DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING SPECIMENS AND INFORMA- 

 TION ILLUSTRATING THE ABORIGINAL USES OF PLANTS. 



By Frederick V. Coville, 

 nonorary Curator of the Department of Botany. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



Information on the subject of aboriginal botany may, of course, be 

 best obtained by actual observation and by conversation with individ- 

 uals of those tribes among whom primitive uses of plants are still in 

 vogue. In the United States at tbe present time nearly all of the native 

 tribes are assembled on reservations, and are in charge of public agents 

 who attend to their relations with the Government. In addition, most 

 tribes are supplied with Government schools, in charge of teacliers and 

 subject to the inspection of a superintendent. In each tribe there are 

 prominent men, either chiefs or medicine men, from whom, under favor- 

 able circumstances, better information may be obtained than from the 

 average individual. This is particularly true of the medicine men and 

 women who are themselves expert in the practice of medicine, accord- 

 ing to the Indian ideas, and are usually persons of exceptional keenness^ 

 and knowledge, not only of the materials with which they work, but of 

 the aboriginal products and usages as well. It is through these and 

 other prominent individuals, Indian teachers and superintendents, and 

 occasionally agents, that information is ordinarily most easily accessi- 

 ble. In the absence, however, of such favorable opportunities the 

 average Indian will be found capable of communicating a great deal 

 of useful information. It must be borne in mind by the observer that 

 actual observation conscientiously made, so as to reduce the possibility 

 of error, is far more valuable than any amount of second-hand inform- 

 ation, and that a single positive detailed record, accompanied by good 

 specimens of the products under discussion, is of permanent and almost 

 inestimable value to the history of aboriginal botany. It is such facts^ 

 and materials that the observer should secure. Hearsay evidence is 

 principally useful in suggesting to others lines of investigation. 

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