ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT. XLIII 



were not dwarfisli but rather taller than the average Euro- 

 peans, only one adult male being under five feet eight inches 

 in height; that they are not dark except when sunburnt, 

 bleaching to wdiite in the winter ; also, that they never drink 

 seal oil or whale oil, or indeed any oil uncombined with edible 

 substances, except as laxative medicine, and never eat raw 

 meat when they have the opportunity to cook it. In these 

 respects, as in others, it is shown that they are not an abnor- 

 mal part of mankind, and that their peculiarities chiefly arise 

 from their environment. 



A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS, BY J. OWEN DORSEY. 



In May, 1871, the Reverend James Owen Dorsey commenced 

 mission work, in the southern part of the region then called 

 Dakota Territory, among the Ponka Indians. Actuated by 

 an earnest desire to acquaint himself full}' with primitive 

 modes of thought and aided by a taste for linguistic study, 

 he was led to acquire first the language and afterward the crude 

 philosophy of these Indians. His work was continued until 

 August, 1873, when it was interrupted by illness. In July, 

 1878, he repaired to the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska for 

 the purpose of increasing his fund of linguistic material; and 

 here again his skill in linguistics and his sympathetic disposi- 

 tion enabled him with signal success to span the chasm separ- 

 ating primitive thought from the ideation of civilized men. 

 Thus he was enabled to enter fully into the spirit of the insti- 

 tutions and customs of the Indians of the plains. 



On the organization of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879, 

 Mr. Dorsey was formally attached to it, and has since been con- 

 tinuously occupied in researches relating to the languages, 

 institutions, and beliefs of the Indians of the interior, chiefly 

 those of the Siouan and Athapascan stocks; and he has 'become 

 one of the foremost living students of our aboriginal languages, 

 and, retaining in some measure his evangelical functions, he 

 has been peculiarly fortunate in obtaining data relating to 

 aboriginal beliefs. 



The term "cult," as used by Mr. Dorsey and most other 

 students of the Indian, has come to include, not simply the 



