REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39 



invention represented by even the simplest i-hipi^ing or flaking. The cnltnre stage 

 represented by the series has already been designated jjrotoZii/itc. It is to be noted 

 that the Seri Indians have no other stone industry, save a little known and appar- 

 ently accultural cnstom of chijiping stone for the sole purpose of making arrow- 

 points, and that their knives, scrapers, awls, needles, and ordinary arrow points are 

 made from shell, bone, wood, and other substances of organic origin. Now, on 

 assembling the industrial devices of the Florida marshes, the Maine shell mounds, 

 the Seri Indians, and the more primitive siirvivors of the Algonquian tribes located 

 in the Maine woods, and comparing these with the corresponding devices of the 

 American tribes generally, it is found that the industries involving the use of stone 

 for implements or weapons fall into a highly significant order, which, despite some 

 overlapping of phases, seems to represent the normal course of industrial evolution. 



The first stage is that in which stone is used in natural or fortuitous condition, 

 without predetermined design or invention, as among the Seri Indians; this is the 

 protolithiv utagc. It is noteworthy that, in the typical case, and presumjitively in 

 others, the prevailing industrial devices of this stage are of organic material and 

 approach in form and function the biotic armament of lower animals. They are the 

 readiest substitutes for, and the direct analogues of, teeth and claws. The second 

 stage is that represented by wrought stone, shaped largely or wholly in accordance 

 with predetermined design, whether by battering (undoubtedly the original method) 

 or by flaking and chipping; it maybe called the technolitliio stage. This stage is 

 represented by most of the American tribes. It is clearly to be noted that this 

 arrangement of stages in the development of primitive industry is based wholly on 

 research among the American Indians and among the relics of their prehistoric 

 ancestors. It is not designed to supplant or discredit classifications based on the 

 industrial devices of other countries. It is constructive and not destructive, and is 

 formulated merely as a contribution to scientific knowledge concerning the abo- 

 rigines of the Western hemisphere. 



Another line of research in technology, conducted chiefly during the year, though 

 the results were incorporated in a paper accompanying the preceding report, relates 

 to primitive surgery and medicine. The work, which was based on a collection of 

 Peruvian crania, was conducted Ijy Mr. McGeo. Its details are significant, in that 

 the interpretations are based on the primitive sophiology known to have prevailed 

 among the aborigines ujj to the time of Caucasian invasion, rather than on the more 

 realistic philosophy by Avhich civilized practitioners are guided The stages of 

 development of curative surgical treatment, as traced in the course of the researches, 

 need not be repeated; siifiQce it to say that the investigation ajjpears to illumine the 

 previously obscure origin of surgerj^, and at the same time to throw much light on 

 the origin and development of medical treatment in general. 



In earlier paragraphs, summarizing the results of researches concerning the origin 

 and development of the arts, incidental allusion is made to the intimate relation 

 between the esthetic and the industrial. The relation is double — indeed, manifold — 

 and reciprocal : In the first place, the industrial device is usually a medium for 

 esthetic devices, graved or carved or iiainted upon it, usually as symbolic invoca- 

 tions to mystical powers whereby the efficiency of the implement or utensil may be 

 augmented ; while, in the second place, the execution of the esthetic devices consti- 

 tutes an important and, in some lands, apx^arently a preponderant jjart, of the occu- 

 pation of primitive people. Accordingly, the researches in esthetology, carried 

 forward during the year by various collaborators, including Messrs. Gushing, Fewkes, 

 and Nelson, and Mrs. Stevenson, have thrown light on the motives and other causes 

 underlying industrial development. 



WORK IN SOCIOLOGY. 



In continuing the examination and digestion of material collected during the 

 eighteen years of the existence of the Bureau, the Director has given special atten- 

 tion to the principles underlying the social organization of the American aborigines. 



