8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, took up the critical 
analysis and constructive rearrangement of the three differ- 
ing versions of the Eulogy of the Founders of the League of 
the Iroquois, obtamed by him, respectively, from the late 
Seneca federal chief, John Arthur Gibson; the late Mr. 
Joshua Buck, Onondaga shaman, of Onondaga-Tutelo ex- 
traction; and chief emeritus Abram Charles, of the Cayuga 
Tribe—all of Ontario, Canada. 
This Eulogy of the Founders is a very long chant and one 
of marked difficulty to render accurately. In his report for 
last year it was stated that the long-standing disruption of 
the several tribes composing the league had led to the break- 
ing up of the parts thereof and loss of traditions concerning 
the principles and structure of the league; hence there are 
differing versions of most important rituals. In the tribal 
organization the federal chiefs were organized into several 
groups with definite political relationships, which differing 
relationships implied naturally corresponding differences in 
duties and obligations for the several persons so politically 
related. 
But since the disruption of the political integrity of the 
tribes of the league and of the league itself by the events of 
the war of the American Revolution these relationships have 
become more or less confused in the minds of the people, 
and hence the great difficulty in determining from the in- 
formants of to-day the correct sequence of the names and the 
exact political relationships subsisting among the several 
chiefships. This accounts for the difficulties encountered in 
editing the three variant versions of the eulogy. 
In view of works recently published on the genetic relation- 
ship of certain linguistic stocks of California and other 
North American linguistic stocks, and as a result of a con- 
ference of the staff of the bureau early in December on late 
linguistic work in California Mr. Hewitt critically examined 
the methods and the evidences for relationship relating to 
the Yuman, the Serian, the Tequistlatecan, the Waicuran, the 
Shahaptian, the Lutuamian, and the Waiilatpuan, claimed 
in recent publications by Doctor Radin and Doctor Kroe- 
