XIV BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



the generalization have been made without the aid of Mr 

 Gushing and the opportunity of examining his remarkable 

 collection of artifacts of wood and shell from the muck 

 beds of western Florida, of which a considerable part is 

 now in the National Museum. The details of the work 

 are reserved for later reports. 



Throughout the fiscal year Mr W J McGee was occu- 

 ])ied ])rimarily with administrative duties as ethnologist 

 in charge in the office, but partly in the preparation of 

 reports on field researches of previous years. One of his 

 subjects of study was the esthetic status of the Seri 

 Indians of Tiburon island and the adjacent territory. 

 The tribe is notably primitive in several I'espects, as has 

 been indicated in previous reports, and this primitive 

 character is well displayed in their meager esthetic. One 

 of the conspicuous customs of the tribe is that of face- 

 painting, the paint being applied uniformly in definite 

 patterns, of which nearly a dozen were observed. The 

 custom is practically limited to the women, though male 

 children are sometimes painted with their mothers' 

 devices. On inquiry into the uses and purposes of the 

 designs it was found that each pertains to and denotes a 

 matronymic grovip, or <dan, and that the more pi'ominent 

 designs, at least, are symbols of zoic tutelaries — for exam- 

 ple, Turtle, Pelican. It thus appears that the painted 

 devices are primarily symbolic rather than decorative, 

 though comparison of the devices used by different mem- 

 bers of the same clan or by the same female at different 

 times indicates that the sematic function does not stand 

 in the way of minor modification or eml)ellishment of the 

 device through the exercise of a personal feeling for deco- 

 ration. The investigation is of interest in that it estab- 

 lishes the symbolic basis of esthetic concepts along a new 

 line, and it is of even deeper interest in that it seems to 

 reveal nascent notions of decoration, and thus aids to 

 define the beginning of purely artistic activities. The 

 symbolic devices themselves are of much significance as 

 indices to the social organization on the one hand and to 

 the prevailing belief of the tribe on the other hand. The 



