68 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



accepted and provision was made for supplying him with copies of the transcript of 

 the vocabulary. 



During the year Dr. Franz Boas made additional contributions of importance to the 

 linguistic collections of the Bureau. He also completed a second volume of Chinook 

 texts, which would have been sent to press before the close of the fiscal year except 

 for his prospective absence in field work and consequent delay in proof revision. 

 The matter will be incorporated in an early report or bulletin. 



WORK IN SOPHIOLOGY. 



In pursuing his investigation of the time-concept of Papago Indians as noted in the 

 last report, Mr. McGee was led to a study of the relations existing between this nota- 

 bly altruistic tribe and their hard physical environment; and clear indications were 

 found that with the degree of cultural development possessed by the Papago, the 

 tendency of a severe environment is to develop altruism. At the same time it wab 

 noted that the neighboring Seri tribe, surrounded by an environment of similar char- 

 acteristics in many respects, are notably egoistic and inimical toward contemporaries; 

 and the striking differences led to further research concerning the interrelations 

 between human groups and their physical surroundings — interrelations which may 

 conveniently be styled adaptions. Now, when the study was extended to other tribes 

 it became manifest that such adaptions may be arranged in serial order, and that when 

 so arranged the Seri stand at the end of the series marking the most intimate inter- 

 action between mind and externals, while the Papago stand in the front rank of 

 aboriginal tribes as graded by power of nature-conquest; and from this point it is 

 easy to extend the scale into civilization and enlightenment, in which men control 

 rather than submit to control by their physical surroundings. The serial arrange- 

 ment of peoples in terms of relative capacity in nature-conquest can hardly be deemed 

 new, though the special examples (particularly the notably primitive Seri) are 

 peculiarly instructive; but the successive adaptions thus defined were found unex- 

 pectedly significant in measuring various degrees of interdependence between envi- 

 ronment and thought, for it became evident in the light of specific examples that 

 the habitual thought, like the habitual action of an isolated and primitive folk is a 

 continuous and continuously integrated reflection of environment. On jiursuing the 

 relations it was found that the Seri, habitually sulnnitting to a harsh environment 

 as they do, merely reflect its harshness in their conduct, and that the Papago, seek- 

 ing habituallj' to control environment in the interests of their kind as they do, are 

 raised by their efforts to higher planes of humanity. The general relation between 

 thought and surroundings was found to be of exceeding broad application, extending 

 far beyond the local tribes. Indeed, it finds most definite expression in the current 

 scientific teaching that knowledge arises in experience, and it seemed desirable to 

 formulate the relation as a principle of knowledge which may appropriately be styled 

 the responsivity of mind. The principle promises to be especially useful to ethnolo- 

 gists confronted with those suggestive similarities in artifacts, habits, and even lan- 

 guages, which were interpreted as evidences of former contact until their incongruity 

 with geographic and other facts proved them to be coincidental merely, for the inter- 

 •lependence of thought and environment offers an adequate explanation of the coin- 

 cidences, while the diminishing dependence of thought on environment with cultural 

 advancement equally exj^lains the preponderance of such coincidences among lowly 

 peoples. A preliminary announcement of the results of the study has been made, 

 but full publication is withheld pending further field work. 



Mr. James Mooney spent the greater part of the fiscal year in elaborating for pub- 

 lication the extensive collection of material made by him among the Cherokee 

 Indians several years ago. The collection comprises a nearly complete series of the 

 myths and traditions of the tribe, cosmogonic, historical, interpretative, and trivial; 

 for among the Cherokee, as among other primitive peoples, the traditions vary widely 



