76 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Various small collections and exchanges 1200 



Expedition collections 1050 



Ethnological material 320 



Silver articles I59 



7520 



Most of this material is in storage but is in good condition. The 

 fire destroyed our best material at the precise point when we had 

 begun to think we had a representative series of collections from the 

 various parts of the State. We are therefore seriously crippled and 

 our extensive plans for a systematic exhibition have received a set- 

 back. Nearly all the material acquired before the appointment of a 

 permanent curator (in 1906) has been wiped out. That which has 

 since been acquired by purchase and donation and through the per- 

 sonal work of the Archeologist in the field has been largely saved. 

 It is a source of some satisfaction to know that his labors have not 

 come to naught. 



The Governor Myron H. Clark Iroquois exhibit. Much time 

 has been given to the advancement of this work which involves the 

 preparation of cultural groups of the Six Nations in life-size 

 dimensions. In the course of the last two or three years the life 

 casts necessary for the six groups planned have been gradually 

 assembled and of the large backgrounds measuring 50 by 20 feet 

 vvhich are required for the scenic effect, three have been painted and 

 others are in progress. The greatest care has been taken in the 

 selection of the types of figures from an ethnological point of view. 

 It is not always or often easy to distinguish members of the Six 

 Nations from one another and therefore it has been almost com- 

 pulsory to take the men, women and children from the reservations 

 regardless of their tribal relations, provided they preserved well 

 their racial physiognomy. The six proposed groups call for about 

 forty figures and of these nearly all have now been made. The 

 making of these life casts is a matter of some delicacy and difficulty 

 inasmuch as the subject must assume and hold just that pose which 

 the figure is to have in the resultant group. 



Toward the close of the summer, in view of the accumulated 

 material, it seemed well to attempt the assembling of the first of 

 these groups. The bringing together of the essentials for them had 

 had its difficulties but the crucial test of the success of the under- 

 taking lay in the final assembling and construction of a group with 

 all its belongings in place. This therefore was tmdertaken and a 

 temporary case erected in tlie Universalist church which serves as an 



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