H.-REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ETHNOLOGY OF THE U. 

 S. NATIONAL MUSEUM FOR 1884. 



By Otis T. Mason, Curator. 



The duties of curator of the Department of Ethnology in the National 

 Museum were assumed on the first day of July, 1884. My first work 

 was to gather from the various rooms of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 from the Armory, and from the National Museum, every specimen of 

 anthropological material not already cared for by the curator of An- 

 tiquities, the curator of Civilized Arts and Industries, and the honor- 

 ary curator of Keramics. These objects I have arranged in drawers 

 according to certain classific concepts, not necessarily the same as those 

 used in the Museum, the intention being to facilitate ready reference 

 and comparative study. The advantage of this method is readily seen 

 in the fact that every ethnologic specimen can be found at once by my 

 assistants, that those things which are suggestive of the progress of 

 each art lie side by side, and that specimens badly defined or without 

 labels have easy explanation by means of their nearest neighbors. One 

 fact is revealed by this plan of temporary storage. It is that the former 

 methods of collecting material should now be replaced by a still more 

 exhaustive and scientific method. Every specimen now in the collection 

 isvalnableand will find a place in future installation j many also havethe 

 great merit, of being old and well authenticated ; but, owing to the youth of 

 ethnologic science, hardly any efforts have been made to exhaust a single 

 art to represent its life-history in its entirety. The comparative anatomist 

 hopes by means of well-dissected specimens of present animal life to 

 reconstruct from a bone or two some extinct form. What would be the 

 chances of success for him, however, if he had but a few fragments of 

 the modern animal? Is not the attempt to reconstruct the society of 

 primeval man by means of desultory collections from the modern sav- 

 ages quite as futile ? Now with the permission of the Director and As- 

 sistant Director of the Museum, I should like to introduce a still more 

 rigorous policy in this regard, recommending, first, that all collectors 

 shall be instructed to observe faithfully all of the elements of each art, 

 and to omit nothing, however cheap or trivial, that illuminates it; sec- 

 ondly, that the friends of the Museum who have gratuitously contrib- 

 uted to its success, and who will continue to do so, be advised of our 



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