REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 51 



lived in it, an adjacent cliff dwelling afforded every indication that 

 it was inhabited by at least two clans. New Fire House belongs to 

 the same group of ceremonial buildings as Sun Temple, except that 

 it is situated in a cliff and not on top of the mesa. 



The features that have led to the identification of this ruin as one 

 devoted to New Fire rites are the large walled fire pit full of ashes in 

 the middle of the court and the resemblances of phallic and other 

 pictures on the walls of the rooms to those still surviving among the 

 Hopi in the New Fire cult. 



Mr. James Mooney, ethnologist, remained in the office throughout 

 the year, engaged chiefly in the elaboration of material relating to the 

 Heraldry of the Kiowa and the Peyote Cult of the Southern Plains 

 tribes. 



In connection with the preparation of the Denig Assiniboin manu- 

 script for publication, a correspondence was carried on with members 

 of the Denig family and others for the purpose of gathering all avail- 

 able information concerning the history and personality of the author. 

 A valuable complement to the Denig work is the German manuscript 

 journal of the Swiss artist, Friedrich Kurz, Avho visited the upper 

 Missouri in 1851-52, spending some months with Denig at Fort Union. 

 A copy of the original journal, now in the museum of Bern, was 

 made some years ago by direction of Mr. David I. Bushnell, jr., who 

 sold it to the bureau. 



The usual amount of correspondence in answer to requests for va- 

 ried ethnologic information received attention. Among these may be 

 noted requests from the War Department for Indian designs for regi- 

 mental flags for two newly organized regiments. 



In the latter part of October and throughout November, 1919, Dr. 

 John R. Swanton, ethnologist, was at Anadarko, Okla., where 

 he recorded about 270 pages of text in the Wichita language and 

 100 in Kichai, besides considerable vocabulary material in both. 

 It should be remarked that the Kichai language is rapidly becoming 

 extinct, being now spoken fluently by not over a dozen persons. 



During the summer preceding this expedition he was engaged in the 

 extraction and card-cataloguing of words from his Natchez texts, 

 and after his return he prepared a grammatical sketch of the Natchez 

 language, complete as far as the material on hand will permit, but 

 withheld from publication for a final review with the help of Indian 

 informants. This language is now spoken by only three persons. 



He also completed a sketch of the Chitimacha language, the rough 

 draft of which had already been prepared, and began the extraction 

 and recording of words from his texts in the Koasati language. 



Part of his time has been occupied in correcting the proofs of his 

 Bulletin 73, on the Early History of the Creek Indians and Their 

 Neighbors. 



