SII BUREAU OF AMEKICAK ETHNOLOGY 



Toward the end of the calendar year Mr J. B. Hatcher, 

 who had been operating in Patagonia and Terra del Fuego 

 as a special agent of the Bureau, returned to the country 

 with a considerable collection for the Museum, as well as 

 a large number of photogra|)hs illustrating the physical 

 characteristics, costumery, habitations, and occupations 

 of the Tehuelche and Yahgan tribes. He also brought in 

 an extended vocabulary collected among the natives of 

 the former tribe and useful notes relating to the social 

 oi'ganization and other characteristics of the two tribes. 



Toward the end of the fiscal year Miss Alice C. Fletcher 

 was commissioned as a s]iecial agent to visit Indian Ter- 

 ritory and Oklahoma for the purpose of obtaining certain 

 esoteric rituals of the Pawnee tribe. Her work was 

 notably successful, as is indicated in other ]>aragraphs. 



Dr Willis E. Everette remained in Alaska throughout 

 the fiscal year, pursuing his vocation as a mining engi- 

 neer, but incidentally collecting, for the use of the Bureau, 

 linguistic and other data pertaining to the native tribes. 



About the beginning of the fiscal year Dr Robert Stein, 

 formerly of the United States Geological Survey, accom- 

 ]ianied a Peary ex])edition northward as far as Elsmere- 

 land, where he planned to spend the winter in geographic 

 and related researches. He carried instnictions from the 

 Bureau for such archeologic and ethnologic ol)servations 

 as he might be able to iuake, together with photographic 

 apparatus and materials needed in the work. Elsmereland 

 is not known to be now inhabited nor to have been 

 inhal)ited in the past by the aborigines, but the situation 

 of the island is such as to indicate that it was probably 

 occupied at least temporarily by Eskimauan tribes in 

 some of the migrations attested by their wide distribu- 

 tion ; hence it is thought probable that archeologic work 

 on the island may throw light on the early history of this 

 widely dispersed orarian people. A brief report of prog- 

 ress was received after the close of the fiscal year. 



During the autumn Mr Robert T. Hill, of the United 

 States (ireological Survey, visited Porto Rico in the inter- 

 ests of that Bureau and of the Department of Agriculture ; 



