirable. His offer was gladly 



