172 



BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGT 



[I 



Gallatin later on, manifested his deep in- 

 terest in the ethnology of the American 

 tribes by publishing accounts of his ob- 

 servations that are of extreme value 

 to-day. In 1820 Rev. Jedidiah Morse 

 was commissioned by the President to 

 make a tour for the purpose of "ascer- 

 taining, for the use of the Government, 

 the actual state of the Indian tribes 

 of our country." The Government also 

 aided the puljlication of Schoolcraft's 

 voluminous work on the Indians. The 

 various War Department expeditions 

 and surveys had reported on the tribes 

 and monuments 

 encountered i n 

 the W . ; t h e 

 Hayden Survey 

 of the Territo- 

 ries had exam- 

 ined and cle- 

 scribed many of 

 the cliff-dwell- 

 ings and pue- 

 blos, and had 

 published p a - 

 pers on the tri hes 

 of the Missis- 

 sippi valley, and 

 Maj. Powell, as 

 chief of the Sur- 

 vey of the Rocky 

 Mountain Re- 

 gion, had ac- 

 complished im- 

 portant work 

 among thetribes 

 of the Rio Colo- 

 rado drainage in 

 connection with 

 his geological 

 and geographic- 

 al researches, 

 and had com- 

 menced a series 

 of publications 

 known as Con- 

 tributions to 

 North A merican 

 Ethnology. The 

 Smithsonian In- 

 stitution had al- 

 so taken an ac- 

 tive part in the publication of the results 

 of researches undertaken Ijy private stu- 

 dents. The first volume of its Contribu- 

 tions to Knowledge is The Ancient Monu- 

 ments of the Mississippi Valley, by Squier 

 and Davis, and up to the founding of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology the Institution had 

 issued upward of 600 ]iapers on ethnology 

 and archeology. These early researches 

 had taken a wide range, but in a some- 

 what unsystematic way, and Maj. Powell, 

 on taking charge of the Bureau, began 

 the task of classifying the subject-matter 

 of the entire aboriginal field and the 



POWELL, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF 

 ETHNOLOGY 



selection of those subjects that seemed to 

 require immediate attention. There were 

 numerous problems of a practical nature 

 to be dealt with, and at the same time 

 many less strictly practical but none the 

 less important problems to be considered. 

 Some of the practical questions were 

 readily approached, t)ut in the main they 

 were so involved with the more strictly 

 scientific questions that the two could not 

 be considered separately. 



From its inception the Government has 

 had before it problems arising from the 

 presence within its domain, as dependent 

 wards, of more 

 than 300,000 ab- 

 origines. In the 

 main the ditii- 

 culties encoun- 

 tered in solving 

 these prol)lems 

 arose from a lack 

 of knowledge of 

 the distribution, 

 numbers, rela- 

 tionships, and 

 languages of the 

 tribes, and a real 

 appreciation of 

 their character, 

 culture status, 

 needs, and possi- 

 bilities. It was 

 recognized that 

 a knowledge of 

 these elements 

 lies at the very 

 foundation of in- 

 telligent admin- 

 istration, and 

 thus one of the 

 important ob- 

 jects in organiz- 

 ing the Bureau of 

 Ethnology was 

 that of obtaining 

 such knowledge 

 of the tribes as 

 would enable 

 the several 

 branches of the 

 Government to 

 know and ap- 

 preciate the aboriginal population, and 

 that at the same time would enable the 

 people generally to give intelligent ad- 

 ministration sympathetic support. An 

 essential step in this great work was that 

 of locating the tribes and classifying them 

 in such manner as to make it possible to 

 assemljle them in harmonious groups, 

 based on relationship of blood, language, 

 customs, beliefs, and grades of culture. It 

 was found that within the area with which 

 the nation has to deal there are spoken 

 some 500 Indian languages, as distinct from 

 one anotheras French isfromfenglish, and 



THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN 



