68 Report of the President 



reports. Under a special fund provided by Archer M. Hunt- 

 ington, Assistant Curators Spinden and Nelson worked in the 

 Southwest. Dr. Spinden spent the first quarter of the year on 

 the religion and art of the Rio Grande Pueblos. These villages 

 present some of the most important and at the same time some 

 of the most difficult ethnological problems in the Southwest. 

 As the work now stands Dr. Spinden has full data on the 

 material culture and art and has made a beginning on religion 

 and social organization. The general plan for the work in the 

 Southwest was to make a detailed investigation of the living 

 Pueblo peoples and then to take up the archaeology of aban- 

 doned Pueblo villages, first those abandoned since the Spanish 

 occupation and later those of undoubted pre-Spanish origin. 

 Mr. Nelson began the latter part of this investigation last 

 May. A careful survey of the whole Rio Grande valley from 

 El Paso to Santa Fe was made and the important sites plotted 

 and characterized. 



During the rebellion of the Pueblos against the Spanish in 

 1680, the inhabitants of Cochiti fled to a higher mesa and built 

 a new village, where they lived until 1694 or until the Spanish 

 stormed the mesa and burned the village. We thus have in 

 these ruins a definite cross section of early historic Pueblo 

 culture. This ruin was carefully excavated by Mr. Nelson and 

 will be made the basis of a comparative study. 



In the Galisteo basin south of Lamy are a number of 

 important ruins, some of which were occupied in Spanish days. 

 Here San Cristobal, Largo and several others were excavated 

 during the season, making seven in all. More than 500 rooms 

 were cleared out. The collections selected for further study 

 are now in the Museum. It is planned to make this excellent 

 showing but a beginning of the systematic archaeological 

 exploration of the whole area to the south. 



In the Plains the special subject of investigation was men's 

 societies and ceremonial organizations. Assistant Curator 

 Lowie visited the Comanche, Ute, Shoshone, Crow and Eastern 

 Dakota. The Curator spent some time among the Northern 

 Blackfoot and the Teton- Dakota. A systematic review of this 

 problem for the whole Plains area is now in progress and will 

 form the substance of a future publication. G. L. Wilson 



