EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 37 



some years among the tiibes, obtaining vocabularies and other linguistic mate- 

 rial and making large collections of esthetic and industrial handiwork. He also 

 prepared a preliminary draft of a report on the ethnology of the region covered by 

 his operations. On his return to Washington the collections were transferred to the 

 National Museum, but failure of health prevented him from completing the prepara- 

 tion of the report, so that the collections have hitherto remained without adequate 

 explanation. During the present fiscal year he returned to Washington from a pro- 

 longed absence, chiefly in Mexico, and at once undertook the completion of the long- 

 delayed report. 



Through the courtesy of Museum officials the collection was brought together for 

 renewed study and the iireparation of necessary illustrations. "Mr. Nelson's original 

 manuscripts were placed in his hands and, before leaving the city in April, he had 

 practically completed a general report with illustrations of typical objects repre- 

 senting the handicraft of the hyperborean tribes with whom he came in contact 

 during his sojourn about the Arctic border. The report is particularly valuable in 

 its full description and illustration of the decorative designs characterizing Eskimo 

 art. The Eskimo are distinctive in many respects, but in none more strongly than 

 in their artistic development; they are clever draftsmen and fairly deft carvers of 

 wood, bone, and ivory; many of their implements, weapons, and utensils are graved 

 with artistic devices or sculptured in artistic forms, and the graving and carving 

 apparently represent a highly conventionized symbolism. Mr. Nelson's motive is 

 accurate description and faithful illustration of objects rather than analysis and 

 synthetic arrangement of designs; yet his memoir is a rich repository of material 

 from which the course of development represented by Eskimo art may be traced. 



WORK IN TECHNOLOGY. 



While in contact with the Passamaquoddy Indians on the coast of Maine, the 

 Director and Mr. Gushing had opportunity for studying certain primitive industries 

 yet retained by this partially accultured people. Conspicuous among these were the 

 industries connected with the building and furnishing of domiciles. The long per- 

 sistence of domiciliary industries among these Indians may be explained, at least in 

 part, by the fact that the birch-bark wigwams are remarkably serviceable and 

 economic, so that they were only slowly displaced by the little more commodious 

 and much more expensive houses of civilization. At the same time, there are strong- 

 indications of ceremonial observances in connection with the erection of habitations, 

 which doubtless serve to prolong the retention of the aboriginal type. 



There is a single model for the dwellings of this branch of the Algonquian Indians. 

 The structure is rectangular in plan, about 12 by 15 feet, with a narrow doorway in 

 one end; the end walls stand vertical, while the sides, after rising vertically for 5 

 or 6 feet, are continued upward to form a curved roof, interrupted by an orifice over 

 the center of the earthen floor for the exit of smoke. The framework is of light 

 arbor-vitf© poles, neatly cut and shaped by stone implements and fire, the uprights 

 set in the ground and lashed to the horizontal pieces by means of withes or splints ; 

 the walls and roof are made from large sections of birch-bark, carefully overlapped 

 shinglewise and skilfully sewn together with slender splints of ash. The door is a 

 dressed deer skin, attached to a light crossbar, while the smoke hole is provided 

 with a shifting wind guard which may be so adjusted as to draw out the smoke and 

 exclude most of the rain or snow in case of storm. The wigwam constructed in this 

 way is practically wind proof and nearly rain proof, strong enough to resist the force 

 of storms and the weight of winter's snow, and is capacious and commodious in 

 almost the highest x^ossible degree in proportion to the material employed in con- 

 struction. It lasts five years or more without repairs, and with occasional repairs as 

 needed may last a generation. As a means of studying the house and house building, 

 two aged Indians were employed to set up a wigwam near the field of work in Maine, 

 and with a view of extending the study and at the same time perpetuating this form 

 of aboriginal handicraft, they were afterward engaged to erect and furnish the 



