44 EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 



A noteworthy collection of ceremonial masks was made at Zuni and Sia by Mrs. 

 Matilda Coxe Stevenson, and has been duly installed in the National Museum. In 

 the course of his field operations, Mr. Mooney obtained additional material illustrating 

 the handiwork and ideas of the Kiowa Indians ; and toward the close of the fiscal 

 year, while temporarily detailed to make and arrange collections for the Tennessee 

 Centennial Exposition at Nashville, he brought together and, with the aid of the 

 Indians, constructed an exhibit showing in miniature the characteristics of the Kiowa 

 camp-circle, the significance of which is not generally understood. Toward the 

 end of the year Mr. Hatcher reported the transmission of a small collection repre- 

 senting the primitive industries of the aborigines of southern Patagonia. In April 

 Mr. McGee obtained a small but interesting collection of aboriginal matting and 

 wooden ware from the Muskwaki Indians, near Tama, Iowa. The greater part of the 

 collection has been transferred to the Museum. Among the articles is a carved 

 wooden dish corresponding in form, dimensions, and ornamentation with an earthen- 

 ware type frequently found in the mounds; the siiecimen is of peculiar interest in 

 that its form was determined by the curved beaver-tooth knife with which it was 

 fashioned and in that its esoteric and essentially prescriptorial symbolism was ascer- 

 tained, so that it explains one of the most persistent forms of aboriginal ware. 

 Several other collaborators made jninor collections, and a few others were acquired 

 from correspondents. One of these is a series of iron tomahawk pipes, made for the 

 Indian trade by the French pioneers and long used by the tribesmen in lieu of the 

 aboriginal weapons of stone, shell, wood, and copper ; another was a particularly fine 

 collection, obtained from the mounds of Missouri and the adjoining part of Illinois 

 by Col. F. F. Hilder ; still another was a series of stone imjjlements from the mounds 

 of northern Ohio, which are regarded as especially desirable for purposes of compara- 

 tive study in the National Museum. 



PUBLICATION. 



Mr. Hodge has remained in charge of the details of publication, and it is gratify- 

 ing to be able to report activity, almost beyond precedent in the history of the Bureau 

 in this branch of the work. At the beginning of the year the Fourteenth Annual 

 Report was partly in type, the Fifteenth was in the printer's hands, and proofs of 

 illustrations had been received. The Sixteenth Report was in nearly the same con- 

 dition. The editorial work was pushed forward successfully. About the end of the 

 calendar year the Fourteenth Report was issued, in two volumes, and the distribu- 

 tion was at once commenced. The demand for the document was unprecedented, so 

 that the edition was practically exhausted within three months. It may be observed 

 that this report was more extensively noticed and reviewed, both in scientific jour- 

 nals and the ephemeral press, than any preceding publication by the Bureau, and 

 that the tone of the reviews has been favorable or still more highly commendatory 

 without exception so far as known. Meantime the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Reports 

 received constant attention, and both Avere completed and published about the end 

 of the fiscal year. The demand for these documents also is pressing, and they, too, 

 are being favorably received by the reviewers. 



The manuscript of the Seventeenth Annual Report was transmitted for publica- 

 tion on June 18, 1897. The accompanying papers comjjrise "The Seri ludiaus," by 

 W J McGee; ''The Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians," by James Mooney; 

 "Navajo Houses," by Cosmos Mindeleff; together with a fully illustrated account of 

 the "Archeological Expedition in Arizona in 1895," by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes. 



The material for the Eighteenth Report also was brought together, and the edito- 

 rial work was well advanced before the end of the year. It is accompanied by two 

 memoirs, each of considerable magnitude, so that it will be necessary to issue it in 

 two volumes; the first of these is "The Eskimo of Bering Strait," by E. W. Nelson, 

 and the other is the memoir on "Indian Land Cessions," by C. C. Royce and Cyrus 

 Thomas, which has been described in earlier reports ; the former is fully illustrated 



