52 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



building period in the Mississippi Valley, and that, although a number of the 

 crania are of low type, this was a characteristic frequently appearing among 

 comparatively recent mound-building tribes. 



At the beginning of the fiscal year tbe Bureau was fortunate enough to enter 

 into arrangements with Prof. Herbert E. Bolton, of tbe University of Texas, 

 for recording the history of the Texan tribes. During the early historical 

 period the French controlled and came into intimate relations with the northern 

 Caddo, hence the early history of this group is to be found chiefly in French 

 records ; but with this exception it is mainly in Spanish records, scattered and 

 almost wholly imprinted. These facts make the task in every sense a pioneer 

 one. 



Tbe Spanish manuscript sources available to Professor Bolton and' upon 

 which, aside from the printed French sources, he has thus far mainly drawn, 

 consist of (1) the Bexar archives, a rich collection of perhaps 300,000 pages 

 of original manuscripts that accumulated at San Antonio during the Spanish 

 occupancy, and now in the University of Texas ; (2) the Nacogdoches archives, 

 a similar but much smaller collection that accumulated at Nacogdoches and 

 which are now in the State Historical Library; (3) the Lamar papers, a small 

 collection of Spanish manuscripts, now in private hands; (4) mission records 

 preserved at the residence of the Bishop of San Antonio; (5) copies of docu- 

 ments from the Archivo General of Mexico, belonging to the University of 

 Texas and to Professor Bolton; and (0) the various Mexican archives. From 

 these have been extracted a great many notes, but much material yet remains 

 to be examined. 



During the year Professor Bolton's efforts have taken three principal direc- 

 tions : (1) He has systematically and fully indexed, on about 10,000 cards, a 

 large amount of tbe early material, including tribal, institutional, linguistic, 

 historical, and other data on tbe whole Texas field. (2) From this material as 

 a basis he has written many brief articles on tribes and missions for the Hand- 

 book of American Indians, aggregating about 20,000 words. (3) While in 

 the analysis of tbe materials and the making of tbe index cards he has covered 

 the whole field, in the final work of construction he has begun the Caddoan 

 tribes of eastern Texas, with the design of treating them separately. In this 

 work Professor Bolton lias made commendable progress. He has already 

 written a detailed description, consisting of about 40,000 words, of the location, 

 social and political organization, economic life, religion, and ceremonial of the 

 Hasinai, commonly designated " Texas," as known and described by the earliest 

 European chronicles, accompanied with a map. 



Tbe task of writing a history of tbe Texas tribes is a great one, and can be 

 performed only by long and painstaking effort, but its successful accomplish- 

 ment promises an important addition to our knowledge of the native Americans. 



PRESERVATION OF ANTIQUITIES. 



With the object of assisting tbe departments of the Government having cus- 

 tody of the public domain in the initiation of measures for the preservation of 

 the antiquities of the country, the compilation of a descriptive catalogue of 

 antiquities has been continued, and the preparation of bulletins having the same 

 end in view has also received every possible attention. Bulletin 32, Antiquities 

 of the Jemez Plateau, by Edgar L. Hewett, was published and distributed dur- 

 ing the year, and Bulletin 35, Antiquities of the Upper Gila and Salt River 

 Valleys in Arizona and New Mexico, by Dr. Walter Hough, was in page form at 

 the close of the year, while bulletins by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, on the Antiqui- 

 ties of the Little Colorado Valley, and Edgar L. Hewett, on the Antiquities of the 

 Mesa Verde, Colorado, were in course of preparation. 



