PREFATORY NOTE. 
It is an obvious fact that to obtain even superficial answers 
to the queries which form the body of this work would 
necessitate a long-continued residence among a native race, 
and that even with the most friendly relations it would be 
a difficult matter to obtain accurate information upon certain 
matters, such, for instance, as the significance of quasi¬ 
religious ceremonies, of totemic signs, past history of the 
race, and such like. Some indications as to the most 
profitable lines of inquiry to be pursued during a short stay 
among a savage people would seem, therefore, to be a 
necessary preface to a work of this character. It is, how¬ 
ever, by no means an easy matter to point out in what 
directions observations can be made with the best results 
during a limited stay. Every student of anthropology would 
wish a different line to be pursued, according to the direction 
of his own studies. The best plan seems to be to devote as 
much time as possible to the photographic camera or to 
making careful drawings, for by these means the traveller is 
dealing with facts about which there can be no question, and 
the record thus obtained may be elucidated by subsequent 
inquirers on the same spot, while the timid answers of 
natives to questions propounded through the medium of a 
native interpreter can but rarely be relied upon, and are 
more apt to produce confusion than to be of benefit to 
comparative anthropology. It is almost impossible to make a 
savage in the lower stages of culture understand why the 
questions are asked, and from the limited range of his 
vocabulary or of ideas it is often nearly as difficult to put the 
question before him in such a way that he can corrmrehend it. 
The result often is that from timidity, or the desire to please, 
