6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



assistance of Mrs. Mooney, and made available for the use of any 

 students interested in that section of the Southeast. 



About the middle of December 1933 Mr. W. M. Walker left Wash- 

 ington to assist Dr. Strong in the direction of an archeological excava- 

 tion project near Taft, Calif., made possible by a grant from the 

 Federal Civil Works Administration. The site chosen consisted of 

 two large shellmounds on the shore of Buena Vista Lake, known to 

 the early Spanish explorers as the Yokuts village of Tulamniu. These 

 mounds and a portion of the adjoining hill tops were made the object 

 of systematic excavations lasting until the end of March 1934, em- 

 ploying a large number of men taken from the local reHef rolls, as well 

 as a number of experienced students from the University of Cali- 

 fornia, and a staff of technical specialists. As a result a large amount 

 of information was obtained about the construction and occupation 

 of the shellmounds, the burial places of some 600 of their former 

 inhabitants, and a collection of about 4,500 specimens illustrating 

 their material culture. Indications are that the inhabitants of the 

 later mound are closely related in culture to the shellmound builders 

 of the San Francisco Bay region, some of whom may have worked 

 their way up the San Joaquin Valley, until they appeared in historic 

 times as the lake tribes of the Southern Yokuts. 



Following the closing of the C. W. A. work early in April, Mr. 

 Walker also accompanied Dr. Strong on a 2-weeks' packing trip into 

 the Santa Barbara Mountains mentioned above. 



Mr. Walker returned to Washington the latter part of April and 

 has since been engaged in the classification and study of the material 

 collected in preparation for a report on the ancient Yokuts village 

 site of Tulamniu. 



During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1934, Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, 

 ethnologist, was engaged in office work. The time was devoted to 

 the revision and literal and free translation of native texts in the 

 Mohawk, the Cayuga, and the Onondaga languages, relating not only 

 to the several institutions of the League of the Iroquois, but also to 

 the traditional accounts of the events leading to its establishment 

 with traditional biographies of the founders and their antagonists, 

 and also those relating to the legendary origin and development of 

 the Wind or Disease Gods and as well those relating to the Plant or 

 Vegetable Gods. 



In the writings of many historians of the tribes of the Iroquois, 

 there is a constant occurrence of the terms ''elder" brothers, tribes, 

 and nations, and ''younger" brothers, tribes, and nations. These 

 phrases have often been employed to show the tribal or racial descent 

 of one Iroquois Tribe or people from another. Mr. Hewitt was able 

 to demonstrate that the eldership or juniorship of tribes or nations 



