24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



Dakota, University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Ne- 

 braska Laboratory of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Uni- 

 versity of Texas, the Museum of New Mexico, and the University of 

 Mississippi. 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 



(Report prepared by George M. Foster) 



During the period under review one phase in the history of the In- 

 stitute of Social Anthropology drew to a close, and a new one began. 

 The Department of State informed the Smithsonian Institution on 

 September 28, 1951, that it would terminate its support on December 

 31, 1951. Following the abolition of the Inter-Departmental Com- 

 mittee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation in 1949, under whose 

 auspices the Institute of Social Anthropology was established and its 

 work carried out, the Institute was placed under the Division of Inter- 

 national Exchange of Persons. Since the Institute did not form an 

 organic part of this program, the Department of State's decision to 

 terminate support was not entirely unforeseen. During the period 

 July 1-December 31, 1951, operations were financed with a grant of 

 $42,000 from Public Law 402. 



For some time there had been a growing feeling on the part of the 

 Institute personnel that the general factual knowledge it had accumu- 

 lated since 1944 should be put to some practical use. Therefore, in 

 the spring of 1951 anthropological analyses of health centers sponsored 

 by the Institute of Inter- American Affairs and the Ministries of 

 Health in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil were carried out. The 

 results of this investigation were made available in mimeographed 

 form in July in a paper entitled "A Cross- Cultural Anthropological 

 Analysis of a Technical Aid Program," which demonstrated to the 

 satisfaction of the IIAA that the anthropological knowledge and tech- 

 nical methods used by anthropologists would be useful in carrying 

 out United States Government technical aid programs in Latin 

 America. Accordingly, in a letter dated September 28, 1951, Dr. 

 Henry G. Bennett, Administrator, Technical Cooperation Administra- 

 tion, asked the Institute of Social Anthropology to integrate its activ- 

 ities with those of the IIAA, effective January 1, 1952. In response 

 to this request the IIAA made a grant of $45,705 to enable the ISA 

 to continue its activities in all four countries, with the understanding 

 that Smithsonian anthropologists would be available for program 

 analyses of technical aid projects. 



Individual activities of staff members are described in the separate 

 country sections. The largest single enterprise consisted of participa- 

 tion in a general survey of IIAA public-health programs in Latin 

 America. During the spring of 1952 the IIAA decided to utilize 



