REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. hi 



dialects, embodying the basic principles and the civil and political structure 

 and organization of the League of the Iroquois and data relating thereto. The 

 Onondaga texts aggregate about 26,955 words and the Mohawk texts about 

 1,480 words, making a total of 27,435 words. The following captions will 

 indicate sufficiently the subject-matter of these texts : The Constitution of the 

 League, the Powers of the T'hadoda'ho', Amendments, Powers and Rights of 

 tha Chiefs, Powers and Rights of the Women, Powers of the Women Chiefs, 

 Procedure on Failure in Succession, Powers and Restrictions of " Pine Tree " 

 Chiefs, Procedure in Case of Murder, Address of Condolence for Death in a 

 Chief's Family, Forest-edge Chanted Address of Welcome, The Chant for the 

 Dead, Interpretation of the Fundamental Terms, Peace, Power, and Justice. 



Mr. Hewitt also continued his duties as custodian of the collection of lin- 

 guistic manuscripts of the Bureau, the completion of the catalogue of which was 

 entrusted to Mr. J. B. Clayton, head clerk. He has also been called upon to 

 furnish data for the correspondence of the office, more particularly that part 

 relating to the Iroquoian tribes. 



Mr. F. W. Hodge, ethnologist, has baen engaged during the entire year on the 

 Handbook of American Indians, the editorial work of which has proved ex- 

 tremely arduous and difficult. This work is in two parts : Part I, A — M, was 

 issued from the press in March last, and the main body of Part II was in type 

 at the close of the fiscal year, though progress in proof reading was exceedingly 

 slow on account of the great diversity of the topics treated and the difficulty of 

 bringing up to date numbers of articles relating often to obscure tribes and 

 subjects. 



During the entire fiscal year Mr. James Mooney, ethnologist, remained in the- 

 office, occupied chiefly on the Handbook of American Indians and in the clas- 

 sification of the large body of material previously obtained relating to the 

 tribes of the Great Plains. His extended article on Indian Missions, written for 

 the Handbook, has been made the subject of a special reprint, a small edition 

 of which was issued by the Bureau. Mr. Mooney has also given valuable 

 assistance in the correspondence of the Bureau, more especially that portion 

 relating to the languages of the Algonquian stock. 



SPECIAL RESEARCHES. 



For a number of years Dr. Franz Boas, assisted by a large corps of linguists. 

 has been engaged in the preparation of a work on the American languages, to be 

 published as a bulletin of the Bureau, entitled " Handbook of American Lan- 

 guages," and it is expected that the manuscript of the first part of this work will 

 b.e submitted for publication at an early date. Sections relating to the languages 

 of the Eskimo and the Iroquois alone remain incomplete. During the summer 

 of 1906 Mr. Edward Sapir was engaged in collecting data for the handbook on 

 the language of the Takelma tribe, located on the Siletz Agency, Oregon, and 

 toward the close of the year Mr. Leo J. Frachtenberg began similar studies 

 among the Tutelo remnant on the Tuscarora Reservation, Ontario, Canada. 



Reports of the discovery of fossil remains of men of extremely primitivi 

 type in the vicinity of Omaha, Nebraska, led to the assignment of Dr. Ales 

 Hrdlicka, curator of physical anthropology in the National Museum, to the dut\ 

 of visiting the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, where the remains are pre- 

 served, and also the site of their exhumation. The examinations were made- 

 with the greatest care, and the results are embodied in Bulletin 33 of the 

 Bureau, which was in press at the close of the fiscal year. The conclusion 

 reached by Doctor Hrdlicka with respect to the age and character of these 

 remains is that they are not geologically ancient, belonging rather to the mound- 



