8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
English, supplemented at points by Spanish, and implemented by a 
technical Keresan vocabulary that I have acquired over the years. 
The verbal account is supplemented wherever desirable and possible 
by drawings made by the informant. 
An ethnographic study made largely in this way has, of course, 
many shortcomings. In the first place, an enormous amount of time, 
infinite patience, tact, and perseverance are required—even to find 
someone who may eventually become an informant. After an ethnog- 
rapher has discovered and developed a few informants, he can work 
with them only when they are available, and they are often too busy 
with their farming, tending sheep, building a house, or attending to 
pueblo matters, ceremonial or governmental, to be of assistance. 
The principal reason that, in my opinion, virtually nothing is known 
today about the pueblos of San Felipe and Sandia apart from my two 
little papers (White, 1932 b; 1947 a), and almost nothing is known 
about the pueblo of Tesuque—although it is only 8 miles from Santa 
Fe on a good highway—in contrast with the numerous studies of the 
anthropologist-ridden Hopi, Zufii, and Navaho, is that no one has 
the patience and is willing to take the time to penetrate the wall of 
secrecy with which the eastern pueblos surround and protect them- 
selves. 
Another serious shortcoming is the difficulty of checking an in- 
formant’s account against actual practice. In many instances the in- 
formant will tell you what one should do according to custom and 
tradition in a certain situation. The extent to which actual behavior 
conforms to the traditional, customary ideal can be checked to a 
certain degree by interrogation, and pertinent information comes in- 
directly from the discussion of different but closely related topics. 
But no amount of questioning and discussion can wholly take the 
place of direct observation. Also, this technique of fieldwork leaves 
gaps in the record; sometimes the informant fails to tell you some- 
thing simply because it does not occur to him to mention it. Here 
again, there is no substitute for observation. 
Another shortcoming has been that all my informants have been 
men; circumstances did not permit work with women away from 
the pueblo. However, I obtained considerable nonesoteric informa- 
tion from Sia women. 
But it would be easy to exaggerate the shortcomings of fieldwork 
carried on by discussions with informants. Because I have not been 
able to witness many things directly, I have taken greater pains to 
get a complete and detailed picture from the informant. Whenever 
a diagram or a sketch would help, I have had the informant make 
one; all of these sketches have not been published in the present 
monograph, by any means. And great emphasis has been placed 
