5XII BTTREAr OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



report) ; or, again, the consanguinity may he practically 

 concealed hy the overplacement of some other factor, as 

 among the California tribes, who regard language as the 

 dominant factor of their institutions (also noted in the 

 last report) ; hut the fortuitous relations may commonly 

 he reduced without serious difficulty, and shown not 

 to affect the general fact that the American aborigines 

 belong to the culture -stages of savagery and barbarism 

 in about equal proportions, reckoned on the basis of pop- 

 ulation — though it is to be remembered that the triljes 

 belonging to the higher stage are much the larger and 

 fewer. Now, a recent line of inquiry relates to the causes 

 and conditions of the transition from the first great stage 

 to the second. In the Old World the transition has been 

 fairly correlated with the gradual passage from hunting 

 to herding — there the initial phase of agriculture ; but in 

 the western hemisphere the characteristics of the native 

 fauna were not such as to place herding in the van 

 of agricultural development. Accordingly, it has been 

 thought desirable to trace the influence of harvesting and 

 planting, when pursued for generations, on social organi- 

 zation; and the most favorable opportunity for such 

 research was that afforded by the Pueblos. Morever, it 

 seemed desirable to inquire into the rate of the transition, 

 as indicated by records covering a considerable period ; 

 and for this ])urpose also the Pueblos seemed to be admir- 

 ably adapted, partly since the customs of the people have 

 been subjects of record for three and a half centuries, and 

 partly because their arid habitat is so uninviting as to 

 have practically repelled the invasion of revolutionary 

 methods. It was by reason of his intimate acquaintance 

 with the early records, and also in the hope that he might 

 be able to discover unpublished manuscripts among the 

 ancient archives of the missions, that Dr Elliott Coues, 

 compiler of the American Explorers Series, was attached 

 to the party. Although no noteworthy discoveries of 

 manuscripts were made, a considerable body of data 

 essential to the discussion of social organization in the 

 pueblo region was obtained. Portions of the material are 



