ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XV 



OFFICE RESEARCH 



Work m Esthetology 



In addition to administrative duties in the office as 

 Ethnologist in Charge and part of the time as Acting 

 Director, and the field work noted, Mr McGee engaged 

 in researches relating to the primitive symbolism found 

 among the American aborigines and other lowly peoples. 

 Certain symbols are of nearly world-wide distribution, 

 and extend into several stages of culture — for example, 

 the swastika, or filfot, appears on all of the continents 

 except Australia, and its culture range extends at least 

 from higher savagery into the lower strata of civilization. 

 Before the extremely wide range of such symbols was 

 ascertained various inquirers were led to regard their use 

 as an evidence of cultural identity, and hence of the orig- 

 inal unity of the peoples among whom they were found ; 

 but since they have been observed among highly diverse 

 peoples in different stages of culture and on remote con- 

 tinents this interpretation has been modified or aban- 

 doned in large measure, and students have set themselves 

 to the task of tracing the development of the symbols in 

 particular cases. The recent researches have shown that 

 symbols of quatern character, like the swastika, express 

 or reflect modes of thought especially characteristic of 

 lower (but not lowest) culture, yet extend well into civ- 

 ilization and enlightenment. At the same time the 

 researches bring to light such diversities in the nature 

 and applications of the concepts expressed by the symbols 

 as to indicate, if not demonstrate, independent develop- 

 ment. Thus, quatern symbols abound among the Papago 

 Indians of Arizona and Sonora, as well as among several 

 neighboring tribes, yet the Papago concept is distinct, as 

 is shown by its extension to time as well as space, this 

 extension carrying such archaic features of ritual and 

 ceremony as to indicate increasing independence of the 

 concept in the genei'ations traced backward. 



