46 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 



galley proofs of sketches of tlie grammar of the Haida and the Tlinglt for 

 the Handbook of Indian Languages ; assistance rendered Doctor Thomas in 

 preparing for publication his bulletin on the languages of Mexico and Central 

 America, and work incidental to the preparation for publication of Byington's 

 Choctaw Dictionary (in press). 



Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, was occupied in the office during the entire 

 year. For a large portion of the time he was engaged in amending and 

 transcribing the Onondaga text which, with a long supplement, is to form 

 Part II of his Iroquoian Cosmology, and in supplying an interlinear rendering 

 and a free translation of the text. From his researches in connection with the 

 preparation of articles for the Handbook of the American Indians he arrived 

 at facts which greatly modify hitherto accepted views regarding the location 

 and interrelations of the tribes around lakes Huron and Michigan. In this 

 connection he pursued extended studies of the early history of the Potawatomi, 

 Mascoutens, Kickapoo, Sauk, Foxes, Miami, and the " Nation de la Fourche," 

 or " Tribe of the Fork," in an effort to identify these tribes with those known 

 to the early Hurons by names which occur in the writings of Champlain, 

 Sagard, and the Jesuit Fathers. The expulsion of the Potawatomi, Sauk, 

 Foxes, and the Tribe of the Fork from their earliest known habitat in Michigan 

 by the Neutrals and their Ottawa ai.ies — not by the Iroquois, as commonly 

 asserted — was determined, and the most probable course of their retreat fixed. 

 Similar research was conducted among early records to determine as far as 

 possible the identity of the tribes whose names are recorded on the Dutch 

 " Carte Figurative " of 1614, which represents them as living along the middle 

 and upper Susquehanna River and its western affluents. As these names were 

 erroneously identified as Spanish in origin, and as such adopted without ques- 

 tion, much confusion and many inaccuracies have arisen in recent historical 

 works. 



Mr. Hewitt continued the collection and elaboration of linguistic data for the 

 sketch of Iroquois grammar as exemplified in the Onondaga and the Mohawk, 

 with parallel illustrative examples from the Seneca, Cayuga, and Tnscarora. 

 He also partially rewrote the articles " Seneca " and " Sauk " for the Hand- 

 book of American Indians, and endeavored, so far as was feasible, to incorporate 

 in the remaining galley proofs of this work the results of his later researches. 

 Mr. Hewitt was also called on to prepare data of an ethnologic nature for 

 official correspondence. 



At the beginning of the year Dr. J. "Walter Fewkes, ethnologist, was in the 

 field, having just completed the excavation and repair of the cliff ruin known 

 as the " Spruce-tree House," in Mesa "Verde National Park, Colorado. Before 

 the close of July he returned to Washington and commenced the preparation of 

 a report on this work, and undertook to complete the reports of unfinished 

 researches of previous years. During his stay in Washington his services were 

 enlisted in the building of a number of large models of the ruins for the Alaska- 

 Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle and in supervising the painting of pano- 

 ramic views of the Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park for the same 

 purpose. 



In June Doctor Fewkes again took up his work among the Mesa Verde ruins, 

 and by the close of the year had made excellent progress in uncovering and 

 reenforcing the crumbling walls of Cliff Palace, the greatest of the ancient 

 ruins of its kind in the arid country. 



The funds for the actual work of excavation and repair of these ruins were 

 furnished by the Department of the Interior, which has control of the park. 

 Being the essential feature of the park, it is most fortunate that these impor- 

 tant and interesting ruins are now receiving adequate care and protection, 



