L ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOK 
ous condition in agriculture and domestic industries. This is 
not to be attributed wholly to the favorable character of their 
soil and climate, as under similar environment many peoples 
are lazy and improvident, whereas the Seminole of Florida are 
industrious and frugal. That they have advanced in culture 
during the last generation is doubtless true, but it is a common 
and pernicious error to consider the Indian tribes at the time 
of the Columbian discovery as wholly without knowledge of 
agriculture, depending solely on the chase, fishing, and the 
spontaneous products of the earth. This error is a part of the 
feree nature theory which has been so baneful in the past 
consideration of the aboriginal inhabitants. No radical change 
was necessary for the greater portion of the Indian tribes to 
become self supporting by the industries classed as civilized, 
provided that their treatment had been rational and in accord- 
ance with the slow but certain operations of nature. Through- 
out the continent generally the pressure of the white settlers 
did not allow of the necessary delay, but here it was obtained. 
The advance of the Seminole has been practically without 
European instruction, the efforts of the Spanish missionaries of 
the seventeenth century having only left some traces of inter- 
polation in their myths. They have adopted from European 
civilization some weapons, implements, and fabrics and have 
shown their capacity for imitation and adaptation; but their 
progress toward civilization has been their own work in the 
orderly course of evolution, and is therefore instructive. 
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE ZUNI CHILD, BY MRS. TILLY E. 
STEVENSON. 
During each of the years commencing with 1878, Mrs. 
Stevenson has spent some time among the Zuni, and four 
whole field seasons were devoted by her to observation and 
study among that people. Her researches were mainly among 
the women of the tribe and directed to the understanding of 
domestic life. Women among the Zuni have charge of rites 
and observances in which the men have no participation and 
of which they have no direct knowledge; therefore no male in- 
