﻿REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9IO 53 



tor. For several models the museum is indebted to Mr. F. E. Moore 

 of Middletown, who permitted the Archeologist to engage them 

 during the interim of the morning and evening productions of his 

 Hiawatha play. This did much to expedite the work and special 

 thanks is due Mr Moore for his kindness. 



The Cayuga Ceremony group represents a group of members of 

 the False Face Company and a Cayuga family within a log lodge. 

 The period represented is late in the 18th century. Masks and the 

 mask ceremonies are among the most striking and well-known of 

 Iroquois ceremonies, and the abundance of material in our collec- 

 tions illustrating the mask rituals led to the choice of this specific 

 subject. The Cayugas are and have been noted for their love of 

 ceremony and ritual. 



The group of casts which has been made represents a false face 

 doctor blowing* ashes through the hair of a woman as a charm 

 against disease. One woman is seated at the rear of the lodge and 

 holds a basket of incense. Another masked figure is seen plunging 

 his hands in the fire for a handful of hot embers which the magic 

 of his mask makes impotent to burn. One masked dancing figure 

 is in the act of asking his fee of tobacco from a boy who stands 

 frightened at one side. A large old Cayuga sits astride the singer's 

 bench and with his turtle shell rattle beats time as he chants the 

 ritual of his cult. 



The group will be installed within an actual cabin from one of the 

 reservations. 



Of the Oneida industrial group, three figures have been secured. 

 One is of a sleeping child, one of a woman making" baskets and one 

 of a man carving a bowl. 



The painting of the backgrounds for the groups of Agriculture 

 and Food Preparation and of the Return of the Mohawk Warriors 

 has practically been completed. As described in my report last 

 year, the artist, Mr D. C. Lithgow, accompanied the Archeologist 

 into the field and made oil paintings of the scenes chosen as data 

 for the large cycloramas. These scenes are : first, at the opening 

 of the Genesee river as it emerges from its high banks at Mount 

 Morris and flows northward into the broad valley, with a patch of 

 cultivated corn land in the foreground; and second, a scene over- 

 looking the site of the Mohawk village of Tionontogen near Spra- 

 kers in the Mohawk valley. The artist, under the direction of the 

 Archeologist, has reproduced the village and stockade on the canvas 

 in a manner that critics say is most commendable. The backgrounds 



