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Show OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXIX Pages 480- 665 of the Dakota Dictionary, by Rev. S. R. Riggs, edited by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, were stereotyped, completing the Dakota- Englis A portion of the work, which will form part of Vol. VII of the last mentioned series. Pages 97- 512 of Mr. J. C. Pilling's Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians were also placed in type. FIELD WORK. This includes, first, explorations with reference to material objects produced by the native tribes; and, second, examination of the members of those tribes, both as individuals and as aggregations. These divisions are related, but the first chiefly concerns archaeology and technology, and the second philology, mythology, and sociology. It is manifest that without the authority and assistance of the Government little useful work can , be done in the first of these divisions. The object of private explorers in this direction is usually to procure relics or specimens for sale or merely to gratify curiosity, with the result that these are often scattered and lost for any comprehensive study, while their receptacles, whether mounds, graves, or ruins, are in many cases destroyed without intelligent examination or record The trained explorers of the Bureau preserve all useful facts touching the localities concerned, and the objects collected, both ancient and modern, are deposited in the National Museum. Experience has also shown that individual travelers, unguided and without common system, have failed to obtain the best results in the second of the above mentioned divisions. The precious accounts of early explorers cannot be understood without the interpretation and corrections still, though for a limited time, to be gained from among existing tribes. MOUND EXPLORATIONS. WORK OF PROF. CYRUS THOMAS. The Bureau of Ethnology was first organized on the basis of work developed by the Director while in charge of explorations and surveys in the valley of the Colorado River of the West. |
