REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 47 



still living there. In South Carolina he began a study of the Catawba 

 language, with the help of manuscript material le*ft by Dr. Gatschet, 

 and he plans to continue this study during the coming year. It is 

 important as the only well-preserved dialect of any of the eastern 

 Siouan peoples and that upon which must be based most of the rela- 

 tionship of the eastern Siouans to the other divisions of the stock. 

 A small amount of ethnological material along other lines was also 

 collected from the Chitimacha and the Catawba. 



Dr. Swanton has also added some material to his history of the 

 Creek Indians. 



In July, 1917, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, began a critical and 

 comparative study of the Cayuga texts relating to the Iroquois Fed- 

 eration, which he had recorded during the two previous field trips. 

 This manuscript matter aggregates more than 500 pages and treats 

 of more than 40 topics or features of the Federation of the Iroquois, 

 dealing with the principles and structure of this institution of the 

 Five " Nations " or tribes. 



This comparative study was carried to tentative completion and 

 involved not only the critical reading of the 500 pages of Cayuga text, 

 but also an equal number of pages of Mohawk and Onondaga texts. 



Mr. Hewitt also read 200 galleys of proofs of the Seneca myths 

 and tales of the Thirty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ameri- 

 can Ethnology, of which 20 were of native texts with interlinear 

 translations; he added to them nearly 200 numbered explanatory 

 notes and read also 632 pages of the first and second revises for this 

 same report, of which 100 pages are in native text with interlinear 

 translations. 



During May and June, 1918, Mr. Hewitt was engaged in field 

 work in Ontario, Canada, among the Indians of the Six Nations of 

 Iroquois. He took up the work in textual and literary criticism of 

 the many texts he has recorded relating directly to the institution of 

 the Federation or League of the Five Tribes or Nations in earlier 

 field operations. 



By far the largest, and also the most trustworthy, part of these 

 texts was recorded from the dictation of one of the best-informed 

 ritualists and expounders of the league, but much additional and sup- 

 plementary matter in the form of texts was recorded from rhc dic- 

 tation of other informants who had the reputation in the community 

 of being authorities in regard to the motives and plans of the found- 

 ers of the federation or league and the decrees and ordinances pro- 

 mulgated by them; but as these texts were given from memory it 

 was inevitable that some of the most important details of the struc- 

 ture and working apparatus of the league have not been remembered 

 with the same fidelity by different persons, and so various views and 

 statements concerning the same subject matter are found. The prob- 



