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Show xxvm BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY now complete, and nearly all of the illustrations are ready for reproduction. The Pueblo Indians well illustrate certain results of environment in the development of belief and ceremony. A harsh environment begets profound faith. This is illustrated by the history of many cults. The Pueblo region was a gathering ground of primitive faiths, each fertilizing the others in accordance with the law already set forth, and each intensified by hard local conditions. The northern tribes, who furnished much of the blood of the Pueblo peoples, were pressed down from more humid regions and brought into conflict with alien warriors and with an arid habitat in which the specters of thirst and famine were ever present. The southern tribes, who furnished most of the culture of the Pueblos, were in part at least forced up toward the plateaus from the still more arid districts about the present national boundary into which they had fled as the excess of population from the more fertile districts of pre- Columbian Mexico. All of the peoples were shadowed by the dangers of drought and by the hard labor required for the maintenance of existence; all were accustomed to invocations for rain; all were accustomed to ceremonies connected with the growth of com; all were accustomed to reverence of beast- gods, and all ascribed their preservation from ever- present danger to their success in propitiating the maleficent mysteries by which they were surrounded- for that which is simply a hard natural condition to the advanced thinker is always a maleficent potency to the primitive thinker. All of the circumstances were such as to develop a profoundly devotional cast of mind among the Pueblo peoples; and their myths and ceremonies became so striking as to attract the attention of students throughout the world, as white men came in contact with them. Mrs Stevenson's researches concerning the myths and ceremonies have been exceptionally thorough, and the results now nearly ready for publication will form a substantial contribution to the knowledge of aboriginal mythology. DESCRIPTIVE ETHNOLOGY During the year the important work of compiling a Cyclopedia of Indian Tribes of North America was continued by |