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BUREAU OF AMEKICAX ETHNOLOGY 



With List of Puhlications. 



[Reprinted from Hmidhook of the Indians, Bulletin liO, Bureau of American 



Ethnology.] 



The Bureau of (American) Ethnology 

 waH organized in 1879 anil i)iaced by 

 Congre.ss under the supervision of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. It was directed 

 that all the archives, records, and ma- 

 terials relating to the Indian tribes col- 

 lected by the Survey of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain Region under the auspices of the 

 Interior Department should be trans- 

 ferred to the Institution for use by the 

 Bureau. Prof. Spencer F. Baird, iS'ecre- 

 tary of the Institution, recognizing the 

 great value of Maj. J. W. Powell's serv- 

 ices in initiating researches among the 

 western tribes, selected him as the per- 

 son best qualified to organize and con- 

 duct the work. 



The National Government had already 

 recognized the importance of researches 

 among the tribes. As early as 1795 the 

 Secretary of War appointed Leonard S. 

 Shaw deputy agent to the Cherokee with 

 instructions to study their -language and 

 home life and to collect materials for 

 an Indian history. President Jefferson, 

 who planned the Lewis and Clark expedi- 

 tion of 1804-06, "for the purpose of ex- 

 tending the internal commerce of the 

 United States," especially stipulated, in 

 his instructions to Lewis, the observa- 

 tions on the native tribes that should be 

 made by the expedition for the use of 

 the Government. These were to include 

 their names and numbers; the extent and 

 limits of their possessions; their relations 

 with other tribes or nations; their lan- 

 guage, traditions, and monuments; their 

 ordinary occupations in agriculture, fish- 

 ing, hunting, war, arts, and the imple- 

 ments for these; their food, clothing, and 

 domestic accommodations; the diseases 

 prevalent among them and the remedies 

 they use; moral and physical circum- 

 stances which distinguish them from 

 known tribes; peculiarities in their laws, 

 customs, and dispositions; an<l articles of 

 commerce they may need or furnish, and 

 to what extent; "'and considering the in- 

 terest which every nation has in extend- 

 ing and strengthening the authority of 

 reason and justice among the people 

 around them, it will be useful to acquire 

 what knowledge you can of the state of 

 morality, religion, and information 

 among them, as it may better enable 

 those who endeavor to civilize and in- 

 struct them to adapt their measures to 

 the existing notions and practices of those 

 on whoui they are to operate." During 



much of his life Jefferson, like Albert 

 Gallatin later on, manifested his deep in- 

 terest in the ethnohjgy of the American 

 tribes by pul^lishing accounts of his ob- 

 servations that are of extreme value 

 to-day. In 1820 Rev. Jedidiah Morse 

 was commissioned by the President to 

 make a tour for the purpose of "ascer- 

 taining, for the use of tlie ( iovernment, 

 the actual state of the Indian tribes 

 of our country." The Government also 

 aided the publication of Schoolcraft's 

 voluminous woYk on the Indians. The 

 various War Department expeditions 

 and surveys had reported on the tribes 

 and monuments encountered in the W. ; 

 the Hayden Survey of the Territories 

 had examined and described many of the 

 cliff-dwellings and pueblos, and had pub- 

 lished papers on the tribes of the Missis- 

 sippi valley, and ]\Iaj. Powell, as chief of 

 the Survey of the Rocky ^Mountain Re- 

 gion, had accomplished important work 

 among the tribes of the Rio Colorado 

 drainage in connection with his geological 

 and geographical researches, and had 

 commenced a series of i)ublications known 

 as Contrilnitions to North American Eth- 

 nology. The Smithsonian Institution had 

 also taken an active part in the publica- 

 tion of the results of researches under- 

 taken by private students. The first vol- 

 ume of itsContrilaitions to Knowledge is 

 The Ancient Monuments of the Missis- 

 sip]ii Valley, by Squier and Davis, and up 

 to the founding of the Bureau of Eth- 

 nology the Institution had issued upward 

 of 600 papers on ethnology and arche- 

 ology. These early researches had taken 

 a wide range, but in a somewhat unsys- 

 tematic way, and Maj. Powell, on taking 

 charge of the Bureau, began the task of 

 classifying the subject-matter of the en- 

 tire aboriginal field and the selection of 

 those subjects that seemed to require im- 

 mediate attention. There were numerous 

 problems of a practical nature to be dealt 

 with, and at the same time many less 

 strictly practical but none the less im- 

 portant problems to be considered. Some 

 of the practical questions wei-e readily ap- 

 proached, but in the main they were so 

 involved with the more strictly scientific 

 questions that the two could not be con- 

 sidered separately. 



From its inception the Government has 

 had before it problems arising from the 

 presence within its domain, as dependent 

 wards, of more than 300,000 aborigines. 



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