ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT 25 



ADMINISTRATION 



Pursuant to the plans of the Secretary, the clerical and 

 laboring work of the Bureau was concentrated after the 

 removal to the Smithsonian building by placing the routine 

 correspondence and files, the accounts, the shipment of pub- 

 lications, the care of supplies and other property, and all 

 cleaning and repairs, in immediate charge of the office of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. This plan has served to simplify 

 the administration of the affairs of the Bureau, has prevented 

 duplication of effort, and has resulted in a saving of time and 

 funds. 



NOTE ON THE ACCOMPANYING PAPER 



The accompanying memoir on Tsimshian Mythology, by 

 Dr. Franz Boas, is based on a collection of myths and tales 

 recorded by the late Henry W. Tate, himself a Tsimshian. 



These stories are classed as of two distinct types — myths 

 and tales — so distinguished by the Tsimshian, as indeed by 

 all the tribes of the North Pacific coast. The incidents nar- 

 rated in the former are believed to have happened when 

 animals appeared in the form of human beings, whereas the 

 tales are historical in character, although they may contain 

 elements of the supernatural. In the myths animals ap- 

 pear as actors, and often incidents are mentioned which 

 describe the origin of some feature of the present world ; but 

 incidents of a similar character are by no means absent from 

 the tales, especially in those cases in which animals appear 

 as individual protectors and in which a supposed revelation 

 is used to explain certain customs of the people. Doctor 

 Boas calls attention to the fact ''that in the mind of the 

 Indian it is not the religious, ritualistic, or explanatory char- 

 acter of a tale that makes it a myth, but the fact that it per- 

 tains to a period when the world was different from what it 

 is now." 



Most important in the mythology of the Tsimshian are the 

 Raven myth and the Transformer myths. The incidents 

 composing the former have a very wide distribution among 

 the tribes of the North Pacific coast; indeed they may be 

 traced from the Asiatic side of Bering Strait eastward and 



