ANTHROPOLOGY 
Ethnology 
Researches among the Indian tribes of North America were begun ^orth 
in 1899 under the North American Research Fund which was estab- American 
Indian 
lished through the Hberahty of Mrs. Morris K. Jesup, Mr. C. P. Hunt- Research 
ington, and Mr. Henry Villard. Later the funds for continuing this . 
o } J to Expedition, 
work were provided by Mr. Archer M. Huntington, Mrs. Arabella i899-i906. 
Huntington, and Mr. Morris K. Jesup. Special attention was given 
to the ancient customs which were rapidly disappearing. The decora- 
tive art was also carefully studied by all the collectors, and the Museum 
now possesses an unrivaled collection illustrating primitive art. Col- 
lections were obtained from the Eskimo of Baffin Bay and Hudson 
Bay, and the following tribes in western United States, Canada, and 
British Columbia; the Sioux, Sauk, Fox, Comanche, Ute, Blackfoot, 
Nez Perce, Sarcee, Kootenai, Gros Ventres, Assiniboine, Maidu, Arap- 
aho, Pitt River, Shasta, Yurok, Crow, Alsea, Shoshone, Ojibwa, and 
Iroquois. 
Another important investigation — the study of the Shoshone 
and Algonkin tribes — was carried on jointly for the Museum and 
the Bureau of American Ethnology, by Mr. H. St. Clair and Dr. Wm. 
Jones. The ethnological work was done for the Museum, while the 
linguistic researches, largely based on records of tribal traditions, 
were made for the Bureau of Ethnology. 
The collections from the Plains Indians have been made largely Indians of 
from the point of view of illustrating their decorative art and cere- Plains, 
monials. The tribes included in the Plains culture are the Blackfoot, 
Cheyenne, Arapaho, Gros Ventres, Sioux, and Shoshone. The ex- 
hibition series from the Arapaho is especially complete and contains 
among other things life-sized models of the Arapaho dressed in the 
regalia used in certain dances. Of special interest in the Blackfoot col- 
lection is the Medicine Man's tepee, which was obtained by Dr. Clark 
Wissler in 1904. 
The culture of the Indians of California is shown particularly by j^^jg^^ 
their baskets, of which the Museum has gathered a very extensive California. 
[91] 
