38 EEPOET 0¥ THE SECRETARY. 



Some weeks were devoted to a practical study of the hide-dressing jirocess in all its 

 stages in connection with the making of a full-size skin tipi. This important industry 

 is thus for the first time placed fully on record. At the close of the present year 

 Mr. Mooney was preparing to attend the great annual sun dance of the Cheyennes, 

 to be held about the middle of July. 



In addition to the research work referred to above, Mr. Mooney has assisted, both 

 in the field and during his brief stay in the office, in preparing material for the Dic- 

 tionary of Indian Tribes, in course of preparation l>y the Bureau. 



The heraldry studies of Mr. Mooney have opened up a field entirely new to Ameri- 

 can ethnology, and are expected to contribute materially to our knowledge of many 

 questions heretofore imperfectly understood in relation to the social and military 

 organization, heredity laws, war customs, tabu system, and religious symbolism of 

 the Plains tribes. The urgency of the work may be judged by the fact that of per- 

 haps 300 shields in possession of the Kiowas a generation ago only 8 are now known 

 to be in existence (4 of which have been obtained by Mr. Mooney for the National 

 Museum), while more than half the information gained upon the subject came from 

 old men who have passed away since the investigation began. 



During the year Dr. Cyrus Thomas, ethnologist, was engaged mainly on the Dic- 

 tionary of Indian TriV)es, under the supervision of Mr. F. W. Hodge. In the early 

 months he made a final examination of the data relating to the Algonquian family, 

 and later took up the Siouan, Muskhogean, Tinuiquanan, and Natchesan stocks. 

 Brief articles on a number of the leading subjects intended for introduction into 

 the dictionary, such as Agriculture, Mounds, Mound-builders, Government, and 

 numerous biographical sketches of prominent Indians, have been prepared by 

 Doctor Thomas. He has thus contributed greatly to the interests of the Bureau in 

 a practical way, ])utting in final and concise form much of the knowledge accumu- 

 iatetl during his thirty years of service in his chosen field. 



Doctor Thomas has been largely employed during preceding years, in direct asso- 

 ciation with Major Powell, in the important work of compiling a list of linguistic 

 families, languages, and dialects of the tribes of Mexico and Central America, and 

 the manuscript of this work, comprising some 200 typewritten pages, was submitted 

 l)y him at the close of the present year. 



At the beginning of the fiscal year Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt was engaged in the 

 work of making an interlinear translation of a version of the Onondaga (Iroquoian) 

 cosmologic myth, olttained in the field in 1900 from Mr. John Arthur Gibson, an 

 intelligent and gifted Seneca priest. This text is by far the longest and fullest of 

 the five versions of this myth recorded by Mr. Hewitt during several field seasons. 

 Two of these texts are Seneca, two are Onondaga, and one is Mohawk. The 

 Mohawk text, related by Mr. Seth Newhouse, the shorter Onondaga text, told by 

 John Buck, and the longer Seneca text, told by John Armstrong, were sent to press 

 in the previous fiscal year. The longer Onondaga text contains more than 44,000 

 words in the Onondaga dialect, to about one-third of which an interlinear translation 

 has been added. The first draft of a free translation of it was completed in October 

 of the previous fiscal year. This manuscript will be ready for the press as soon as the 

 interlinear translation is completed and the free translation is revised. With it 

 will be submitted the shorter Seneca version, which is practically ready for the press. 



Later m tiie year much work was done on portions of the ritual of the Condoling 

 Council of the League of the Iroquois.- A free translation was made of the Onondaga 

 version of the so-called " Fourteen Matters" and al.so of the Mohawk version of the 

 "Address of Welcome" of the Brother Mourning Nations, The 'Chant of Lamen- 

 tation," requiring more than an hour to intone, was typewritten ready for interlinea- 

 lion. This work has enabled Mr Hewitt to ascertain ap])roximately what is yet 

 needful to complete his projected monograph on tlie Condoling Council of the League 

 of the Iroquois. 



