X BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



On this basis, the habits and customs of the aborigines 

 receive first attention ; and the tribesmen are classed by 

 their languages and dialects, by their forms of social 

 organization, by their systems of belief and opinion, and 

 by their arts and industries; so that the classification 

 affords a means of measuring the susceptibility of the 

 various tribes to civilization, to education, and to arrange- 

 ment on reservations in harmonious groups. The classi- 

 fication is thus essentially practical. 



The practical trilml classification rests on a definition 

 of the activities discovered among the aborigines and 

 other peoples largely during the past quai'ter- century. 

 The i^rimary activities thus discovered are esthetic ; and 

 intimately connected with these are the industrial activi- 

 ties involved in maintenance and welfare. Equally im- 

 portant are the social activities shaping the collective 

 existence of families, clans, tribes, and confederacies; 

 and the relations are regulated by linguistic activities, 

 which are highly important and indeed fundamental. 

 Coordinate with these activities of arts and industries, 

 laws and languages, are the activities connected with 

 opinion, belief, philosophy — the sophic activities. On 

 weighing all the factors it has been found that the most 

 convenient classification of tribes is that based primarily 

 on language, as explained in previous reports; and this 

 mode of defining the Indian tribes, first proposed by Gal- 

 latin and adopted by the Bureau on its institution, has 

 now come into general use. 



FIELD RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION 



Throughout the first quarter of the year the Director 

 was in Maine, reviewing observations on shell mounds 

 and village sites in connection with the researches in 

 classification noted in other paragraphs; and the work 

 was resumed early in June. But limited collections were 

 made, though the observations and notes on the numer- 

 ous survivors of the Abnaki Indians proved of much 

 interest and value. 



