Appendix II. 



REPOET OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 

 FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1897. 



Sir : Ethnologic researches have been conducted during the fiscal year in accord- 

 ance with the act of Congress making provision "for continuing researches relating 

 to the American Indians, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution," 

 approved June 11, 1896. 



The researches have been carried forward in accordance with a plan of operations 

 submitted on June 13, 1896. The field operations of the regular officers of the 

 Bureau have extended into Arizona, Indian Territory, Iowa, Maine, New Brunswick, 

 New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, and Ontario, and operations have been carried on 

 by special agents in California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, as 

 well as in British Columbia and different provinces in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. 

 The office researches have dealt with material from most of the States and from 

 many other portions of the American continents. 



The chief duty imposed on the Bureau at the outset was the classification of the 

 Indian tribes; and, since ths sciences of man were inchoate when the Bureau was 

 instituted, this duty involved the organization of those branches of the science deal- 

 ing with ethnic relations. Accordingly, a classification of ethnic science has grown 

 up in connection with the classification of the tribes, and has been perfected from year 

 to year; and during recent years, and particularly during the fiscal year just closed, 

 the operations have been shaped by this classification of the subject-matter of the 

 science. The primary lines of special research relate to (1) arts or csthetology, (2) 

 industries or technology (including archeology), (3) institutions or sociology, (4) lan- 

 guages or philology, and (5) myths orsophiology, as well as the requisite classificatory 

 work involving researches in somatology and especially in psychology. The special 

 researches are initiated in the field and completed in the office, giving rise to (I) 

 field research (including exploration), and (II) office research, which together con- 

 stitute the original scientific work of the Bureau ; while the demands of the public 

 service and the needs of the collaborators give rise to (III) work in descriptive eth- 

 nology, (IV) bibliographic work, (V) work in collecting, (VI) publication, and (VII) 

 concomitant administrative and miscellaneous work. 



FIELD RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION. 



At the beginning of the fiscal year the Director was engaged in a reconnoissance 

 of shell mounds and other antiquities on the coast of Maine; here he was joined by 

 Mr. Frank Hamilton Gushing, and a number of shell mounds were surveyed and 

 excavated with success. Later in the season the Passamaquoddy Indians still living 

 in the vicinity were studied with some care, and their industries, especially in house 

 building, were investigated; subsequently some of the older men of the tribe were 

 employed to collect material for and to erect an aboriginal wigwam, which was 

 afterwards transferred to the Zoological Park at Washington. 



During July and August Dr. J. Walter Fewkes was occupied in making surveys 

 and excavations of ruins, chiefly in Arizona, Avith the primary object of collecting 

 prehistoric material for the enrichment of the National Museum, but with the sec- 

 ondary purpose of investigating those activities of the aborigines recorded in the 

 products of their handiwork still extant. His operations were notably successful, 



SM 97 3 33 



