REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR IQII 77 



archeological laboratory, wherein the Seneca Hunter group has been 

 thus brought together and carried through to a completion of all its 

 details. In the assembling of this group we had the benefit of an 

 experience which will be of essential service in the construction of 

 the remaining groups and it has required a large amount of time, 

 labor and patience, as well as artistic ingenuity to produce the effect 

 desired, particularly in making the foreground of the group dis- 

 appear without break or obtrusive interval into the background of 

 the picture. The work in its conclusion appears to be in all regards 

 a success,. both artistically and as an almost living expression of this 

 particular phase of Indian activity. This group has not been exposed 

 to public view but has been privately shown to a number of appre- 

 ciative and intelligent people competent to see any of its shortcom- 

 ings and appreciate its merits, and it is gratifying to feel that the 

 work has met with quite unqualified approbation. 



This Seneca Hunter group represents a camp site on the west 

 side of Canandaigua lake looking across the lake toward the hill 

 Genundewa, or Sacred Hill of the Senecas. The time is the early 

 dawn of a spring day. Looking out from the pine woods which is 

 the location of the camp, the eye catches the shimmer of the dawn 

 upon the waters of the lake and the glow of the coming sun upon 

 the almost cloudless sky beyond the distant hills. The group of 

 figures in the foreground consists of five, the father coming in from 

 an early morning hunt with a fawn on his back, the mother at the 

 skiving log cleaning a deer skin, the daughter on her knees cutting 

 venison into strips, a lad felling a tree in the aboriginal mode of 

 burning the trunk and chopping out the charred matter, and the 

 elder brother, a warrior in full warrior's garb and headtrim. The 

 costumes have been specially designed and adapted to show the 

 clothing of the time, which is supposed to antedate the coming of 

 the white man. The life casts employed are the handiwork of a 

 very skilful sculptor, Mr Caspar Mayer, and have been drawn with 

 such attention to posture and to detail as to retain the surface of 

 the skin in admirable and lifelike perfection. 



The completion of this group has satisfactorily demonstrated the 

 possibility of bringing all the groups to a similar successful issue 

 but it has for the present obstructed and impeded the working quar- 

 ters of the Museum so that the auditorium of the church which has 

 been used some time past as the study of the artist, Mr David C. 

 Lithgow, who has painted the backgrounds, is diminished to about 

 one-half its size and the continuation of the artist's work will be 



