FOLK-LORE STUDY IN AMERICA. 595 



in which opportunities to gather valuable material are found : 

 for example, in the Pennsylvania coal fields, where Hungarians 

 congregate; in the Southwest, where the negroes and "poor 

 whites " touch elbows ; in the Northwest, where the Scandina- 

 vians are numerous; and on the Pacific coast, where Indians, 

 Chinese, and half-breeds mingle. 



A few words as to the work of the officers and leaders of the 

 national Folk-lore Society.* The honor of holding the presi- 

 dency rightfully belongs to Prof. Horatio Hale, whose studies 

 date back to a time when the term " folk lore " could not be found 

 in Webster's Dictionary. His first important contribution was 

 to the volume of Ethnography and Philology of the United States 

 Exploring Expedition under Wilkes (Volume VII). Then Prof. 

 Hale increased his reputation by editing The Iroquois Book of 

 Rites, f This Iroquois book is almost pure folk lore, and has a 

 special interest, as showing how authentic history can be derived 

 from popular tradition where this has been handed down in pub- 

 lic and solemn recitations. To this evidence alone we owe the es- 

 tablishment of the fact that Hiawatha was not a mythical hero, 

 but an actual Onondaga chief, who lived between four and five 

 centuries ago, and helped to form the great Iroquois Confedera- 

 tion. For further information on the story of Hiawatha, see Mr. 

 Beauchamp's scholarly paper entitled Hi-a-wat-ha, in the Journal 

 of American Folk Lore (for 1891, p. 295). 



The man who is responsible for the very existence of such an 

 organization as The American Folk-lore Society is William Wells 

 Newell. He it was who issued the call to arms, who drafted the 

 circular letter already referred to, who put the new organization 

 in line with the great anthropological movement in America, who 

 has generously given his time and services to the cause of folk 

 lore ; who, in short, has been the general executive officer of the 

 society from the beginning. All this has been a labor of love 

 with our honored permanent secretary. Mr. Newell won his repu- 

 tation as a folk-lorist by his book of Games and Songs of Amer- 

 ican Children (1883). Since then he has contributed to the Jour- 

 nal of American Folk Lore a large number of valuable papers, 

 which we all hope to see some day within the covers of a book. 



* The officers of the American Folk-Lore Society for the year 1 893 are as follows : 

 President, Horatio Hale, Clinton, Ontario ; first vice-president, Alcee Fortier ; second vice- 

 president, D. P. Penhallow. Council, Franz Boas, H. Carrington Bolton, D. G. Brinton, 

 A. F. Chamberlain, J. Owen Dorsey, Alice C. Fletcher, George Bird Grinnell, Otis T. 

 Mason, and Frederick W. Putnam. Permanent secretary, William Wells Newell, Cam- 

 bridge, Mass. ; corresponding secretary, J. Walter Fewkes ; treasurer, John H. Hinton, 

 M. D. ; curator, Stewart Culin. 



f It forms No. 2 of Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature, Philadelphia, 

 1883. 



