56 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
sion of Anthropology and Psychology, National Research Council. 
Dr. Roberts’ report of the work of the River Basin Surveys during 
the fiscal year appears in another section of this report. 
Dr. John P. Harrington, ethnologist, continued the revision of his 
grammar of the Maya language. Study of sources and the vast 
literature on the subject shows that there were 10 linguistic stocks in 
southern México and Central America that had Maya-style hiero- 
glyphic writing. The work also included revision of a previous paper 
on Maya hieroglyphs. 
A study incident to this Maya work was the determination of the 
origin of the word “Maya.” This word appears first in the letter written 
by Bartholomew Columbus in 1506 telling of the fourth voyage of 
Columbus. The letter employs the spelling “Mayam” which is 
clearly derived from the native Maya name for Yucatdén, Mayab. 
During the winter a paper was prepared on the names “Tiwa”’ and 
“Tewa,” designations of two languages in New Mexico. Early in the 
spring Dr. Harrington prepared a series of six maps of America show- 
ing the meanings of State, province, and country names. 
On April 14 Dr. Harrington left Washington for Old Town, Maine, 
to pursue ethnological and linguistic studies on the Abnaki Indians. 
He was engaged in this project at the end of the fiscal year. 
Dr. Henry B. Collins left Washington in June for the Arctic, having 
been invited by the Canadian Government to conduct archeological 
excavations with the assistance of Colin Thacker of the National 
Museum of Canada at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island, where Charles 
Francis Hall in 1868 had reported ancient Eskimo house ruins and 
where a large group of Eskimo now live. The Eskimo ruins were 
found—buried remains of semisubterranean houses made of stones, 
whale bones, and turf. Excavation showed that the site had been 
occupied successively by Eskimo of both the prehistoric Dorset and 
Thule cultures. Comparison with other prehistoric Eskimo sites 
indicated that the Dorset phase represented is one of the earliest of 
that culture known. The Thule phase, which followed the Dorset, is 
likewise early, showing close affinities with northern Alaska, its place 
of origin. In addition to the archeological work, measurements were 
obtained and photographs taken of 80 adult Eskimo—40 males and 
40 females—at Frobisher Bay. This was the first anthropometric 
study to be made of the present-day Baffin Island Eskimo. 
In Washington Dr. Collins continued as anthropological adviser for 
the Encyclopaedia Arctica, which Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson is pre- 
paring for the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Collins’ term of office as 
Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arctic Institute of North 
America terminated at the end of the calendar year 1948, but he con- 
tinued as chairman of the directing committee for the Institute’s 
