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Show ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT • XLVH of the language of the people of these villages was the more speedily gained, because I had previously studied other languages of the same stock, so that although my stay here was only about two months, by hard labor and by the aid of the Mormon missionary I obtained quite an insight into the nature of the Hopi fraternities. Particularly was I impressed by one of the ceremonies at Shumopavi, though I witnessed others at different: Hopi towns. I never returned to this study of these fraternities, though I subsequently visited these pueblos; but I never forgot their existence nor neglected to provide for their investigation to the extent of such agencies as. I could command. I first sent Mr Cushing to Zuni to make a study of its interesting people, and he brought back a wealth of material. I was also the means of securing the detail of Dr Matthews as medical officer at Fort Defiance. Dr Matthews had studied at Hidatsa, and now he not only studied the language of the Nayaho, but he also made a study of their fraternities or religious cults, an investigation which again revealed his genius as an ethnologist. Subsequently, as Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, I sent Mrs Matilda Coxe Stevenson to Zuiii, and then to Sia, bn Jemez river. In both of these places she made a careful and elaborate study of the fraternities of the people. A part of the material collected by her has already been published, and a larger part is now practically ready for the press, and in it all she makes a great contribution to our knowledge of tribal peoples. At the same time Mr J. N. B. Hewitt, who had'been an assistant of Mrs Erminnie Smith, a collaborator of the Bureau among the Iroquois Indians, continued her work as an independent investigator after her death. He studied the language of the people under great advantages, being himself an Iroquois who had obtained a good knowledge of linguistics as an English scholar. He also has studied the fraternities of the Iroquois and has gained a wealth of knowledge about them. Mr James Mooney has given much attention to the same subject while studying the Cherokee, and especially while collecting the material for his volume on the Ghost- dance religion. |
