4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



Having learned the language, which has scarcely been spoken 

 since 1850, through the circumstance that both her mother 

 and father, who were full-blood Indians, talked it together 

 all their lives, the mother dying at 84 years of age and the 

 father at 82, she retained a knowledge of an extinct language 

 and a dead culture, and lived long enough to enable Mr. 

 Harrington to record practically all that she knew, thus 

 filling in a great blank in California ethnology. So sick that 

 she was scarcely able to sit up even at the beginning of the 

 work, Mr. Harrington continued this work at her bedside 

 until well into January, 1930, and no Indian ever showed 

 greater fortitude than this poor soul who served the bureau 

 up to almost her last day. The material recorded consisted 

 of every branch of linguistic and ethnological information and 

 contains many new and important features. 



Mrs. Solorsano during all the latter part of her life was 

 recognized as a doctora. Her little home at Gilroy, Calif., 

 was a free hospital for down-and-outs of every nationality 

 and creed, and here the sick and ailing were treated with 

 Indian and Spanish herb medicines and were seen through 

 to the last with motherly care and no thought of recompense. 

 Mr. Harrington obtained full accounts of how she treated 

 all the various diseases, and of the herbs and other methods 

 employed. Specimens of the herbs were obtained and iden- 

 tified by the division of plants of the National Museum. 



Songs were recorded on the phonograph; and accounts of 

 ceremonies and description of all the foods of the Indians 

 and how they were cooked were obtained. Accounts of the 

 witcheries of the medicine men take us back to earliest times, 

 and are mingled with the early history of the tribe at the San 

 Juan Mission. IVIany stories and anecdotes about early 

 Indians were recorded and throw much light on the thought 

 and the language of the tmies. Names of plants and 

 animals and places were studied and identified. Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam generously helping in this and other sections of the 

 work. In spite of her age and infirmities. Dona Ascension's 

 mind remained remarkably clear and her memory was 

 exceptional. No greater piece of good fortune has ever 

 attended ethnological research of a tribe that was culturally 



