Apkil 12, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



587 



nothing of the fact that men rather than 

 women engage in such pursuits. Of nearly 

 equal importance, owing to its position, is a 

 house scene, bad in detail and misleading. 

 The scene represents a woman by a lamp, the 

 source of light and heat in an Eskimo house, 

 completely clad in winter furs. Near her is 

 a baby sprawling on the floor, also clad in furs. 

 Both figures, of course, should be practically 

 nude. The house is constructed after the 

 manner of a temporary habitation, which is 

 never lined. This house is lined. If the 

 woman and child are properly costumed then 

 the house must be regarded as a temporary 

 structure, in which case its lining is entirely 

 inappropriate. The assemblage of objects 

 about the woman is also misleading and has 

 been made without regard for actual condi- 

 tions. Thus lying on the floor near the 

 woman, who is cooking, is a man's knife, 

 which is entirely inappropriate, and near by 

 is a little toy kettle, which is, of course, en- 

 tirely out of place. 



And so it would be possible to continue in 

 detail an examination of this entire exhibit. 

 Two or three other points, however, seem 

 worthy of notice. In another case are two 

 figures, one of a woman sewing, the other a 

 man cutting a skin. According to the label 

 the woman is dressed in clothing from Cum- 

 berland Sound, while her hair is dressed after 

 the Labrador fashion. She is supposed to be 

 talking to the man who is dressed in a cos- 

 tume from the west coast of Hudson Bay — a 

 truly intertribal gathering. According to the 

 label, the man is cutting a thong from seal 

 skin, the label stating that it is taken from 

 fresh seal skin. In the group, however, the 

 man has a nicely tanned piece of common 

 skin, which is never used for lines. The pos- 

 ture of the man is not only wrong, but abso- 

 lutely impossible. 



The case devoted to the decorative art of 

 the Eskimo is perhaps the weakest and most 

 trivial of the whole exhibit. The motive 

 which determined the selection of the objects 

 is not at all clear. Many of the specimens 

 are such as are made for trade and possess 

 little or no ethnological interest. Among the 

 highly decorated objects of the Eskimo are the 



bone and ivory pipes of the Alaskan Eskimo. 

 None of these are to be found in the case. 

 There are, to be sure, several pipes in the case, 

 but none are typical of the Eskimo, but rather 

 of the Algonkin tribes of the south. To in- 

 troduce Peary's pack sledges in an exhibition 

 of this sort does not add to its ethnological 

 value. To characterize this exhibit as a whole, 

 I think the word trivial does it justice. If 

 instead of the great collection formerly on 

 exhibit in which one could study in detail the 

 Eskimo from the eastern to the westernmost 

 division we are to have a single exhibit of this 

 nature it should be accurate at least, so far as 

 the character of such an exhibit will allow. 



The plains exhibit is perhaps on the whole 

 less fortunate than that of the Eskimo. While 

 the defects here are equally grave they are not 

 so apparent. The most serious abjection to 

 this exhibit is probably the fact that the ob- 

 jects used in making the exhibit have been 

 drawn from two or three tribes, especially the 

 Blackfoot, Sioux and Arapaho, which, while 

 they may be regarded as typical of a certain 

 region of the plains, represent only one phase 

 of the culture which actually exists upon the 

 plains. These tribes as they existed in recent 

 times are non-agricultural, buffalo-hunting, 

 tipi-dwellers. No objection could have been 

 made to an exhibit representing this phase of 

 the life of the plains, but to single out the pre- 

 dominating features of such tribes as these is 

 entirely to misrepresent the plains conditions. 

 To consider a single fact, the habitations of 

 the plains are shown by a full-sized tipi and 

 several tiny models. Thus the inference may 

 be drawn that no other kind of habitation pre- 

 vailed in this region, whereas many other 

 kinds of habitations were found, such, for ex- 

 ample, as the earth lodges of the Mandan, 

 Arikara, Omaha, Pawnee and Tonkawa, the 

 grass lodges of the Wichita and Caddo, not to 

 mention other types of dwellings of other 

 tribes. Of the existence of many kinds of 

 wind breaks, shelters, arbors, etc., no one would 

 suspect. The life of the plains is represented 

 as that of hunters, especially of the buffalo. 

 One looks in vain for facts representing the 

 sessile agricultural populations on the plains. 

 This was once the occupation of all the tribes 



