18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



low in culture and without agriculture. His observations 

 support the belief that this people were in that condition 

 when Columbus visited the Isle of Pines and that they were 

 survivors of the Guanahatibibes, a cave-dwelling popula- 

 tion formerly occupying the whole of Cuba and re^i resented 

 in Porto Rico and other islands of the West Indies. 



Doctor Fewkes also visited several of the coral keys 

 southwest of the Isle of Pines, but, finding no aboriginal 

 traces, he crossed the channel to Cayman Grande, about 250 

 miles from Nueva Gerona. The Cajmian group consists 

 of coral islands built on a submarine continuation of 

 the mountains of Santiago Province, Cuba. A cave with 

 Indian bones and pottery, probably of Carib origin, was 

 found near Boddentown on the eastern end of the island, 

 and a few stone implements were obtained from natives, 

 but as these specimens may have been bi'ought from adja- 

 cent shores they afford little evidence of a former aborigi- 

 nal population of Cayman Grande. The elevation of the 

 Cayman Islands, computed from the annual accretion, 

 would indicate that Cayman Grande was a shallow reef 

 when Colimibus visited Cuba, and could not have been in- 

 habited at that time. The discoverer passed very near it 

 on his second voyage, when his course lay from the Isle of 

 Pines to Jamaica, but he reported neither name nor people. 



Doctor Fewkes returned to Washington in April and 

 spent the remainder of the year in completing his report on 

 Casa Grande. 



Dr. John R. Swanton, ethnologist, devoted the first quar- 

 ter of the year chiefly to collecting material from libra lies 

 and archives, as the basis of his stiidy of the Creek Indians. 

 From the latter part of September until early in December 

 he was engaged in field research among the Creek, Natchez, 

 Tonkawa, and Alibamu Indians in Oklahoma and Texas, 

 and also remained a short time with the remnant of the 

 Tunica and Chitimacha in Louisiana, and made a few side 

 trips in search of tribes which have been lost to sight within 

 recent years. On his return to Washington, Doctor Swan- 

 ton transcribed the linguistic and ethnologic material col- 

 lected during his field excursion, read the proofs of Bulle- 



