XVIIT BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



similar, but in which they differed essentially from those 

 of other regions. In this way he defined an ethnic dis- 

 trict and established standards for the guidance of future 

 investigation and also for the localization of ill -labeled 

 specimens in museums; for many collectors have been 

 content to label specimens of symbolic pottery and other 

 objects "Arizona," "Pueblo region." or by other large 

 and indefinite political or natural divisions, thereby 

 confusing important symbolic distinctions and ethnic 

 districts. 



As his investigations of the symbolic types progressed, 

 Dr Fewkes became more deei^ly impressed than any pre- 

 decessor with the persistence of motives and the regidar- 

 ity of their evolutional lines; and he conceived, in a 

 d.efinite and constructive way, the possibility of tracing 

 prehistoric migrations by means of the decorative symbols, 

 that is, of employing symbolic devices as prehistoric rec- 

 ords, reading from them the tale of tribal movements 

 before the coming of Coronado — he conceived the possi- 

 bility of coordinating the archeologic record as taught bj^ 

 symbols with tribal traditions, and the double advantage 

 of mutual verification between tradition and symbolic 

 record. Proceeding in accordance with these ideas, he 

 obtained from living Hopi men traditions of a former 

 residence of their ancestors at a locality which they called 

 Homolobi, and by excavations he identified this site and 

 verified the traditions, thereby extending his knowledge 

 of the evolution of the symbolic types ; for the Homolobi 

 collections (now in the National Museum) not only abo.und 

 in decorated ware, but are notably rich in symbols suscep- 

 tible of interpretation. Subsequent exploration brought 

 him to the site of a ruin on Chevlon creek, where excava- 

 tion revealed another stage in the same genei*al line of 

 symbolic development, which corroborated the vague and 

 shadowy tradition that Hopi clans once inhabited this site. 

 He later sought a locality noted in still vaguer migration 

 legends, and was gratified by finding near Chaves pass 

 the archeologic record of this stage in migration inscribed 



