12 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



1917, made some interesting investigations of the Shawnee and other 

 Indian tribes. Concerning his work he says : 



The progress of miscegenation among many of the Indian tribes has progressed 

 to a degree that is surprising even to those who for many years have been 

 studying the Indian. While the total number of " Indians " as recorded by the 

 census increases from decade to decade, the fact is that this increase is due 

 wholly to that of mixed bloods ; the full bloods of pure strain in most localities 

 are rapidly disappearing and in a considerable proportion of the tribes have 

 become actually extinct or are on the point of extinction. 



Two remarkable examples of this fact have just been experienced by the 

 writer. For years a growing necessity in American anthropology has been to 

 determine the physical type of the Shawnee, once a large tribe and one of con- 

 siderable historic importance. No great difficulty was apprehended in this task, 

 as the tribe is still well represented. The most promising part of the tribe was 

 that of the so-called " absentee " Shawnee, on the Shawnee Agency in eastern 

 Oklahoma. They count 569 individuals, quite a few of whom are generally re- 

 garded as " full bloods." To his great disappointment the task of finding some 

 pure bloods became exceedingly difficult. Quite a few of the Indians were 

 found to be " full bloods," but on inquiry into the family history it was gener- 

 ally learned that the subject was a mixture of Shawnee with the Oneida 5 Dela- 

 ware, Creeks, or some other tribe. In conclusion, there were found but three 

 individuals who so far as they or their friends knew were full-blood Shawnee. 

 Two of these were old women and one an old man, all near or over 70 years 

 of age, and two of the three were sister and brother. 



The next tribe visited was the Kickapoo, the main body of which to the 

 number of 211 is settled about McLoud, Okla. They were said by the old Shaw- 

 nee to be practically the same people as themselves, having at some time in 

 the past had but one camp fire, and it was generally believed that they would 

 show some full bloods of pure strain. This proved to be a vain hope. On close 

 inquiry all sorts of mixtures were discovered, even among the oldest men and 

 women of the tribe, but no pure bloods. Only one single woman of middle age 

 was believed to be possibly a full Kickapoo, but there was no real certainty. 

 Some visiting Kickapoo from Mexico proved no better than the rest, and no 

 hope was given that any pure strain Kickapoo could be found anywhere else. 



Thus two tribes, one of which of considerable importance, may be regarded 

 as lost to science, so far as pure bloods are concerned. Only a few years ago, 

 according to local information, there were still a number of old men and 

 women living in both tribes who represented the pure strain. The genuine In- 

 dian is rapidly passing away and the work of the anthropologist who endeavors 

 to record the physical type of the various tribes is becoming increasingly difficult. 



ETHNOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN COLORADO AND UTAH. 



One of the most important results of field work by the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology during the past year was the investigation of 

 little-known towers, castles, and great houses in southwest Colorado. 

 In conjunction with the Department of the Interior, the Smith- 

 sonian Institution has been engaged for a decade in the excavation 

 and repair of large ruins situated on what is called the Mesa Verde 

 National Park. The educational value of this work can hardly be 

 overestimated, and in recent years over 2,500 people have visited the 

 locality yearly to see these largest of all prehistoric ruins in our South- 



