XXXIV BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOIiO&Y 



During his Southwestern expedition Mr McGee found 

 opportunity to witness certain ceremonies of the Yaki 

 Indians, which were of interest partly because the tribe 

 has been Httle studied, partly by reason of the prominence 

 of zoic motives in the vocalization and instrumentation, 

 as well as in the gestui-es and movements of the cere- 

 monial dance. In portions of the ceremony each actor 

 impersonated an animal. He wore a headdress (not 

 extended into a mask, as among more northerly tribes) 

 consisting of a scalp, with ears, horns, and other append- 

 ages of the animal kind, and leggings abundantly deco- 

 rated with claws or hoofs of the same animal. He carried 

 a rattle or flute, used to imitate the voice of the tutelary 

 or the sound of its movements, while he imitated its notes 

 of alarm, fright, pain, and pleasure with his own voice, 

 and mimicked its corresponding movements ; yet in other 

 parts of the ceremony the same actors passed by carefully 

 graded stages into the strictly conventional movements of 

 a dance involving collective action of considerable com - 

 plexity. Briefly, the ceremony seemed to be character- 

 ized by a remarkalile combination of symbolic and con- 

 ventional features, indicating an exceptional range from 

 the primitive impersonation to the formal figures and 

 movements attending moderately advanced culture. 



Mr James Mooney continued his researches relating to 

 the mythology of the Cherokee Indians, making good 

 progress in the collection of additional material in the 

 field, as well as in the extension of comparisons between 

 the myths of the Cherokee and those of other tribes and 

 peoples. The application of comparative study to jnimi- 

 tive mythology is proving liighlj" instructive and useful. 

 In the infancy of ethnologic research students were fre- 

 quently struck by the discovery of activital parallels, or 

 similarities, among more or less remote peoples, and were 

 led thereby to infer previous contact, or even closer rela- 

 tionship, between the peoples; but as study progressed 

 and new parallels were discovered, even among the 

 remotest peoples of the earth, the verity of the inference 

 came to be questioned, and finally the law of activital 



