June 9, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



829 



tural differentiation between the Indians of the 

 narrow belt of the Pacific coast, from southern 

 Alaska to southern California, and those of the 

 remainder of the continent. The difference is 

 found not to extend to specific elements of native 

 civilization, but to consist in the use to which such 

 specific elements are put by the two groups of 

 peoples or the setting in which the elements are 

 placed. The difference is traceable in material 

 aspects of culture; such as agriculture and the art 

 of pottery-making, and in non-material, as polit- 

 ical organization, the employment of property, 

 and ritualistic expression in religion. 



While the culture of the Pacific coast tribes thus 

 forms a well-marked unit distinct from the com- 

 paratively uniform culture of the remainder of 

 America, it does not reveal any indications of 

 definite connection with Asiatic civilizations, either 

 in type or in source. Its origins must be sought in 

 America. When the extreme and puzzling lin- 

 guistic diversity of the Pacific coast is examined, 

 in the light of recent comparative, philological 

 studies, this diversity appears to be not funda- 

 mental, but the result of a differentiating inclina- 

 tion connected with the peculiar type of political 

 organization on the Pacific coast. The linguistic 

 relationships also indicate that the Pacific coast 

 has long been a fairly defined historical area, whose 

 development and population have proceeded at 

 least for several thousand years, from within 

 rather than by importation and immigration. 



The Selationsliip Terms of the Crow and Eidatsa 



Indians: Robert H. Lowie. 



The various principles determining the develop- 

 ment of kinship terminologies have become clear 

 through the writings of Morgan, Rivers and 

 others. The time has now come for testing their 

 relative efficacy in concrete instances and within 

 restricted areas. More particularly is it desirable 

 to compare the nomenclatures of very closely re- 

 lated tribes and to correlate empirically observed 

 changes with probable causes. The Crow and 

 Hidatsa systems furnish an instructive case in 

 point. While on the one hand they bear clear evi- 

 dence of the operation of sociological factors, in 

 fundamental features common to both, the minor 

 variations are not reducible to such causes, and 

 must be referred to the psychologico-linguistic 

 agencies of Kroeber. 

 The Sacred Literature of the CheroTcee: James 



MOONET. 



The Cherokee Indians were the aboriginal moun- 



taineers of the southern AUeghauies, holding un- 

 disputed possession of a territory of some 40,000 

 square miles, with a population of about 25,000, 

 being numerically, historically and culturally the 

 most important single tribe within the United 

 States. In 1838 the bulk of the tribe removed to 

 what is now Oklahoma, but some 1,800 still re- 

 main in their native mountains, keeping up fairly 

 well their purity of blood and their ancient lan- 

 guages and customs. Their native culture reached 

 its highest point with the invention of the Chero- 

 kee syllabic alphabet by a mixed-blood of the 

 tribe about the year 1820. The system was at 

 once adopted by them for purposes of book and 

 newspaper publication, current record and corre- 

 spondence, and even as a medium of instruction 

 in their schools. At the same time their priests 

 and doctors seized the opportunity to preserve in 

 permanent form for their own secret use the 

 ritualistic formulas and occult knowledge which 

 had hitherto been transmitted orally and confined 

 to the keeping of initiates of exceptional power of 

 memory. 



In a study of the tribe extending at intervals 

 over a period of thirty years Mr. Mooney has been 

 so fortunate as to obtain the original Cherokee 

 manuscripts embodying virtually the whole of this 

 ancient ritual, as recorded by noted priests dead 

 many years ago. They cover the whole range of 

 Indian interest — war, love, hunting, fishing, agri- 

 culture, gaming and medicine — and are without 

 parallel as a revelation of the Indian spiritual 

 idea. The expression of the formulas is archaic 

 and symbolic, and frequently of high degree of 

 poetic beauty. Mr. Mooney has them now in prep- 

 aration for publication by the Bureau of Ameri- 

 can Ethnology. 

 Sauk and Fox Notes: Truman Michelson. 



The writer's phonetic scheme of the Fox dialect 

 differs in certain respects from that of the late 

 Dr. William Jones. These differences consist 

 mainly in the position of the accent, the quantity 

 of vowels, the quality of o and u vowels, and as- 

 pirations. Some of these differences can be ex- 

 plained if we assume that Dr. Jones was influenced 

 by the Sauk dialect. It is clear that the verbal 

 complex will have to be viewed from a different 

 psychological point of view than has obtained 

 hitherto. A few obscure grammatical points have 

 been elucidated. 



The regulations concerning membership in the 

 tribal dual division of the Sauk are not clear, 

 whereas those governing membership in the tribal 



