TRANSACTIONS
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
OF WASHINGTON.
For the First, Second, and Third Years of its Organization.
PUBLISHED WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
Volume I.
February io, 1879, TO January 17, 1882.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY.
1882.

COUNCIL AND OFFICERS
OF THE
Anthropological Society of Washington.
Elected January 17, 1882.
COUNCIL.
J. W. POWELL, President.
SWAN M. BURNETT. A. F. A. KING.
EDWARD ALLEN FAY. GARRICK MALLERY.
ROBERT FLETCHER. OTIS T. MASON.
G. K. GILBERT. MILES ROCK.
J. HOWARD GORE. F. A. SEELY.
H. W. HENSHAW. LESTER F. WARD.
W. J. HOFFMAN. J. C. WELLING.
OFFICERS.
PRESIDENT.
J. W. POWELL.
VICE PRESIDENTS.
Section A, Somatology, .... ROBERT FLETCHER.
Section B, Sociology, J. C. WELLING.
SECTION C, Philology, Philosophy, and Psychology, GARRICK MALLERY.
Section D, Technology, .... OTIS T. MASON.
SECRETARIES.
General Secretary, . . . LESTER F. WARD.
Secretary to the Council, . . F. A. SEELY.
TREASURER.
J. HOWARD GORE.
,
CURATOR.
W. J. HOFFMAN.
PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.
J. W. POWELL, LESTER F. WARD, J. HOWARD GORE.

HISTORICAL NOTICE.
The preliminary meeting which led to the formation of the
Anthropological Society of Washington was held in the
Regents' Room of the Smithsonian Institution on Monday even-
ing, February 10, 1879, in response to the following call through
the public press
:
" Washington, February 7, 1879.
" Many persons interested in American Archaeology have ex-
pressed a desire for an organization in this city to promote study
and diffuse knowledge upon the subject. All willing to join an
Archaeological Association are requested to attend a meeting at the
Smithsonian Institution on Monday evening, 10th instant, at 7^
o'clock, for a conference upon the subject, and the formation of
such a society.
"J. M. Toner, M. D.,
" Otis T. Mason, Columbian College,
" Garrick Mallery, U. S. Army."
The following gentlemen responded to this call by attending the
preliminary meeting
:
Dr. A. Wellington Adams, Mr. S. Yorke At Lee, Prof. S. F.
Baird, Mr. Otis Bigelow, Mr. George H. Boehmer, Mr. E. A.
Burdick, Mr. Frank H. dishing, Dr. Wills DeFfass, Dr. Robert
Fletcher, Mr. G. Brown Goode, Mr. John C. Lang, Col. Garrick
Mallery, Prof. Otis T. Mason, Dr. James E. Morgan, Mr. P. W.
Norris, Lieut. W. W. Reisinger, Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds, Mr.
William J. Rhees, Dr. Miles Rock, Mr. Lenox W. Simpson, Dr.
J. E. Snodgrass, Dr. J. M. Toner, Mr. Edwin P. Upham, Mr. Les-
ter F. Ward, and Mr. Joseph M. Wilson.
At that meeting the propriety of such an organization was dis-
cussed, as well as the question as to the most appropriate name by
which it should be known, and a committee consisting of Dr. J. M.
5
6 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Toner, Prof. Otis T. Mason, Col. Garrick Mallery, and Dr. Wills
DeHass, was appointed to draft a constitution.
The meeting adjourned to reassemble in the same room one week
later and consider the report of the committee.
A second preliminary meeting was accordingly held on Mon-
day evening, February 17, and the committee reported a constitu-
tion which, after discussion and slight modification, was adopted.
The following is the constitution adopted at that meeting
:
ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION.
Article I.
—
Name.
The name of this Society shall be " The Anthropological
Society of Washington."
Article II. Object.
The object of this Society shall be to encourage the study of the
Natural History of Man, especially with reference to America, and
shall include Archaeology, Somatology, Ethnology, and Philology.
Article III. Members.
The members of this Society shall be persons who are interested
in Anthropology, and shall be divided into three classes : Active,
Corresponding, and Honorary. The active members shall be those
who reside in Washington, or in its vicinity, and who shall pay the
dues required by Article XV ; corresponding members shall be
those who are engaged in anthropological investigations in other
localities ; honorary members shall be those who have contributed
by authorship or patronage to the advancement of Anthropology.
Corresponding or honorary members may become active members
by paying the fee required by Article XV.
All members shall be elected by ballot, as follows : The name of
the candidate shall be recommended to the council, in writing, by
two members. If a majority of the Council favor the election, the
name shall be presented to the Society, and a vote of a majority of
the active members present at a regular meeting shall be necessary
to an election.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 7
No person shall be entitled to the privileges of active member-
ship before signing the constitution.
Article IV.
—
Officers.
The officers of this Society shall be a President, four Vice-Presi-
dents, a Corresponding Secretary, a Recording Secretary, a Treas-
urer, and a Curator, all of whom, together with six other active
members, shall constitute a council, all to be elected by ballot at
each annual meeting. The officers shall serve one year, or until
their successors are elected.
Article V.
—
The Council.
No business shall be transacted by the Society, and no communi-
cation received or published in the name of the Society, that has
not first been referred to the Council, five members of which shall
constitute a quorum.
They shall act on all nominations for membership, shall have
direction of the finances, audit the accounts of the Treasurer,
Corresponding Secretary, and Curator, and provide a proper pro-
gramme for regular and special meetings.. They shall meet one
hour before the regular sessions of the Society, and at such other
times as they may be called together by the President. They may
call special meetings of the Society.
Article VI. The Sections.
For active operations the Society shall be divided into four sec-
tions, as follows : Section A, Archaeology; Section B, Somatology;
Section C, Ethnology ; Section D, Philology. The Vice Presidents
of the Society shall be ex officio chairmen of these sections respec-
tively, and shall be designated by the President to their sections
after their election. It shall be the duty of these sections to keep
the Society informed upon the progress of research in their respec-
tive fields, to make special investigations when requested by the
Council, to announce interesting discoveries, to collect specimens,
manuscripts, publications, newspaper clippings, etc., and in every
way to foster their divisions of the work.
All papers presented to the sections shall be referred to the Coun-
cil, and through it to the Society.
8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Article VII.
—
The President.
The President, or, in his absence, one of the Vice Presidents,
shall preside over the meetings of the Society and of the Council,
and shall appoint all committees in the Council and in the Society.
Article VIII.
—
The Vice Presidents.
The Vice Presidents shall respectively preside over the sections
to which they have been designated, and represent such section in
the Council and in the Society.
All papers from a section shall be referred to the Council through
its vice-president.
Article IX.
—
The Corresponding Secretary.
It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary to receive
and answer all letters of the Society, to give due notice of all meet-
ings, regular and special, to receive all donations to the Society
other than money, acknowledge the receipt thereof, and deliver
them to the Curator.
Article X.
—
The Recording Secretary.
The Recording Secretary shall keep the minutes of the regular
and special meetings of the Society, and of the Council, shall keep
a list of active, corresponding, and honorary members, with their
residences, and shall inspect and count all ballots.
Article XI.
—
Duties of the Treasurer.
The Treasurer shall receive and have charge of all moneys ; he
shall deposit the funds as directed by the Council, and shall not ex-
pend any money except as ordered by the Council. He shall notify
members in writing when their dues have remained unpaid for six
months.
Article XII.
—
The Curator.
The Curator shall have charge of all books, pamphlets, photo-
graphs, clippings, and other anthropological material not deposited
in accordance with Article XVI, in the National Museum, or the
Army Medical Museum ; he shall keep a record of them in a book
provided by the Society; he shall keep a card subject-index of
anthropological facts, to which the members are all expected to
contribute.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
Article XIII.
—
Meetings.
The regular meetings of the Society shall be held on the first and
the third Tuesday of each month from October to June, inclusive.
An annual meeting for the election of officers shall be held on the
third Tuesday of January in each year, at which only active mem-
bers who are not in arrears for fees shall be entitled to vote. The
business of the Society shall be conducted in accordance with the
established rules of parliamentary practice. Papers shall be lim-
ited to twenty minutes, after which the subject shall be thrown open
for discussion, remarks thereon to be limited to five minutes for
each speaker. At the first meeting in February the retiring presi-
dent shall deliver an address upon the work of the Society during
the preceding year. Ten active members present at any meeting
shall constitute a quorum.
Article XIV. Visitors.
Members may invite strangers interested in Anthropology to at-
tend any meeting except the annual election ; but a resident of the
District of Columbia shall not be invited more than once during a
year, except with the consent of the Council.
Article XV.
—
Fees.
Each member, on joining, shall pay the sum of two dollars, and
two dollars for each year thereafter, commencing with the first of
January ensuing. The names of members failing to pay their fees
one month after written notice from the Treasurer, as provided in
Article XI, shall be dropped from the roll.
Article XVI. Donations.
It shall be the duty of all members to seek to increase and per-
fect the materials of anthropological study in the national collec-
tions at Washington. All donations of specimens, books, pamph-
lets, maps, photographs, and newspaper clippings, shall be received
by the Corresponding Secretary and delivered to the Curator, who
shall exhibit them before the Society at the next regular meeting
after their reception, and shall make such abstract or entry con-
cerning them, in a book provided by the Society, as will secure
their value as materials of research ; after which all archaeological
and ethnological materials shall be deposited in the National
10 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Museum, in the name of the donor and of the Society; all crania
and somatic specimens, in the Army Medical Museum ; all books,
pamphlets, photographs, clippings, and abstracts, in the archives
of the Society.
Article XVII.
—
Amendments.
This constitution shall not be amended except by a three-fourths
vote of the active members present at the annual meeting for the
election of officers, and after notice of the proposed change shall
have been given in writing at a regular meeting of the Society, at
least one month previously.
Article XVIII.
—
Order of Business.
The order of business at each regular meeting shall be
:
i
.
Reading the minutes of the last meeting.
2. Report of the Council upon membership.
3. Report of the Corresponding Secretary.
4. Report of the Curator.
5. Reading of papers and discussions.
6. Notes and queries.
The third meeting was held February 24, 1879, at which the
officers of the Society for the ensuing year were elected. The follow-
ing were the officers chosen :
FIRST OFFICERS.
President J. W. POWELL
Vice Presidents
rj. M. TONER.
I
GEORGE A. OTIS.
] GARRIGK MALLERY.
L WILLS DeHASS.
Corresponding Secretary . . . OTIS T. MASON.
Recording Secretary . . . ELMER R. REYNOLDS.
Treasurer JOHN C. LANG.
Curator FRANK H. CUSHING.
ALBERTS. GATSCHET.
W. W. REISINGER.
G. K. GILBERT.
CHARLES A. WHITE.
THOMAS ANTISELL.
[J. M. WILSON.
Council at Large
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 11
The first Regular Meeting of the Society was held, pursuant to
the above constitution, on Tuesday evening, March 4, 1879, and
bi-weekly meetings have since taken place regularly, as provided for
in Article XIII.
The Regents' Room of the Smithsonian Institution, through the
courtesy of Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Institution,
was occupied as the place of meeting until January 18, 1881, when
the offer of the Faculty of the National Medical College, of the
use for this purpose of the lower Lecture Hall of the College was
formally considered and accepted, at which place the Society has
since met.
During the first three years of the Society, viz., from March
4, 1879, to January 3, 1882, sixty-eight papers were read and
three presidential addresses delivered. The number of papers pre-
sented in the year i879-'8o, was twenty-seven, the number in the
year 1880-81, was nineteen, and the number in the year i88i-'82,
was twenty-two.
Abstracts of most of the papers have been furnished and many
of them have been published entire in different ways. The papers
read during the first two years were collected together by the Presi-
dent at the end of the second year, and abstracts of them published
by him as data for his annual address for that year in compliance
with a clause in Article XIII of the Constitution. These abstracts,
chronologically arranged, together with the presidential address of
the previous year, and that for the second year, with an index, were
published by the President under the following title : "Abstract
of Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington,
D. C, with the Annual Address of the President, for the First Year
ending January 20, 18S0, and for the Second Year ending January
18, 1881. Prepared by J. W. Powell. Washington, 1881."
The whole forms a pamphlet of 150 pages, and constitutes a
valuable record of the Society during its first two years. The ex-
penses of this publication were, by a vote of the Society and Coun-
cil, divided equally between the Society and the President.
12 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
The abstracts and addresses published in this work will not be
republished in the present volume, but reference will be made in
each case to the page on which they occur.
At the annual meeting held January 17, 1882, several amend-
ments to the Constitution, proposed by a committee appointed for
the purpose, were considered by the Society and adopted. The
following is the present Constitution as amended at that meeting :
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 13
AMENDED CONSTITUTION.
Article I.
—
Name.
The name of this Society shall be " The Anthropological
Society of Washinoton."
Article II. Object.
The object of this Society shall be to encourage the study of the
Natural History of Man, especially with reference to America, and
shall include Somatology, Sociology, Philology, Philosophy, Psy-
chology, and Technology.
Article III.
—
Members.
The members of this Society shall be persons who are interested
in Anthropology, and shall be divided into three classes : Active,
Corresponding, and Honorary. The active members shall be those
who reside in Washington, or in its vicinity, and who shall pay the
dues required by Article XV. Failure to comply with this pro-
vision within two months after notice of election, unless satisfac-
torily explained to the Council, shall render the election void.
Corresponding members shall be those who are engaged in an-
thropological investigations in other localities; honorary members
shall be those who have contributed by authorship or patronage to
the advancement of Anthropology. Corresponding or honorary
members may become active members by paying the fee required
by Article XV.
All members shall be elected by the Council and by ballot, as fol-
lows : The name of the candidate shall be recommended to the
Council, in writing, by two members of the Society, and eight af-
firmative ballots shall be necessary to an election.
No person shall be entitled to the privileges of active member-
ship before paying the admission fee provided in Article XV.
Article IV. Officers.
The officers of this Society shall be a President, four Vice Presi-
dents, a General Secretary, a Secretary to the Council, a Treasurer,
and a Curator, all of whom, together with six other active members,
shall constitute a Council, all to be elected by ballot at each annual
14 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
meeting. The officers shall serve one year, or until their successors
are elected.
Article V.
—
The Council.
All business of the Society, except the election of officers at the
annual meeting, shall be transacted by the Council, five members of
which shall constitute a quorum.
The Council shall meet one half-hour before the regular sessions
of the Society, and at such other times as they may be called to-
gether by the President. They may call special meetings of the
Society.
Article VI.
—
The Sections.
For active operations the Society shall be divided into four sec-
tions, as follows : Section A, Somatology ; Section B, Sociology ;
Section C, Philology, Philosophy, and Psychology ; Section D,
Technology. The Vice-Presidents of the Society shall be ex officio
chairmen of these sections respectively, and shall be designated by
the President to their sections after their election. It shall be the
duty of these sections to keep the Society informed upon the pro-
gress of research in their respective fields, to make special investiga-
tions when requested by the Council, to announce interesting dis-
coveries, to collect specimens, manuscripts, publications, newspaper
clippings, etc., and in everyway to foster their divisions of the
work.
All papers presented to the sections shall be referred to the Coun-
cil, and through it to the Society.
Article VII. The President.
The President, or, in his absence, one of the Vice-Presidents,
shall preside over the meetings of the Society and of the Council,
and shall appoint all committees in the Council and in the Society.
At the first meeting in February the retiring President shall deliver
an address to the Society.
Article VIII.
—
The Vice-Presidents.
The Vice-Presidents shall respectively preside over the sections
to which they have been designated, and represent such sections in
the Council and in the Society.
Each of the Vice-Presidents shall deliver an address during the
year upon such subject within his department as he may select.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 15
Article IX.
—
T7ie General Secretary.
It shall be the duty of the General Secretary to record the trans-
actions and conduct the general correspondence of the Society.
Article X.
—
The Secretary to the Council.
The Secretary to the Council shall keep the minutes of the Coun-
cil, shall keep a list of active, corresponding, and honorary mem-
bers, with their residences, shall notify members of the time and
place of all meetings of the Society, and shall perform such other
duties as the Council may direct.
Article XL
—
The Treasurer.
The Treasurer shall receive and have charge of all moneys ; he
shall deposit the funds as directed by the Council, and shall not ex-
pend any money except as ordered by the Council. He shall notify
members in writing when their dues have remained unpaid for six
months.
Article XII.
—
The Curator.
The Curator shall receive, acknowledge, and have charge of all
books, pamphlets, photographs, clippings, and other anthropologi-
cal material, and shall dispose of them in accordance with Article
XVI, keeping a record of them in a book provided by the Society.
Article XIII.
—
Meetings.
The regular meetings of the Society shall be held on the first and
the third Tuesday of each month from November to May, inclusive.
An annual meeting for the election of officers shall be held on the
third Tuesday of January in each year, a quorum to consist of
twenty active members who are not in arrears for dues; and visitors
shall not be admitted. The proceedings of the Society shall be
conducted in accordance with the established rules of parliamentary
practice. Papers read shall be limited to twenty minutes, after
which the subject shall be thrown open for discussion, remarks
thereon to be limited to five minutes for each speaker.
Article XIV.
—
Publications.
The address of the President, provided in Article VII, and the
transactions of the Society, shall be printed and published annually,
or at such periods and in such form as may be determined by the
Council.
16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Article XV.
—
Fees and Dues.
The admission fee to be paid by members elect shall be five
dollars, and the annual dues, to be paid on the first of January,
shall be three dollars. The names of members failing to pay their
dues one month after written notice from the Treasurer, as pro-
vided in Article XI, shall be dropped from the roll, unless from
absence of the member from Washington or other satisfactory ex-
planation, the Council shall otherwise determine.
Article XVI.
—
Gifts.
It shall be the duty of all members to seek to increase and per-
fect the materials of anthropological study in the national collec-
tions at Washington. All gifts of specimens, books, pamphlets,
maps, photographs, and newspaper clippings, shall be received by
the Curator, who shall exhibit them before the Society at the next
regular meeting after their reception, and shall make such abstract
or entry concerning them in a book provided by the Society, as
will secure their value as materials of research ; after which all
archaeological and ethnological materials shall be deposited in the
National Museum, in the name of the donor and of the Society
;
all crania and somatic specimens, in the Army Medical Museum
;
all books, pamphlets, photographs, clippings, and abstracts, in the
archives of the Society.
Article XVII.
—
Amendments.
This constitution shall not be amended except by a three-fourths
vote of the active members present at the annual meeting for the
election of officers, and after notice of the proposed change shall
have been given in writing at a regular meeting of the Society, at
least one month previously.
Article XVIII. Order of Business.
The order of business at each regular meeting shall be
:
i. Reading the minutes of the last meeting.
2. Report of the Council upon membership.
3. Report of the Curator.
4. Reading of papers and discussions.
5. Notes and queries.
LIST OF MEMBERS
ANTDROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON.
Corrected, to September 18, 1883.
The following list aims simply to facilitate correspondence with
the members of the Society. It therefore only gives the post-office
address of each member, and the particular form and style in which
he prefers to be addressed. So few members known to have uni-
versity degrees having expressed a desire to have them printed in the
list of members, and some having objected to this being done, it
was thought best to omit them in all cases. Washington, D. C, is
understood unless otherwise specified.
ACTIVE MEMBERS.
Dr. Thomas Antisell, 131 i Q street N. W.
Dr. A. T. Augusta, 13 19 L street N. W.
Dr. Frank Baker, 366 C street N. W.
Mr. Henry M. Baker, 141 i F street N. W.
Dr. Emil Bessels, 144.1 Massachusetts Avenue N. W.
Mr. Otis Bigelow, 605 Seventh street N. W.
Dr. J. F. Bransford, U. S. Navy.
Mr. J. Stanley Brown, 1318 Massachusetts Avenue N. W.
Hon. Horatio C. Burchard, U. S. Treasury Department.
Mr. Edson A. Burdick, U. S. Pension Office.
Dr. Swan M. Burnett, 121 5 I street N. W.
Prof. J. W. Chickering, Jr., National Deaf-Mute College.
Mr. Frank H. Cushing, Zufii, New Mexico.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 585.
Mr. Chas. L. Dubois, 605 Seventh street N. W.
2 17
18 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Capt. C. E. Button, U. S. A., Geological Survey, Bo* 591. ,
Mr. TllEO. F. Dwigiit, Department of State.
Prof. Edward Allen Fay, National Deaf-Mute College.
Dr. Robert Fletcher, 1326 L street N. W.
Mr. Weston Flint, Librarian U. S. Patent Office.
Prof. E. T. Fristoe, Columbian University.
Dr. E. M. Gallaudet, President National Deaf-Mute College.
Mr. Henry Gannett, 1881 Harewood Avenue, LeDroit Park.
Mr. ALBERT S. Gatscmet, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 591.
Mr. C. D. Gedney, U. S. Coast S*urvey Office.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert, U. S. Geological Survey, Box 591.
Mr. H. P. Godwin, " Star" Office.
Mr. G. Brown Goode, Smithsonian Institution.
Prof. J. Howard Gore, 1305 Q_ street N. W.
Dr. Chas. E. Hagner, 1400 H street N. W.
Dr. Wm. H. Hawkes, U. S. A., Army Dispensary, 1733 G street N. W.
Mr. H. W. Hensiiaw, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 591.
Mr. S. D. Hinman, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 591.
Dr. W. J. Hoffman, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 591.
Mr. Wm. H. Holmes, 18 Vernon Row.'
Dr. Franklin B. Hough, Chief Forestry Div., Dept. of Agriculture.
Mr. M. B. W. Hough, 312 Indiana Avenue N. W.
Dr. D. L. Huntington, U. S. A., Army Medical Museum.
Mr. David Hutcheson, Library of Congress.
Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, New York City.
Mr. John Irwin, Jr., U. S. Geological Survey, Box 585.
Dr. Jos. Taber Johnson, 937 New York Avenue N. W.
Mr. George Kennan, Lock box 23.
Dr. A. F. A. King, '726 Thirteenth street N. W.
Dr. William Lee, 21 n Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mr. Daniel Leech, Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. Joseph Libbey, 3043 West street, Georgetown.
Capt. E. P. Lull, U. S. N., Navy Department.
Judge Arthur MacArthur, 1201 N street N. W.
Rev. Clay MacCauley, 43 Limvood street, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Mr. Henry B. F. Macfarland, 1727 F street N. W.
Col. Garrick Mallery, U. S. A., Bureau of Ethnology, Box 591.
Prof. Otis T. Mason, 1305 Q street N. W.
Mr. J. D. McGuiRE, Ellicott City, Maryland.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 19
Prof. A. P. Montacue, Columbian University.
Dr. James E. Morgan, 905 E street N. W.
Dr. P. J. Murphy, Columbia Hospital.
Mr. E. W. Nelson, Colorado Springs, Col.
Mr. J. A. Norris, 1236 Thirteenth street N. W.
Mr. P. W. Norris, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 585.
Mr. Ivan Petroff, U. S. Census Office.
Mr. J. C. Pilling, Bureau of Ethnology, Box 585.
Prof. Samuel Porter, National Deaf-Mute College.
Major J. W. Powell, Box 585.
Dr. D. Webster Prentiss, 1224 Ninth street N. W.
Mr. S. V. Proudfit, U. S. Pension Office.
Lieut. W. W. Reisinger, U. S. N., 1209 Thirteenth street N. W.
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds, U. S. Pension Office.
Mr. Wm. J. Rhees, Smithsonian Institution.
Prof. C. V. Riley, 1700 Thirteenth street N. W.
Mr. Louis W. Ritchie, 3259 N street N. W., (Georgetown.)
Dr. Miles Rock, 1430 Chapin street.
Mr. C. C. Royce, 607 I street N. W.
Mr. Newton P. Scudder, Smithsonian Institution.
Col. F. A. Seely, U. S. Patent Office.
Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. A., care Surgeon General.
Mr. C. W. Smiley, Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. John D. Smith, U. S. Pension Office.
Dr. Z. T. Sowers, 1324 New York Avenue.
Gen. Ellis Spear, Lock box 1.
Dr. J. O. Stanton, 1344 G street N. W.
Mr. James Stevenson, Box 585.
Mr. Benjamin Swallow, Washington, D. C.
Prof. Cyrus Thomas, 1246 Eleventh street N. W.
Mr. Henry L. Thomas, Department of State.
Dr. J. Ford Thompson, iooo Ninth street N. W.
Dr. J. M. Toner, 615 Louisiana Avenue.
Mr. Frederick W. True, Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. E. P. Vining, Gen. Freight Dept., U. P. R. R., Omaha, Neb.
Mr. Lester F. Ward, U. S. Geological Survey, Box 585.
Dr. James C. Welling, President Columbian University.
Dr. H. C. Yarrow, 814 Seventeenth street N. W.
20 TRANSACTIONS.
CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.
Mr. A. F. Berlin, Allentown, Pa.
Mr. Drake Carter, Versailles, Ky.
Mr. G. C. Comfort, Syracuse, N. Y.
Mr. Frank Cowen, Greensburg, Pa.
Dr. R. J. Farquharson, Des Moines, Iowa.
Major A. M. Hancock, Churchville, Md.
Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden, Wilkes Barre, Pa.
Dr. P. R. Hoy, Racine, Wis.
Hon. J. Warren Keifer, Springfield, Ohio.
Dr. Oscar Loew, Botanical Institute, Karl Strasse 29, Munich, Germany.
Dr. John G. Morris, Baltimore, Md.
Mr. B. B. Redding, 2100 California street, San Francisco, Cal.
Mr. J. H. Rivett-Carnac, Allahabad, India.
Rev. Edmund F. Slafter, Boston, Mass.
Mr. W. C. Whitford, Milton, Wis.
Prof. Alexander Winchell, Ann Arbor, Mich.
HONORARY MEMBERS.
Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secretary Smithsonian Institution.
Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A., Fort Wingale, New Mexico.
TRANSACTIONS.
First Regular Meeting, March 4, 1879.
Mr. Frank H. Cushing read a paper entitled Relic Hunting. 1
Mr. P. W. Norris read a paper entitled Some Modes of Indian
Burial. 2
Second Regular Meeting, March 18, 1879.
Mr. G. K. Gilbert read a paper entitled Some Indian Picto-
graphs. 2 •
Prof. Otis T. Mason made some Observations on Aztec and
Guatemalan Antiquities. 3
Third Regular Meeting, April 1, 1879.
Mr. Frank H. Cushing read a paper entitled Arrow-Head
Making.*
Mr. G. K. Gilbert concluded his paper on Indian Pictographs. 2
Fourth Regular Meeting, April 16, 1879.
Dr. Swan M. Burnett read a paper entitled Color-Blindness as
Affected by Race. 5
1
"Abstract of Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington,
D. C, with the Annual Address of the President, for the First Year ending January
20, 1880, and for the Second Year ending January 18, 1881. Prepared by J. W.
Powell." Washington, 1881. P. 3.
2 Loc. cit., p. 4. * Loc. cit., p. 6. * Loc. cit., p. 7.
5 Loc. cit. p. 7: Cf. "Color-Blindness" in "National Medical Review," April,
1879, vol. T, pp. 191-198; also " Results of an examination of the Color-Sense of
3,040 children in the public schools of the District of Columbia," in "Archives of
Ophthalmology," New York, vol. VIII, pp. 191-199; also reprint. Translated
into the"Archiv fur Augenheilkunde " Bd. IX, S. 146-148, and Separat-Abdruck.
21
22 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Fifth Regular Meeting, May 5, i8f9-
Mr. Wills De Hass read a paper entitled Progress of Arch^o-
locic Research in the United States. 1
Prof. J. Howard Gore read a paper entitled The Old Roman
Senate; a Study of Deliberative Assemblies. 1
Mr. Albert S. Gatschet read a paper entitled Indian Color
Names. 2
Sixth Recular Meeting, May 20, 1879.
Dr. Miles Rock read a paper entitled Indian Pictographs in
New Mexico. 3
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper describing an Aboriginal
Paint Quarry. 4
The Secretary read a paper by Mr. Victor Plarvard entitled
French and Indian Half-Breeds of the Northwest. 5
Seventh Regular.Meeting, June 3, 1879.
Col. Garrick Mallery read a paper entitled Comparative Mythol-
ogy of the Two Indies. 5
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper entitled Aboriginal Cem-
eteries near Piscataway, Md. 6
Eighth Regular Meeting, June 17, 1879.
Prof. Theodore Gill, by invitation, read a paper On the Zoo-
logical Relations of Man. 7
Ninth Regular Meeting, October 7, 1879.
Col. Garrick Mallery gave an account of the proceedings of the
Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science at its meeting held at Saratoga, New York.
1 Loc. cit., p. 9.
2 Loc. cit., p. 10; Also : " Adjectives of Color in Indian Languages," in "Ameri-
can Naturalist," vol. XlII, pp. 475-485.
s Loc. cit., p. 10. * Loc. cit., p. II. 6 Loc. cit., p. 12.
6 Loc. cit., p. 14. ''Loc. cit., p. 15.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 23
Prof. Otis T. Mason made some remarks upon the preservation
of ancient monuments. 1 •
Tenth Regular Meeting, October 21, 1879.
Col. Garrick Mallery read a paper entitled The Sign Language
of the North American Indians. 2
Eleventh Regular Meeting, November 4, 1879.
Dr. W. J. Hoffman read a paper entitled Poisoned Weapons
of North and South America. 3
Mr. G. Brown Goode read a paper entitled The Use of
Agricultural Fertilizers by the American Indians and the
early English Colonists. 4
Twelfth Regular Meeting, November 18, 1879.
Prof. Otis T. Mason read a paper entitled A Comparison of a
Written Language with one that is Spoken only. 5
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper On the Aboriginal Shell-
Heaps at Pope's Creek, Maryland. 6
Thirteenth Regular Meeting, December 2, 1879.
Mr. John C. Lang read a paper entitled Ancient Maps of
North America. 7
1 Loc. cit., p. 17.
2 Loc. cit., p. 19: Cf. " The Gesture Speech of Man," address by Col. Gar-
rick Mallery, Chairman of Subsection of Anthropology of the A. A. A. S.
»
-" Proceedings," vol. XXX, pp. 283-313; also "Sign Language among North
American Indians compared with that among other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,"
in "Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology," i879-'8o, pp. 269-552.
3 Loc. cit.
,
p. 21.
"American Naturalist," vol. XIV, pp. 473-479.
6
"Abstract of Transactions, &c," p. 21 ; also " Bulletin Philosophical Society
of Washington," vol. Ill, pp. 139-140.
6 Loc. cit., p. 23. T Loc. cit., p. 25.
24 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
Dr. Miles Rock read a paper On the Effacing "Bower of Trop-
ical Forest Growth in Trinidad Island. 1
Capt. Edward P. Lull, U. S. N., read a paper On the Deter-
mination of the Age of Prehistoric Remains. 2
Prof. C. V. Riley read a letter from a correspondent, Mr. H. P.
Bee, in San Antonio, Texas, relating to the discovery of a remark-
able cave in a mountain standing in the valley of the Rio Nazas, State
of Durango, Mexico. 3
Fourteenth Regular Meeting, December 16, 1879.
President Powell related the folk-story of the "Tar Baby" and
the Indian story of the "Three Cranberries."*
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper entitled Turtle-Back Celts
and their Uses.*
Fifteenth Regular Meeting, January 6, 1880.
Mr. J. D. McGuire read a paper entitled Shell-Heaps of South
River, Maryland. 5
Sixteenth Regular and Second Annual Meeting, January
20, 1880.
The annual election of officers took place, with the following
result
:
President J. W. POWELL.
M. TONER.
Vice-Presidents J
GEORGE A. OTIS.
' 1 GARRICK MALLERY.
[WILLS DeHASS.
Corresponding Secretary . . OTIS T. MASON.
Recording Secretary ., . ELMER R. REYNOLDS.
Treasurer JOHN C. LANG.
Curator FRANK H. CUSHING.
fE. M. GALLAUDET.
Council at Large
H. C. YARROW.
C. A. WHITE.
G. K. GILBERT.
J. M. WILSON.[ELLIOTT COUES.
1 Loc. cit., p. 26.
2 Loc. cit., p. 27.
8 Loc. cit., p. 29; cf. "Bull. No. 3,U. S. Entomological Commission," p. 132.
i Loc. cil., p. 30. 5 Loc. cit., p. 31.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 25
Commander W. Bainbridge Hoff, U. S. N., read a paper entitled
A Strange Chart. 1
Seventeenth Regular Meeting, February 3, 1880.
Dr. Wills DeHass read a paper entitled The Mound-Builders
An Inquiry into their assumed Southern Origin. 2
Eighteenth Regular Meeting, February 17, 1880.
Dr. H. C. Yarrow read a paper entitled Burial Customs of
the North American Indians. 3
Prof. J. Howard Gore read a paper entitled The Development
of Deliberative Government among the North American
Indians.*
Nineteenth Regular Meeting, March 2, 1880.
The President, Major J. W. Powell, delivered his Annual Address,
the subject being The Evolution of Language, as exhibited
in the Specialization of the Grammatic Processes, the Dif-
ferentiation of the Parts of Speech, and the Integration
of the Sentence; from a Study of Indian Languages. 5
1 Loc. cit., p. 33; also in " The Evening Star," Washington, D. C, Jan. 24,
1880, p. 2.
2 Loc. «?.,p. 55.
3 " Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs among the North American
Indians, by Dr. H. C. Yarrow, Act. Asst. Surg. U. S. A., published by the
Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1880. Cf. " A Further Contribution to the
Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians," by the same
author, in "Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology^" 1879-80, pp. S7-203.
4 Loc. cit., p. 58.
5 Loc. cit., p. 35. Cf. "Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages," 2d
edition, Washington, 18S0, by J. W. Powell, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology,
Chapter II; also "Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology," i879-'8o, pp.
I-16.
26 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Twentieth Regular Meeting, March 16, 1880.
Mr. Albert S. Gatschet read a paper entitled The Four Crea-
tions ok Mankind—A Tualati Myth. 1
Twenty-First Regular Meeting, April 6, 18S0.
Mr. C. C. Royce read a paper on The Indian Title—The
Method and Chronology of its Extinguishment by the
United States.2
Twenty-Second Regular Meeting, April 20, 1880.
Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled Pre-Social Man. 8
Twenty-Third Regular Meeting, May 4, 18S0.
Mr. A. L. Guss read a paper entitled Who were the Massa-
WOMEKES?*
Twenty-Fourth Regular Meeting May 18, 1880.
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper on The Dunbarton Abo-
riginal Soapstone Quarry. 5
Prof. E. A. Fay read a paper entitled The Testimony of the
Romance Languages concerning the Forms of the Imperfect
and Pluperfect Subjunctive in the Roman Folk-Speech. 6
1 Loc. cit., p. 60.
2 Loc. cit.
,
p. 64 : also " Cessions of Land by Indian Tribes to the United
States : illustrated by those in the State of Indiana," by C. C. Royce, in "Annual
Report of the Bureau of Ethnology," 1879-80, pp. 247-262, with map.
s Loc. cit., p. 68. This paper is condensed from Chapter VI (vol I, pp.
424-446), of the author's forthcoming work, " Dynamic Sociology, &c," in
press, D. Appleton & Co?, New York.
* Loc. cit.
, p. 7 1
.
6
"Twelfth annual Report of the Peabody Museum of Archccology and Eth-
nology," Cambridge, 1879, PP- 526—535 ; also reprint.
6
"Abstract of Transactions," &c, p. 72 : also in full in " The American Journal
of Philology," vol. I, pp. 410-415.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 27
Twenty-Fifth Regular Meeting, June i, 1880.
Prof. Samuel Porter read a paper entitled Is Thought possible
without Language?—Case of a Deaf-Mute. 1
Twenty-Sixth Regular Meeting, June 15, 1880.
Major J. W. Powell, President of the Society, read a paper enti-
tled Wyandot Government—a short Study of Tribal Society.*
Twenty-Seventh Regular Meeting, October 5, 1880.
Col. Garrick Mallery read a paper entitled Scheme of the
Tenth Census for the Enumeration of Untaxed Indians. 3
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds gave an account of an Ossuary at
Accotink, Virginia. 3
Twenty-Eighth Regular Meeting, October 19, 1880.
Mr. C. C. Royce read a paper entitled An Inquiry into the
History and Identity of the Shawnee Indians. 4
Mr. M. B. W. Hough read a paper entitled Civilization. 5
No quorum was present on November 2, 1880, and therefore no
meeting was held.
Twenty-Ninth Regular Meeting, November 16, 1880.
Prof. J. Howard Gore read a paper entitled Tuckahoe or
Indian Bread. 6
1 Loc. cit., p. 74; also in full in " Princeton Review," Jan. 1881, pp. 104-12S.
2 Loc. cit., p. 76; also in "Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology," 1879-
*8o, pp. 57-69.
3 Loc. cit., p. 92. * Loc. cit., p. 94. 5 Loc. cit., p. 100.
6 Loc. cit., p. 101. To be published in full in the "Smithsonian Report" for
1881.
28 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper entitled Indian Mounds
in the Shenandoah Valley. 1
Thirtieth Regular Meeting, December 7, 1880.
Mr. Albert S. Gatschet read a paper entitled Superstitions. 1
Thirty-First Regular Meeting, December 21, 1880.
Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled Savage and Civil-
ized Orthoepy. 2
No quorum was present on January 4, 1881, and the meeting
was postponed.
Thirty-Second Regular and Third Annual Meeting,
January 18, 1881.
The annual election of officers was held. The following officers
were elected
:
President
Vice Presidents .
Corresponding Secretary
Recording Secretary
Treasurer
Curator
Council
J. W. POWELL.
fGARRICK MALLERY.
I
OTIS T. MASON.
]H. C. YARROW.
[GEORGE A. OTIS.
C. C. ROYCE.
LESTER F. WARD.
J. HOWARD GORE.
W. J. HOFFMAN.
J. C. WELLING.
I F. A. SEELY.
MILES ROCK.
H. L. THOMAS.
J. M. TONER.EDWARD ALLEN FAY.
1 Loc. cit., p. 103. *Loc. cit., p. 106.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 29
Thirty-Third Regular Meeting, February i, 1881.
The President, Major J. W. Powell, delivered his annual address
On Limitations to the Use of some Anthropologic Data. 1
Thirty-Fourth Regular Meeting, February 15, 1881.
Mr. Henry L. Thomas read a paper On Some Peculiarities
in the use of Moods in the Principal Neo-Latin Languages.
The following is an abstract
:
The object of the paper was to illustrate various points of com-
parison existing in the use of the moods in the principal Neo-Latin
languages. Mr. Thomas referred, in the first place, to the meagre
degree of attention which has been given to the subject of the
accurate use of the moods by the Italian grammarians, and the
devotion with which almost all of them continue to regard the
usage of Boccaccio and the writers of that period. He next called
attention to the service rendered to the Italian language of the
present day by Giuseppe Rigutini, a citizen of Florence, who has
done much for the promotion of stylistic purity by the publication
of his Vocabulary of the Spoken Language, a work which marks
an epoch in Italian lexicography, inasmuch as the author, boldly
striking out into a new path, has had the courage to disregard the
usage of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and to accord a scientific treat-
ment to the language of to-day.
Many examples were adduced with a view to presenting a kind
of parallel view of the use of the moods (principally the subjunc-
tive) in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. A few examples
of the use of the French subjunctive, as exhibited in writings a
little more than two hundred years old, were given to show that
this mood was then used (or that its use was at least allowable) in
connection with verbs of thinking and believing, in affirmative sen-
tences, and the fact was adverted to that that practice no longer
1 Loc. cit.t pp. 1 1 3-1 36; also in "Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,"
1879-80, pp. 71-86.
30 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
prevails in any of the languages under consideration, with the
exception of Italian.
Reference was incidentally made to deviations by classic writers
and reputable modern Latinists from the rule that " dependent
clauses, containing an indirect question, take the subjunctive." It
was shown that, while such deviations were frequent in Plautus and
Terence, they were of by no means rare occurrence in the writings
of many Latin poets, of Seneca, and even of Cicero, although, in
the instances in which the last-named writer deviates from this rule,
modern editors have made him conform to it.
Attention was called, in conclusion, to certain points connected
with the use of the tenses of the Portuguese subjunctive, in refer-
ence to which modern grammarians continue to advocate a usage
which is really, at the present day, practically obsolete.
The paper was discussed by Prof. Fay, Dr. Antisell, Dr. Welling,
Mr. Ward, and Prof. Mason.
Prof. Fay expressed his gratification at listening to so learned a
production, and regarded it as confirmatory of the views he had
previously presented to the Society. 1
He regretted that it was not possible to systematize the data in
more exact chronological order.
Dr. Antisell remarked upon the tendency of languages to dis-
pense more and more with the subjunctive mood as to a great
extent a useless appendage.
Dr. Welling also noted the progress made in sloughing off
redundant forms, and thought it quite possible that this process
might go too far. He said that there was a very perceptible differ-
ence in the meaning conveyed by the English subjunctive and
indicative, which it would be a pity to lose the power of expressing.
Mr. Ward was interested in the cases adduced in Latin of the
dependent interrogative with the indicative, which appears to be
chiefly used in colloquialisms, showing that the common people
were disposed to eliminate unnecessary grammatical formalities.
1 See p. 26, supra.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 31
He also alluded to the complicated character of savage and barba-
ric languages, and regarded this tendency towards simplification as
constituting a true progress towards practical economy in speech.
Dr. Elmer R. Reynolds read a paper giving a description of an
Aboriginal Burial-Cave in the Valley of the South Shen-
andoah.
The cave in question is situated in Limestone Hill, an eastern
spur of the Massannutton Mountain, nine miles northwest of Luray,
Va. The hill lies on the southern bank of the river, from which it
is separated by a narrow valley a few hundred yards wide. An old
village lies about a fourth of a mile west of the cave, and nearer
by is, or rather was, an extensive cemetery. The entrance to the
cave itself is situated about forty feet above the valley, on a steep
and thickly wooded hillside. The opening is oblong, six feet east
and west by two feet north and south. The descent is vertical for
six feet, and from thence slopes very steeply down in a south-
westerly direction. This room, or passage, is about twenty-five feet
long by twelve or fifteen feet high ; the floor is covered with large
boulders and slabs of limestone intermixed with human bones and
dkbris washed down from the hillside above the opening.
Leading from this chamber is a passage seventeen feet in length
by fourteen inches in height and twelve inches in width. This
passage, or gallery, ends in a room ten feet long, eight feet high, and
from four to six feet wide. Beyond this chamber and approached
through a narrow opening is a third chamber from four to six feet
high, six feet long, and four feet wide, the length being transverse
to the others. Another passage leads from this by two openings,
one extending in a westerly direction on a line with the floor and
the second situated about four feet above and partially closed by
depending stalactites. This superior passage slopes downward, and
joins the lower opening about three feet from the floor. The
smaller of these stalactites was broken away, and an ineffectual
effort made to force a passage beyond. The largest stalactite at
this opening was from seven inches to a foot in diameter and about
three feet long.
32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
The floors in all the chambers and passages were composed of
travertine with a soft tufaceous deposit above. The floors average
from three-fourths of an inch to two or three inches in thickness,
and, under ordinary circumstances, would require a considerable
period of time in their formation.
Upon breaking through these floors with a pick-axe—which was
not accomplished without some difficulty owing to the hardness of
the material—a solid compact mass of ashes, coal, and sand, and a
profusion of human bones were found. Only a few animal bones
were found ; among these were the bones of the squirrel and turtle.
Several vei y finely preserved crania were also found firmly attached
to the side of the third chamber below the floor. Only one of
these was dislodged without injury, the others being thickly cov-
ered with tufa.
Two or three shafts were sunk down to a depth of about three
feet. Human bones and ashes were found at all depths.
Both chambers (Nos. 3 and 4, not including the entrance, or long
passage) were alike in character below the floor.
Notwithstanding the presence of charcoal and ashes, none of the
bones showed any traces of cremation. The speaker felt confident,
however, that upon cleaning out this cavern to a depth of ten feet,
he would find abundant proof that this system of burial had been
practiced at this place, although the process may have been, and
probably was, carried on outside of the cave previous to final
sepulture. He based this hypothesis upon the fact of finding
unquestionable evidences of cremation in both primary and sec-
ondary burial mounds and ossuaries in the same valley.
This cave was examined with the assistance of Mr. Benton P.
Stebbins, of Luray; Dr. Logan, of Cedar Point; Mr. Joseph
Keyser, on whose estate the cave is situated, and also by Messrs.
William Oothout and Joseph Williamson, both of whom are
attached to the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York
City. These gentlemen came on from the east expressly to assist
the speaker in his aboriginal research in the Shenandoah Valley.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 33
To Messrs. Oothout and Williamson the speaker was deeply
indebted for sketches, diagrams, and measurements of the mounds
and other aboriginal remains subsequently explored by the party.
With reference to the age of the burial cave, as a place of
sepulture, the explorer cautiously reserved his opinion until he
should again visit the locality and complete his research by remov-
ing all the debris in the bottom to a depth of two or three yards.
The present floor, he thought, is now near the former roof of the
cave.
Some of the stalagmites on the floor of the second chamber
were four inches in diameter at the base and nearly a foot high
;
yet this feature could not safely be taken as an indication of the
time since the cave had ceased to be used for burial purposes, as
the free humidity of the overlying soil—or an absence of the same
condition—would have a direct tendency very greatly to accelerate
or retard the formation of both travertine and stalagmites.
Thirty-Fifth Regular Meeting, March i, 1881.
Mr. Ivan Petroff read a paper entitled Amphibious Aborigines
of Alaska.
He described a peculiar tribe of Innuits who inhabit the lower
Kuskoquim and the coast from Cape Newenham nearly to Bristol
Bay, in Alaska, and who spend at least half of their time on or in
the water. Their houses are built close to the sea-shore, and they
spend a large part of their time in their skin-boats or "kiaks."
The children go nearly naked, and are as much at home in their
kiaks as on land. The people live chiefly on fish and seals, which
they spear with great skill. They keep their weapons and boats
scrupulously clean, this being essential to success in hunting, but
pay no attention to the cleansing of their own bodies which are
allowed to become extremely filthy. They eat their food for the
most part uncooked. Storms and tides often inundate the swampy
shore on which their partly subterranean dwellings are built, and
3
34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
filling them with water, drive the inmates out to take refuge on the
roof, where whole families are often huddled together for hours or
even days. In making long journeys to remote fishing-grounds the
father takes the young children in the kiak and the women follow
the low swampy shore on foot, often wading waist deep across
estuaries or through marshes. If a storm rages in the night the
kiak is turned on its side and the family sleep with their heads
alone protected under it and the remainder of their bodies stretched
out upon the ground.
The private dwellings are dark so that that they cannot work in
them, but they construct large council-houses, or kashimas, lighted
by a spacious opening in the roof, and where they assemble and
make their weapons and canoes, and work at curious carvings in
ivory. Here also the young men gather to listen to the adventures
of their elders, and be trained in the pursuits of life. They pur-
posely inure themselves to hardships, such as sitting upright for
entire nights to fit them for long watches in their kiaks at sea, and
in this process of education the old men are very severe task-
masters. The young man is emancipated from all family connec-
tion as soon as he is able to build himself a kiak. He then ceases
to be a permanent resident of his village, and roams about as fancy
dictates. On the banks of the Togiak the writer had found whole
communities, men, women, and children, moving from place to
place from May until October or November, without house or
shelter except the upturned kiak. One of these serves a whole
family ; and there are times when as many as four or five hundred
such temporary shelters can be seen on bars and along the low
banks of the stream where fish and game abound. They present
a striking appearance when the members of a family crowd their
heads into the circular opening of the kiak with their feet and
bodies protruding and exposed to the rain. " Surely," remarked
the speaker, "many species of animals employ greater sagacity
and energy in providing shelter for themselves and offspring."
These people drink a great deal of water without regard to
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35
quality, taking it often from stagnant pools or ponds, where fish
are cleaned and offal is thrown in. In their excursions out to sea
they never take supplies of fresh water, but drink sea water. These
practices have no apparent effect on their health. They never
bathe or wash their bodies, but on certain occasions the men light
a fire in the kashima, strip themselves and dance and jump around
until in a profuse perspiration. They then apply urine to their
oily bodies and rub them until a lather appears, after which they
plunge into the river. The sports of children are all aquatic, such
as sailing miniature canoes or pieces of drift wood, building fish-
traps, throwing spears and arrows at gulls and other birds, and then
wading or plunging in to recover them. In winter these people
huddle together in their little quarters where they have no form of
artificial heat except what is furnished by smoking and flaring oil
lamps with wicks of moss. These houses are exceedingly close,
and the only avenue through which air can enter is littered up
with offal and filth of all kinds.
The paper was discussed by several members.
Prof. Mason inquired whether these people were much subject to
diseases, such as consumption and rheumatism, and also relative to
their longevity.
Mr. Petroff replied that they were subject to consumption. He
thought that 50 years would be about the maximum age attained
by them.
Major Powell remarked that the council-house is an institution
common to. many tribes, and that in most tribes it is called
the sweat-house, or sudatory. He said that the Indian tent is
a modern innovation, and that formerly they had dwellings of
various kinds and materials. The skin tent was simply their por-
table shelter, besides which they had permanent ones. He also
spoke of the great power of tribes to adapt themselves to their
environment, and described the natural development of the
pueblo dwellings and fortified villages from a primitive origin in
mere temporary piles of loose stones thrown up for protection.
Dr. Reynolds stated that in Portugal, where soap was often very
36 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
dear or difficult to obtain, clothes were sometimes washed in urine
as a substitute for it.
Dr. Morgan regarded the statement that the Innuits drank sea-
water as very remarkable and unparalleled ; he said he had heard
that those shipwrecked sailors who remain in the water hold out
longest owing to absorption through the pores of their skin, but
they eventually die of thirst.
Mr. Petroff replied that he had employed them to take him out
to sea, and seen them drink sea-water, never asking him for any of
the fresh water he took with him.
Mr. Guss asked how far out to sea they ever ventured, and Mr.
Petroff answered that they frequently went out of sight of land.
Dr. A. F. A. King read a paper entitled " The Evolution of
Marriage Ceremonies and its import," in which he endeavored
to show
:
i. That primitive man, probably, had no marriage ceremony,
but was governed in his sexual relations very much after the
manner of brute animals, according to the "law of battle"
among males, and the law of "sexual selection."
2. That the beginning of marriage ceremonies grew out of
elements appertaining to social evolution-and were not due to any
anatomical or physiological changes in the organism, and resulted
in the practical setting aside of the old law of " sexual selection j
"
just as at the present day we know marriages are most frequently
determined by qualifications as to property, education, social
position, political influence, &c, &c.
3. By the same factors the law of what he termed " cestruational
selection" or "recurrent sexual coincidence" had been practically
set aside. The natural working of this law provided that the
human female (like the females of other beings) should only admit
approaches of the male at periods more or less coincident with the
epochs of ovulation. It, therefore, contributed to promote repro-
duction and perpetuation of the species. It accorded the female
the privilege of consent or refusal. Throughout nature the male
was the wooer, the female was wooed. It secured the female the
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 37
liberty of refusal during gestation, as well as the power to decline
additional males when her physiological wants had recently been
satisfied. Female animals were endowed with ample means of pro-
tection from the approaches of unwelcome males. It can scarcely
be otherwise than that woman originally possessed the same privi-
lege.
In connection with this part of the subject Dr. King referred to
the views of McLennan, Lubbock, Spencer, and others, in support
of the idea that the social evolution of the human race had been
accompanied by phases of development, in which women had been
made the slaves of men and had been bought and sold as wives, or
betrothed for a consideration when infants, and subjected to mar-
riage consummation regardless of any expressed desire or physio-
logical want. Our own marriage customs were an outgrowth of
these early phases of social evolution.
In conclusion Dr. King stated his belief that the present system
of marriage among civilized peoples was, all things considered, the
best that could possibly be devised. Monogamy, in order to satisfy
the physiological wants of civilized males, may necessitate violation
of the law of " cestruational selection " and compel the continuance
of sexual union during pregnancy, and this, in its turn, might add
to the ills of woman and multiply the diseases peculiar to her sex
;
but it was nevertheless a necessity, inseparable from the usages and
maintenance of a high civilization. We might as well settle down
to the conviction, once and for all, that it was useless to attempt a
strict adherence to physiological laws and at the same time regard
the requirements of civilized life; and hence had arisen, with the
growth of every form of civilization, the enactment of State laws
and the development of religions, without which the control and
subjugation of natural instincts, in a way to secure the best results
to all individuals composing a community, would be impossible.
Mr. Ward made some remarks on the portion of the paper which
referred to the great difference between the sexual habits of human
beings and of animals. He applied to the phenomenon as mani-
->b TRANSACTIONS OF THE
fested by man the term "male sexual selection" which he put in
contrast with sexual selection proper as described by Darwin, and
which is female sexual selection. This last he claimed was in turn
due to natural selection, and the chivalrous deportment of male
animals towards the females, which alone enabled the latter to
select, had resulted from the natural selection of those species dis-
playing it most by the inevitable extermination of those that sought
gratification by force after the manner of uncivilized man. He
regarded male sexual selection as a purely psychological phenome-
non, and due to the influence of the mind in bringing about
changes in the sexual habits of the human female. Both sexes
becoming rational through the development of the brain, the males
learned by various manifestations of cunning to influence the
females in the direction of overcoming the apathies and aversions
which nature gives her as a protection to her sex. Man appealed
to woman's imagination and to her reason, faculties wanting in
the lower animals ; through appeals to her imagination he was
gradually able to excite sexual feeling in her at times when pure
instinct forbade it ; through appeals to her reason he was able to
secure submission at such times in exchange for other favors which
he could confer and of which she in her subject state stood in great
need. Even sexual caste, and the reverence of the women for the
men by which the latter further secure the submission of the former
at unnatural periods, is possible only to beings with developed
mental faculties. In these and other ways a complete revolution in
the sexual nature of woman had been produced. It must have
taken place as gradually as cerebral development itself, otherwise
adaptation would have been impossible. By it. men, instead of
being chosen by women, became the choosers of their wives, and
female, had been converted into male sexual selection. Remark-
able morphological changes had been the result, and just as in ani-
mals under female sexual selection male beauty had been produced,
so in man under male selection female beauty had become predom-
inant. He remarked upon the scarcity of scientific data on this
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39
important question, and thought that medical men and biologists
should take up and prosecute the investigation of comparative ovu-
lation, menstruation, and sexual physiology.
Major Powell stated that the social life of savages had been much
falsified by unscientific travelers seeking to invent large stories of
their adventures among them ; that in none of the tribes of North
American Indians with which he was acquainted were children mal-
treated or women made slaves. On the contrary, the wife always
belongs to a different gens from the husband, and he dare not harm
her on penalty of vengeance from her own kinsfolk. He also said
that there existed a fair division of labor between the sexes. The
men provided for their families and the women performed the
domestic service. He had seen much affection manifested between
husbands and wives and by parents for children. Stories of infanti-
cide were usually false. The theories of McLennan and Lubbock,
relative to exogamy and endogamy, applied to none of our Indians,
and he believed it to be wholly unsound, and due to superficial"
investigation, and especially to the confounding of the gens with
the tribe. Marriage may occur within the tribe, but not within the
gens ; and different observers, utterly ignorant of their social sys-
tem, have at times reported facts of the one and at times of the
other of these classes, and created a totally false impression.
Mr. Dorsey made a few remarks strongly confirmatory of Major
Powell's statements.
Dr. King asked whether the tribes under consideration did not
occupy a comparatively high social position, and whether the theo-
ries combated might not hold true for much lower races.
Major Powell replied that for all tribes known to him, or from
which any reliable accounts had been received, this was not the case.
Thirty-Sixth Regular Meeting, March 15, 1881.
Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled Politico-Social Func-
tions.
^'Penn Monthly," Vol. XII, May, 1881, pp. 321-336.
40 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
The principal object of this paper was to poinj out the wide
schism which exists at the present epoch between the theories of
political economists and the practices of States. The former are
dominated by the negative ideas of Adam Smith and the English
doctrinaires which constitute nearly all the literature of the subject,
and are taught and professed almost universally. Notwithstanding
this it was shown by profuse illustrations from history and statistics
that the policy pursued by the various governments of the world is
totally opposed to these teachings, and scarcely at all affected by
them. The political economists declare that the true province of
government is simply to protect the spontaneous operation of natu-
ral laws working in society, which will then work out all the results of
civilization, and that any interference with these natural operations
will be either wholly inoperative or will result in mischief. They
found their doctrines upon the observed phenomena of the physical
world which are known to be uniform and invariable. This they
hold to constitute true political science, analogous to all physical
science.
Notwithstanding the unanimity of writers, past and present, on
this subject, positive state regulation, especially during the last
quarter of a century, has made rapid strides, and nearly all civil-
ized governments are openly violating these economic rules. The
post office, the telegraphs, and the railways of many countries are
passing under government control, while national banking and
national education are rapidly superseding private banking and
private instruction.
It was further shown that the desire for positive regulation con-
sists for the most part of a mere intuition, or social instinct, and
coexists, even in the same individual, to a great extent with the
incompatible belief in the laissez /aire policy of the schools. This
greatly complicates the problem, and renders it highly important
that a clear exposition of the grounds on which the positive policy
is conducted be made. In seeking to do this it was shown that the
unrestrained operations of natural laws in social phenomena invari-
ably result
:
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 41
i. In unjustifiable inequalities in the distribution of wealth, due
to the general truth that there is no necessary harmony between
natural law and human advantage.
2. In enormous waste of created products, due to the ruinous
excesses of competition, entailing failures and losses.
3. In artificially increased prices, due to over-supply, the result
also of competition, especially in distributive industries.
4. In dangerous monopolies, whether industrial or financial,
which threaten to enslave labor and dictate commerce.
These propositions were supported by statistics of corporations
and of public and local debts. It was also argued that, from the
standpoint of science and the laws of evolution, all these results
are the normal and legitimate products of natural law, and that
there is no tendency in unregulated nature to reverse the process
and disentangle these complicated social phenomena.
It was moreover denied that all attempts at government regula-
tion had proved failures or resulted in an excess of evil to society.
The various industries which have been absorbed by government
and successfully conducted were enumerated at length, and it was
shown that there were many such in this country, still more in Great
Britain, and a maximum number on the continent of Europe.
The extent of State ownership and management of telegraph lines
in England and in Europe generally, and of railroads in Germany,
France, Belgium, and Italy was exhibited by facts and figures ; the
prevalence of national savings banks throughout Europe and the
character of the systems of education of Germany, Austria, France,
and England were adduced in support of this view, as also the
tendency now manifest towards the protection of home industries
throughout the world.
From this basis of facts and from history the broader generaliza-
tion was then made, that all the now recognized government func-
tions have once been under a system of private management, and
have had, each in its turn, to pass through the stage of opposition
from those who would keep them so, and one by one have gradu-
42 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ally taken their places as integral parts of the system of govern- .
ment. Finance and jurisprudence were given as examples of this
truth, the former of which has scarely as yet and the latter only
quite recently assumed its true position. This process is more-
over destined to continue, until all truly public operations shall
come more or less directly under the power of state regulation.
Contrary to the general belief, this result is not often reached before
the time is ripe for it. Such is the aversion to innovation that the
evils of private management usually become well nigh intolerable
before the state is able or willing to step m and relieve them.
The want of an adequate term for expressing this conception of
the assumption by the state of the control of interests of a public
nature was next pointed out, and it was proposed to designate the
entire movement by the name Sociocracy, as a new word, etymo-
logicaliy akiri to sociology, and avoiding the stigma which at-
taches to all expressions for the government regulation of industries
whose public nature is disputed. This term embraces all the func-
tions of government, whether universally acquiesced in or not. It
also conveys a distinctly different meaning from either democracy or
socialism, and stands simply for positive social action as opposed to
the negative or laissez faire policy of the predominant school of
politico-economic doctrinaires. It recognizes all forms of govern-
ment as legitimate, and, ignoring form, goes to the substance and
denotes that, in whatever manner organized, it is the duty of society
to act consciously and intelligently, as becomes an enlightened age,
in the direction of guarding its own interests and working out its
own destiny.
President Powell remarked that it was a curious fact that no col-
lege teaches the positive doctrines of political economy, carried out
to so large an extent by the government. He said that the doc-
trines taught by Herbert Spencer and that school, would, at a
rough estimate, if practiced, neutralize nine-tenths of the legisla-
tion of the world. Modern legislators, while professing to sub-
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43
scribe to these doctrines, are in practice chiefly employed in con-
sidering to what extent they shall be violated. He further pointed
out the fact that the theories now prevailing became popular at a
time when government was unpopular, which is not now the case,
the latter having become representative in form. Former attempts
at government regulation were impracticable, because they sought
to control opinion. The form of control now exercised is of a
very different kind, and is practicable and effective. He showed
that the natural evolution of industry was legitimate and harmless
so long as it was confined, as it must necessarily be at first, to sim-
ple differentiation, but when the differentiated parts commenced
to become integrated, there arose grave social evils. He was not
hostile to corporations, but held that they were the instruments
through which nearly all the operations of society would eventually
be performed. But they require regulation, and he thought that
the principal work of legislation would ultimately be the adjust-
ment of the relations of corporations to the public and to each
other. Government has developed from its primary condition—the
family. Feudalism was the transitio'n stage from kinship govern-
ment to property government. Modern civilized society is based
on property, the unit being the individual. He believed that the
social unit will eventually be a business corporation, and that there
will be a hierarchy of corporations, the highest of which will
embrace all the rest and constitute the government. The basis of
society will then cease to be property, and will become industry.
Dr. Rock said that the policy and interests of all nations seemed
to be growing more and more uniform, and he thought that this
tendency was in the direction of an ultimate consolidation of all
nations under one government. In South America nearly all
industries were under the control of foreign companies and capital-
ists, and it was a common saying there that it made little difference
how much was produced, the people could not retain any of it, as
it all goes to London or some other wealthy foreign mart. Hence
the necessity of nations being self-sustaining.
44 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Prof. Otis T. Mason commenced to read a paper entitled The
Sayage Mind in the Presence of Civilization, but the hour of
adjournment arrived before he had completed it.
Thirty-Seventh Regular Meeting, April 5, 1881.
Professor Otis T. Mason concluded the reading of his paper
commenced at the preceding meeting, entitled The Savage Mind
in the Presence of Civilization. The following abstract has
been furnished
:
1. The progress of civilization has been guided and stimulated
in every age by the presence of peoples more advanced in any re-
gard. It is impossible for beings constituted as we are to look
upon the processes or results of industry different from or more ad-
vanced than their own without emotion, accompanied with emula-
tion or despair, according as the object may or may not be beyond
their reach.
2. Theoretically this fact is related to chronology, reversion, flex-
ibility of races, technology, language, social system, and religion.
3. There are certain lines or categories of culture, such as food,
dress, shelter, war, industry, ornament, gratification, traffic, family
organization, government, and religion, along which there has been
evolution and elaboration.
4. Among these categories themselves there is gradation, nearly
in the order named above. It is more difficult for a people to
change in the higher and more intellectual than in the lower cate-
gories. It is, therefore, easier to induce a people to change food,
dress, implements, weapons, &c, than to alter their language, kin-
ship, government, and religion.
5. In each class or line there may be, and probably are, well
marked stages of progress, corresponding to Mr. Morgan's periods.
. If the categories, therefore, are represented by parallel perpendicu-
lar lines, the total simultaneity would be marked by lines like par-
allels of latitude or isotherms crossing the categories.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 45
6. Attempts to leap over these consecutive steps of culture, or to
substitute progress in one category for that in another, ignoring the
intermediate ones, have been fatal in several ways: i. They have
presented a discouraging chasm between the starting point and that
to be reached. 2. The transition has made unnatural and fre-
quently fatal strains upon the organism, both in its physical and
psychical constitution. 3. If by reason of mixed blood or extra-
ordinary natural gifts the subject be forced to the status of the
higher race, he is still ostracised. He cannot compete with the
dominant race against capital, inherited proclivities, and racial
prejudice. On returning to his own people he is spurned for his
ignorance of the old paths, and is unable to induce his people
to don the new fashions. The experience of nearly all authors
whom I have consulted is that these highly stimulated savages either
perish miserably or become lazaroni among their own people or the
dominant race.
7. In conclusion, it is strongly insisted on that the only valuable
education to a lower race is that which enables the subjects to
develop their highest energies and intelligence among those where
their lives are to be passed. In its true and widest sense education
is not confined to school instruction. It embraces all that changes
in the presence of higher culture. It cannot be too strongly
insisted upon that functions vary easier than structure. Just as it
is difficult to change the structure of a tree, which nevertheless we
may use for fruit, for shade, for ornament, or for timber, almost
indifferently; or the structure of a horse which the farmer may
employ almost equally in the thousand and one operations of his
craft ; so is it with this wonderful organism called society. Func-
tions may change many times in the life of an individual, but the
edifice of the body politic, the family, and the church, can be
reconstructed only with the greatest wisdom and patience.
President Powell remarked relative to the efforts described by
Prof. Mason, which had been and were being made to educate the
Indians in special schools and institutions for the purpose, situated
46 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
in civilized communities, that they had generally proved failures,
and would in his opinion continue to prove such. Those persons
thus educated usually become worthless citizens either of their own
or of civilized communities. He claimed that the facts, and his
conclusions drawn from them, were based on broad ethnological
principles, and the movement was conducted in ignorance or dis-
regard of those principles. He had at one time contemplated
giving publicity to his views on the subject, but was dissuaded from
so doing by a consideration of the worthy and philanthropic
motives from which these efforts proceed. He urged that if they
are to be continued it is important that the subjects for such educa-
tion be selected from the most advanced tribes, and those which
had been longest in immediate communication with the whites.
He thought, however, that the Indians were really becoming
rapidly civilized, especially in reservations where they come into
constant contact with the whites. They are learning how to dress,
to do business, to use money, and to travel, and the schools estab-
lished among themselves are doing great good. He further stated
that on visiting the Numas he had been surprised at finding two
distinct kinds or sets of governments coexisting among them at the
same time, and two chiefs, each apparently supreme. On investi-
gation he learned that the regular chief or medicine-man had little
or nothing to do with the practical affairs of the tribe, and that
the virtual chief had slowly been developed from the condition of
interpreter or "talker," who at first was selected for his ability in
conducting the business of the people with the surrounding whites;
and as this business became more and more important, his powers
became greater and greater until he has at length come to be*
regarded as the real chief of the tribe.
Dr. Welling corroborated the remarks of Major Powell, and
instanced the case of an African missionary who, after a lengthy
sojourn among the lower tribes, returned convinced that missionary
work among them must remain next to useless until the practical
civilizing agencies, such as the mechanic arts and the schoolmaster,
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47
can be made to accompany and reinforce it. He thought that the
efforts in question were useful only in furnishing high ideals, and
keeping them before the minds of men.
Mr. Ward inquired whether there was any evidence of nominal
subordination of the virtual to the regular chief, analogous to that
which exists in many countries where the Prime Minister is the
virtual ruler, and the hereditary king or queen a mere figure-head.
Major Powell replied that such evidence existed, and gave an illus-
tration in support of that view.
Dr. Fletcher commenced to read a paper entitled Cranial
Amulets and Prehistoric Trephining, 1 which was continued to
the next meeting.
Thirty-Eighth Regular Meeting, April 19, 1881.
Dr. Robert Fletcher concluded the reading of his paper en-
entitled Cranial Amulets and Prehistoric Trephining, of which
the following is an abstract
:
The first communication upon the subject of cranial amulets was
made by Prunieres to the French Association for the Advancement
of Science, at their meeting held at Lyons, in 1873. He presented
what he termed a "rondelle," discovered in the interior of a skull
in one of the dolmens of La Lozere. A large portion of the skull
had been removed, apparently by some rude instrument. Other
discoveries of a similar character continued to be made, and it was
for some time supposed by Prunieres that the condition of the frag-
ments resulted from attempts to make drinking cups of the skulls.
When they were submitted to Broca for examination, he at once
asserted that certain parts of the edges of the rondelles and of the
apertures in the crania gave evidence of reparative process, and
that an operation, resembling that known to us as trephining, must
1 Will appear in full in " Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. V,
pp. 1—32, with plates.
48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
have been performed, and which the patient must .have survived
many years.
That no weapon could have produced the openings found in
these crania was demonstrated by drawings showing the effect of
sabre cuts and of contused blows. A remarkable peculiarity
observed was that a small portion, at least, of the cicatrized edge
was left on the rondelles and on the apertures in the skulls. The
difference between this cicatrized edge, with its rounded ivory-like
surface and the sharp edges produced by sections made after death,
were easily discerned.
The evidence (which was very fully given) led Broca to the con-
clusion that the operation was performed on very young children
;
that it probably had no religious significance, but that it was
intended for the relief of fits or other nervous disorders. A like
operation is performed to this day by natives of the Polynesian
Islands, and for a similar purpose.
Broca believed that the operation was performed by scraping,
and he produced very similar results on the dry skull, and on a
living puppy, with pieces of flint. The cicatrized apertures, when
undisfigured by post-mortem incisions, are of an ovoid shape with
edges widely beveled at the expense of the outer table. Lucas-
Championniere produced a similar result by drilling a series of
holes in a skull with a pointed instrument, running them into each
other so as to enable the fragment of bone to be removed, and
afterwards scraping the serrated edges smooth.
Certain tribes of Kabyles practise the operation in this manner
at the present time, the operator, the instruments, and the dress-
ings all having a semi-sacred character. It is performed by them
as a means of relief for pains in the head, but chiefly after injuries
by stones, which are the ready and common weapons of offense in
their sterile land.
Although by far the largest number of cranial amulets and treph-
ined skulls now stored in the anthropological museums of Europe
have been discovered in France, yet similar relics have been found
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 49
in many parts of Germany, in Denmark, Russia, Portugal, and
Algeria. [A full account was given of these explorations.] Noth-
ing of the kind has, so far, been found in Great Britain.
In the United States no specimen that can be classed with the
custom under discussion has been discovered. In 1875, Mr. Henry
Gilman described some perforated crania which he had exhumed
from mounds on Sable river, but the aperture was, in each case, at
the vertex, and unmistakeably produced on the dried skull.
The famous Inca skull brought by Mr. Squier from. Peru, and
presented to the Paris Society of Anthropology, exhibits a remark-
able instance of trephining which the patient must have survived
about ten days, in the opinion of Broca and Nelaton. The opera-
tion, however, was entirely unlike that of the neolithic age; two
incisions, made apparently by a saw, were crossed by two others at
right angles, thus removing a square piece of bone. Mr. Squier
was of opinion that the skull was of undoubted pre-Columbian
date.
Since the publication of Broca's papers on this subject, discov-
eries have been made showing that prehistoric trephining was some-
times practised on grown persons, and for diseases of the bones of
the cranium. Another curious discovery was made of skulls (about
twenty in all) in which an incomplete operation had been per-
formed, the outer table, only, having been scraped away. A simi-
lar operation has in later times been recommended for the cure of
epilepsy.
It has been suggested that the tonsure of priests was a perpetua-
tion of this curious custom.
The conclusions arrived at by the writer were these
:
1. The large number of perforated neolithic crania exhibiting
cicatrized edges, establishes the existence of a custom of trephin-
ing.
2. The operation was performed on both sexes, and generally at
an early age.
3. The purpose is doubtful, but from analogy it would seem to
4
50 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
have been for the relief of disease of brain, injury of skull, epi-
lepsy, or convulsions.
4. The operation was probably performed by scraping
;
possibly
by a series of punctures. It seems likely that the first was employed
for children, and the latter for the harder skulls of adults.
5. Posthumous trephining consisted in removing fragments of
the skull of a person upon whom surgical trephining had been per-
formed.
6. Each' fragment was to exhibit a portion of the cicatrized edge
of the original operation ; and the purpose was, probably, to form
an amulet to protect from the same disease or injury, for relief of
which the operation had been performed.
In reply to a question by Prof. Mason, Dr. Fletcher explained
that the Inca skull appeared to have been perforated by some
saw-like instrument, and that the operation was probably per-
formed only a few days before death.
The President remarked that among Indians pathology consists
of a sort of mythical zoology ; that local diseases, such as sore eyes,
boils, etc., are attributed by them to the presence of worms, flies,
bees, etc., regarded as incorporated spirits. Their method of
curing such diseases consisted, therefore, in making openings for
the escape of these creatures. This was their conception of the
efficacy of blood-letting, which was extensively practiced. The
disease-organism escaped with the blood. Sealing was resorted to
for the same purpose, and a variety of punctures were made, differ-
ing in different cases. He suggested that all the cases of cranial
perforation might be accounted for as so many modes of letting out
the headache spirit or animal.
Prof. Gore stated that he had observed in the Medical Museum
perforated skulls, containing within loose pieces of skull of larger
size than the orifice, and which, therefore, could not consist of the
piece cut out.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 51
Dr. Fletcher thought that none of these various forms of skull
perforations had any relation to the practice of trephining.
Dr. H. C. Yarrow then read a paper entitled Some Superstitions
of the Sioux Indians. 1
The reader disclaimed presenting the paper as an original effort,
the material having been furnished by Dr. Merritt, of the army,
who obtained it from Mr. Wm. Everett, a Government scout. He
considered that gentleman entitled to great credit for the account.
Mr. Everett stated that the Sioux believe they go direct to the
happy hunting grounds, after passing a great divide upon which
their dead enemies attack them, and for this reason they need their
horses, weapons, &c. If the spirit pass unscathed and reach the
desired haven the friends who have gone before meet them, and all
is joy. If they have lost members of the body, or been mutilated,
all is restored as before at this place. Their idea of sickness is that
a bad spirit enters the body and must be driven out. If the patient
dies he has been conquered by the bad spirit. The spirits of bad
Indians are sometimes sent back to earth to do penance for their
sins, in the shape of animals. The men are supposed to turn into
buffaloes, wolves, and bears; the women into deer or owls. A
curious example was given of a conversation which took place be-
tween Sitting Bull and a wolf in regard to the position of a herd
of buffaloes. The awe the Indians experience regarding the white-
tailed deer was described. It is thought that women become deer
after death, and an Indian dislikes to kill one of these animals, for
fear of hurting the spirit of his sweetheart. It is believed, too,
that hunters have been found strangled by the white-tailed deer
spirits, and a story was given in detail how a number of youth per-
ished who were foolhardy in hunting them.
The President made the general comment upon the legends re-
corded in the paper that they appeared to have been largely colored
by conceptions of white men engrafted upon them.
1 Published in full in the " American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal," No.
XIV, Vol. IV, 1882, pp. 136-144.
52 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
The following paper was then read by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey:
The Young Chief and the Thunders : An Omaha Myth.
Once there was a great chief, who had a lazy son. In spite of
all the advice which his father gave him he spent all of his time in
eating and sleeping. He would neither travel nor take a wife. At
length he had a separate lodge made for him. He entered it and
fasted for four seasons, speaking to no one. Only once in a while
he took very small supplies of food and water, which his mother
brought him. As he fasted, he saw a deity, who told him that he
could do whatever he desired, and he thought that he would like to
wear a robe of scalps ; so he summoned the young men of the tribe,
and made up a war party, which started in four days. At length
they came to an old man, who was very poor. No one but the
chief knew that he was a Thunder. They pitied him, and gave
him some of their robes, etc. The old man spoke of giving them
something in return. Just then his servant, a coyote, winked at
the chief, who followed him out of the lodge. The coyote told
him to choose the otter-skin sacred bag, when the old man showed
him that and three others. They re-entered the lodge. The old
man asked them which one of the four "sacred bags they would take.
The swallow bag would insure a return in half a day, with scalps,
etc ; the hawk bag would bring them home triumphant in two days;
the third would keep them away a little longer. "As for this
otter-skin," said he, " it is good; but it is old and worn." And,
grasping the otter-skin, the chief said, " Notwithstanding that,
grandfather, I will take that," and the old man was in a bad humor
and scolded his servant. "No, grandfather," said the chief, "he
did not tell me. I chanced to decide so." And the old man gave
him a wooden club with the otter-skin bag. "The owner of the
bag does whatsoever he desires, in spite of all difficulties. It kills
a great many people. If you wish to kill all the people in any
place, whirl this club around your head four times, and at the last
time say • Kau.' It will make thunder." The old man knew the
desire of the chief. Four days after that the chief sent out four
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 53
scouts. They found a village. When the party reached the village
the chief told them that he was not seeking it, but something else.
There were similar occurrences on three successive days. On the
fourth day he sent out scouts again, saying: "Warriors, should one
of your grandfathers be there, do not kill him." They met a buf-
falo, and, after some disputing, one shot at it, and the buffalo
killed him. The survivors reported this to the chief, who said,
" Did not I tell you not to harm your grandfather? " On reaching
the body they buried it and passed on. The next day, after a
similar warning, the scouts attacked a big wolf that killed one of
their party ; so on the third day, when they met a grizzly bear.
On the fourth day they came to the end of the sky, which passed
up and down very rapidly. Each time it went down into a deep
chasm in the earth. The chief warned the warriors to jump across
without fear. He was the first, and all but one followed in safety.
One failed, and the end of the sky carried him down into the earth.
So they 'went and went, for days. At last they saw a very high
hill and a dense cedar forest. The men had become tired of jour-
neying so far. "Well, warriors," said the chief, "we are going
thither. We will then return home." Four scouts were sent out.
They saw the smoke, but could not find the lodge. It was not till
the fourth day that the scouts for that day found the lodge, which
all entered. There sat a very aged man, with an unusually large
head ahd plenty of white hair. (He was a Thunder.) The old man
thought, " Though my brothers may have much trouble by going
to so great a distance hunting for game, some men have brought
themselves right into this lodge, where I can kill them with ease."
The chief thought, " Whew ! I have said that I would have a robe
of scalps. I think that here is the very thing. I will have it."
By and by another old man entered, bringing a black bear. He,
too, had a large head, and his hair was very red. A third old man,
with very yellow hair, came with a buffalo. The fourth brother,
who had very green hair, brought the body of a man ; and he who
had red hair said, " Brother, have these men eaten ? " " No, they
54 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
have not eaten. Cook for them slices of squash, "# said the one
with white hair ; and they cooked the ears of the dead man.
"We do not eat such things," said the chief. "If so, what do
you eat?" said the old man, pretending that he thought they did
not like sliced squash. " Cook ye fine sweet corn for them," said
he, meaning lice. When the chief saw what it was, he said, " We
do not eat such things." And one of the Thunders said, "Let
them cook the bear and buffalo for themselves." And the men
were glad. Having done their own cooking, they had pleasure in
eating. Then it was night. After the meal the man with white
hair said, " Grandchild, if a man travels he has plenty of things to
talk about. Tell about yourself." "True, grandfather," said the
chief, " you are grown, and are an old man, so you must know a
great many things. So you can tell about yourself first." " Well,
grandchild, though I am an old man, I have nothing to tell about
myself; but I will tell a myth." " Once upon a time, grandchild,
there was an old man, who lived with his three brothers. The
brothers went far away to hunt game ; but they returned home at
night. Once when the old man was the only one taking care of
the lodge, a great many people entered it. The old man thought,
' Though my brothers have undergone much in travelling so far
after game, I will kill a great many persons right at home.' Come,
grandchild, now is your turn." "Yes, grandfather, let me tell a
myth. Once there was a powerful chief, who had a lazy son.
Though his father frequently urged him to travel, he would not
heed him. He had not the least desire to do anything. By and
by the son said that he was going to fast, so his mother made a
lodge for him. As he fasted, he thought he would like to wear a
robe of scalps, so he went on the war-path with many followers.
And there were four old men who lived together. The chief and
his party went' thither. When they reached the lodge the leader
sat thinking, ' I have said I will wear a robe of scalps. Truly, this
is a good robe. I will have it.' One of the old men had white
hair, one had red, the third had yellow, and the fourth green hair."
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 55
And the old man laughed at him, " Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! My grandchild
has, I think, guessed the very thing." That night the chief lay
with his eye peeping through a hole in his robe, as he wished to
watch the old men. He told his men not to sleep. While they
were lying the first old man lifted his head very cautiously, and
looked at the (supposed) sleepers. At last the old man seized his
hammer, but just then the chief sprung to his feet, whirled his club,
and at the fourth time, said, " Kau." He killed the four old men.
" Warriors, arise, and take the hair of all ; take each scalp in one
piece." Then they went home. When they reached the end of
the sky the chief made his men jump across in advance of him.
Running very fast, he made a flying leap, bringing up the man from
the ground, and reaching the other side, both being alive. He did
in like manner at the graves of those who were killed by the bear,
wolf, and buffalo. Thus it happened that he took all of his men
home alive. As they went home they saw the many villages which
they had reported to the chief on their former march. "Well,
warriors," said the chief, "you, too, shall wear robes of scalps."
So he killed the people of four villages with his club, and gave to
each of his friends enough scalps f(5r a robe. And they reached
their own village, and all his villages made him head chief, and he
governed them.
The President inquired whether the legend was taken literally
from the Indians, and Mr. Dorsey replied that he wrote it out as
dictated to him by one of them.
Prof. Mason referred to the tendency of such stories to grow by
repetition.
Mr. Dorsey said he had often obtained two or three different
versions of the same myth.
Thirty-Ninth Regular Mekting, May 3, 1881.
Dr. Clay MacCauley read a paper entitled Personal Charac-
teristics of the Florida Seminoles.
56 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
Dr. MacCauley prefaced his paper with a statement of some
interesting facts he had found in taking a census of the Florida
Indians. Chief among them was the peculiarity of special moment
to the future of the tribe, that, while Seminole society is polyga-
mous, the number of males in it between five and twenty years of
age far exceeds that of the females less than twenty years old.
In reference to the personal characteristics of this tribe of Indians
the speaker turned attention to their physique, their manner of
clothing themselves, their personal adornment, and their psychical
qualities, successively, giving ample description and copious illus-
tration to each part of his subject.
The paper, of which it is difficult to make a proper abstract,
closed with the words : " Recalling, then, what I have recorded of
my observations of the personal characteristics of the Florida
Indians, they present themselves as a unique people, as a rule, su-
perior to a high degree in their physical development of form and
feature, novel and curious in their costume, and peculiar in the
ornamentation of their persons and clothing ; and, so far as per-
sonal characteristics distinctively psychical are concerned, as a
people, not only, as was hitherto acknowledged, brave in warfare,
and proud and independent in their relations with the white man,
but also well endowed with the gentler and more attractive personal
traits, amiability, truthfulness, frankness, and geniality in their in-
tercourse with those who have gained their confidence, and gifted
with comparative excellence of intellectual faculties and activity,
patience, and persistence in mental effort."
At the conclusion of the paper Prof. Mason inquired whether the
well developed limbs described as characteristic of the Seminoles
might not in some cases be due to bandaging and other artificial
devices sometimes resorted to by savages.
Dr. MacCauley replied that, as the children always go naked,
this was impossible ; and he was sure that no such practices pre-
vailed. In answer to further questions, he stated that the hole
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 57
pierced in their ears were very small, but often numerous ; that he
had not seen shells or pearl beads used as ornaments.
Dr. Antisell asked what the Government was doing to benefit
these Indians, and Dr. MacCauley replied that nothing was being
done ; that the Seminoles refused to accept any aid, and were in-
dependent without any. The attempt of Capt. Pratt to obtain
from them students for his school at Carlisle had been repelled with
indignation. In reply to a question by Mr. Thomas, he further
stated that the Creek and Seminole languages were originally the
same, but that at present the several gentes of the Seminoles were
not homogeneous. The Otter, Tiger, and Wind gentes are the
ruling ones.
The President called attention to the term Seminole, which
properly signifies renegade, scattered, or dispersed, and has been
fastened upon these Indians because they refused to go with the
body of their tribe after the war with the United States. He
further remarked that with these Indians clothing seemed to have
been originally used for ornament rather than protection. The
lower garment, or petticoat, described by Dr. MacCauley, was for-
merly the only one worn by the women, who had no sense of
modesty which required them to clothe the breasts. The short
upper garment, now worn as described in the paper, was a modern
innovation probably taken from the whites. He also spoke of the
turban, which was originally purely ornamental, and was often
made in fantastic fashions out of the skins of the heads of animals
or large birds.
Prof. Mason called attention to the law of ethnic progress that
customs relating to clothing, ornamentation, &c, yield less readily
and quickly to the influence of contact with civilized races than do
those of a more practical or industrial character, such as arms,
agricultural and mechanical implements and pottery. He had often
been surprised to observe along what irregular and, as it were,
irrationally drawn lines civilization advances.
58 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Fortieth Regular Meeting, May 17, 1881.
Dr. W. J. Hoffman read a paper entitled The Application of
Gestures to the Interpretation of Pictographs. The fol-
lowing is an abstract of the paper :
The speaker stated that, apart from the direct representation of
objects in the picture writings of the North American Indians,
those subjective ideas which were beyond the range of the artist's
skill formed the parts most difficult of interpretation. As attempts
at the reproduction of gesture lines are of frequent occurrence in
pictographs whose meaning is known to us, it was suggested that a
knowledge of the gesture language was essential in deciphering
others, the import of which was unknown. Numerous examples
were submitted illustrating the gesture origin of apparently unin-
telligible characters, but as the nature of the paper demanded
illustration on the black-board it is impossible to attempt an abstract
satisfactorily.
Col. Mallery remarked that, as Dr. Hoffman and he had been
working together on the subject of the paper, with constant inter-
change of views, he naturally had no criticism to offer upon it. It
was, however, of interest to mention that the idea which had borne
fruit in the present paper was suggested by him in some sentences
of a paper read before this society on October 21, 1879—to the
effect that Indians and other peoples among whom neither alphabetic
nor phonetic writing was known, and whose artistic skill was limi-
ted to the rude outline portraiture of a few objects, would, in seek-
ing to represent ideas graphically, resort to the lines of gesture
signs already used by them with distinct signification. This
deduction at the time was supported by little ascertained proof, but
the subsequent studies both of signs and of pictographs had estab-
lished it to be correct, of which the paper read was sufficient
evidence to the Society. The same illustrations drawn on the
black-board by Dr. Hoffman had also been drawn by him, together
with others, for the engraver, and will be produced under one of
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 50
the headings of a work on sign language, which itself formed part of
the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology now in press. 1 Its
publication will direct attention to the interpretation of ideographic
characters in many parts of the world, through the significance
of gesture signs, and also react upon the scientific study of sign
language as a former general mode of communication between men.
Though the published presentation of the suggestion had hitherto
been imperfect, he had already received gratifying assurances from
European scholars of their success in discovering gesture signs in-
cluded in Egyptian and Akkad glyphs, as well as in the radicals of
those languages. Mr. Hyde Clarke, Vice-President of the Anthro-
pological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, had specially
shown interest in the investigation.
President Powell was glad to note that rational principles and
methods were being applied to the solution of such questions. The
true value of facts consists in their proper and rational interpretation.
Human history is being rewritten to satisfy this sentiment. The
isolated facts of the old style of chronological history are useless,
and now it is necessary to go over the ground again, for the purpose
of deducing from them the laws of progress and of society. It is
the same with ethnological facts. These pictures convey no mean-
ing in themselves, and the work of true science is to discover such
laws as will lead to their proper interpretation.
Forty-First Regular Meeting, June 7, 1881.
Professor Samuel Porter read a paper entitled Vowel Systemi
zatiox, of which the following is an abstract
:
On the theory of Helmholtz, the character of each vowel is pro-
duced by the reenforcement of harmonic tones in the oral cavity.
That of Danders finds it in the noises that go with the tone. The
truth lies in a combination of the two.
1 " Sign Language among North American Indians compared with that among
Other Peoples and D;:af-Mate;." B/ Garric'i Millery. In "Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology," 1879-80, pp. 269-50S.
60 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
In classifying the vowels we are to look to the positions and mo-
tions of the organs. The scheme of Mr. A. M. Bell assigns to
each vowel a distinct palato-lingual position, to which may be
superadded a labial or a nasal modification. It divides the vowels,
"horizontally," into "back," "front," and "mixed," as the place
of closest constriction falls on the soft or on the hard palate or in
some sort between the two. These it subdivides, "vertically" (so
described with questionable propriety, the subdivision being as
truly horizontal as the main division), into "high," "mid," and
"low." High-back : pool. Mid-back: most. Low-back: saw.
High-front: see. Mid-front: cte(Fr.). Low-front: their. High-
mixed : earth. Mid-mixed : gab? (Ger.) Low-mixed : bird.
These are the "primary" of Mr. Bell and the "narrow" of Mr.
Henry Sweet ; and for each there is a corresponding "wide : ' '
—
e. g.
narrow : peel, etc, their ; wide : p/11, p^t, that. Labials are called
"round;" thus, pool is high-back-narrow-round. Mr. Bell ex-
plains the wide by an expansion of the pharynx ; Mr. Sweet, by a
depression of the upper surface of the tongue. In this Prof. Porter
agrees substantially with Mr. Sweet ; but, instead of two, he would,
for nearly all the vowels, mark four degrees, which he would call
dose, half-open, open, and open-depressed. Thus, the / half-open, as
Frenchmen, Germans, and Scotchmen pronounce hit, is, sick, posi-
tion, &c. The open depressed, a drawling, dialectic pronunciation
of the short stopped vowels, i, e, a, and others; or, sometimes,
properly used for emphasis; a natural concomitant of nasalization;
also, the initial of some diphthongs, a depressed degree of the open
u, in but, being the initial of our long i.
Prof. Porter would make only a two-fold instead of the three-fold
subdivision of the "mixed," and would place in this class the
French eu in most cases, and the German o in at least many cases,
and not among the "front" as a labialized e, as do Messrs. Bell
and Sweet ; and would place here the u in up, but, instead of among
the " back " vowels.
Concerning the Italian a, the a infather, ask, pass, etc., Prof.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 61
Porter maintains that the place of constriction is not on tongue
and palate, but between the back wall of the pharynx and the
tongue at or just above the epiglottis. It belongs, therefore,
not among the "back" vowels, but in a class by itself; and with
this agrees the fact that the more open form of this vowel is the
naturally long, while for all others the open, or "wide," is the
naturally short. It is important to notice that the guttural passage,
thefauces, may be so adjusted as to make a compartment distinct
from the fore part of the mouth, and separated on the anterior
edge of the ramus of the lower jaw. With the tongue for a floor,
pharyngeal muscles for side walls, the elastic curtain of the soft
palate for a roof, the muscular "pillars of the fauces" flanking the
entrance, we have a chamber highly dilatable and contractible and
adjustable in various ways. Prof. Porter holds that, for the Italian
a, the resonance chamber is limited to the compartment made by
this passage and the lower part of the pharynx. For the proper
"back" vowels, oo, o, and au, the soft palate is curved forward
toward the tongue, contracting the entrance and at the same time
the walls of the passage, and extending the resonance chamber
forward.
The number of possible vowel-modifications being theoretically
.
infinite, a perfect system will mark just so many distinctions as will
seem to be necessary and sufficient, considered as approximative
points of reference.
Mr. Ward called attention to the similarity of the conclusions
reached by Prof. Porter to those which he had announced in a paper
read before the Society on the 21st of December last, and read a
paragraph from the abstract of that paper as printed in the "Abstract
of Transactions," (p. 106). He also testified to the general ration-
ality and correctness of the order in which Prof. Porter had
arranged the principal vowels with respect to the probable location
of the sound in the mouth and pharynx. He commented upon
Bell's chart representing his system of vowel sounds, and pointed
out a number of inconsistencies in it.
G2 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
President Powell said that in consequence of the infinite variety
of possible sounds, it was impossible to classify them except by
types. No two persons speak alike ; no two voices are alike ; and
instrumental tests have shown that the same person cannot pro-
nounce the same vowel twice in precisely the same way. Prof.
Bell had frequently demonstrated this by means of the telephone.
The effect on the instrument was different with each attempt, and
having made a sound once he found that he could never exactly
repeat it. The passage of a vibration of air through the complex
mechanism of the human voice is so heterogeneous in its character
that it is impossible for two men to utter precisely the same sound.
Two sounds thus made may be very nearly but cannot be exactly
the same.
In the course of his work during several years past, in endeavor-
ing to devise an alphabet with which to write the sounds embraced
in various Indian languages, he had come to the conclusion that he
could not describe sounds by describing the way in which they are
made ; that, in the present state of the science of phonology, it
was only possible to compare them with those by which they would
be recognized. He could only describe the way in which some-
thing like the sound is made. He therefore thought that a com-
mon system of pronunciation for all languages was a physical
impossibility.
Forty-Second Regular Meeting, June 21, 1881.
Prof. G. Brown Goode read a paper entitled The Fishermen of
the United States. The following is an abstract
:
For every man engaged in the fisheries there is at least one other
man who is dependent to a considerable extent upon his labors
for support. To the class of "shoresmen " belong (1) the capital-
ists who furnish supplies and apparatus for the use of the active
fishermen ; (2) the shopkeepers from whom they purchase pro-
visions and clothing ; and (3) the skilled laborers who manufacture
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. G3
for them articles of apparel, shelter, and the apparatus of the trade.
In addition to the professional fishermen, there is a large class of
men who have been called "semi-professional" fishermen—men
who derive from the fisheries less than half of their entire income.
Taking into account all those persons who are directly employed in
the fisheries for a larger or smaller portion of the year, those who
are dependent upon fishermen in a commercial way for support,
and the members of their families who are actually dependent upon
their labors, it cannot be far out of the way to estimate the total
number of persons dependent on the fisheries at from 800,000 to
1,000.000.
The total value of the product, to the producers, of the fisheries of
the United States has not yet been definitely determined ; but it will
doubtless prove to be somewhere near forty-five millions of dollars.
The value of the product, when it reaches the consumer is at least
$250,000, 000. Of the thirty-one States and Territories whose
citizens are engaged in the fishery industry, seventeen have more
than a thousand professional fishermen. The most important of
these States is, of course, Massachusetts, with from eighteen to
twenty-five thousand men. Second stands Maine, with ten to
twelve thousand, unless indeed the 16,000 oystermen of Virginia
and the 15,000 of Maryland are allowed to swell the totals for
those States. Maine, however, stands second so far as the fisheries
proper are concerned. Third comes New York with about 5,000
men, then New Jersey with 4,000, North Carolina with 3,500,
Oregon with its horde of salmon fishermen, 2,500 in number,
Florida with 2,100, Connecticut and California with about 2,000
each, Michigan with 1,781, Wisconsin with 800, Georgia with
1,400, Ohio with 1,046, Delaware, Rhode Island, and South
Carolina, each with about 1,000, New Hampshire, Alabama,
Louisana, and Texas with about 400 each, and Mississippi with
only 60.
The majority of our fishermen are native-born citizens of the
United States, although in certain localities there are extensive
64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
communities of foreigners. Most numerous of these are the natives
of the British provinces, of whom there are at least 4,000 employed
in the fisheries of New England. There are, probably, not less
than 2,000 Portuguese, chiefly the natives of the Azores and of the
Cape Verd Islands. Very many of the Portuguese have brought
their families with them, and have built up extensive communities
in the towns whence they sail upon their fishing voyages. There
are also about 1,000 Scandinavians, 1,000 or more of Irish and
English birth, a considerable number of French, Italians, Austrians,
Minorcans, Slavs, Greeks, Spaniards, and Germans. In the whaling
fleet may be found Lascars, Malays, and a larger number of Kana-
kas, or natives of the various South Sea Islands. In the whale
fishery of Southern New England, a considerable number of men
of partial Indian descent may be found, and in the fisheries of the
Great Lakes—especially those of Lake Superior and the vicinity of
Mackinaw—Indians and Indian half-breeds are employed.
The salmon and other fisheries of Puget Sound are prosecuted
chiefly by the aid of Indian fishermen. In Alaska, where the
population depends almost entirely upon the fisheries for support,
the head of every family is a professional fisherman, and, upon a
very low estimate, one-fourth of the inhabitants of Alaska should
be considered as fishermen. Few of them catch fish for the use of
others than their own immediate dependents. Only one Chinaman
has, as yet, enrolled himself among the fishermen of the Atlantic
coast, but in California and Oregon there are about 4,000 of these
men, all of whom, excepting about 300, are employed as factory
hands in the salmon canneries of the Sacramento and Columbia
basins. The 300 who have the right to be classed among the
actual fishermen, live for the most part in California, and the
product of their industry is, to a very great extent, exported to
China ; although they supply the local demands of their country-
men resident on the Pacific coast.
The negro element in the fishing population is somewhat exten-
sive. We have no means of ascertaining how many of this race
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65
are included among the native born Americans returned by the
census reporters. The shad fisheries of the South are prosecuted
chiefly by the use of negro muscle, and probably not less than four
or five thousand of these men are employed during the shad and
herring season in setting and hauling the seines. The only locality
where negroes participate to a large extent in the shore fisheries is
Key West, Fla., where the natives of the Bahamas—both negro and
white—are considered among the most skillful of the sponge and
market fishermen. Negroes are rarely found, however, upon the
sea-going fishing vessels of the North. There is not a single negro
among the 5,000 fishermen of Gloucester, and their absence on the
other fishing vessels of New England is no less noteworthy. There
is, however, a considerable sprinkling of negroes among the crews
of the whaling vessels of Provinceton and New Bedford, the latter
alone reporting over 200. These men are, for the most part, na-
tives of the West India Islands, such as Jamaica and St. Croix,
where the American whalers engaging in the Atlantic fishery are
accustomed to make harbor for recruiting and enrolling their crews.
As a counterpart of the solitary Chinaman engaged in the Atlantic
fisheries we hear of a solitary negro on the Pacific coast, a lone
fisherman, who sits on the wharf at New Tacoma, Washington Ter-
ritory, and fishes to supply the local market.
The number of foreign fishermen in the United States, excluding
5,000 negroes, and 8,000 Indians and Esquimaux, who are consid-
ered to be native-born citizens, probably does not exceed 10 to 12
per cent, of the total number, as is indicated by the figures which
have already been given. Considerably more than one-half of the
fishing population of the United States belongs to the Atlantic
coast north of the capes of Delaware ; of this number at least four-
fifths are of English descent. They are by far the most interesting
of our fishermen, since to their number belong the 20,000 or more
men who may properly be designated the "sailor fishermen" of
the United States,—the crews of the trim and enterprising vessels
of the sea-going fishing fleet which ought to be the chief pride of
5
6Q TRANSACTIONS OF TIIE
the American marine, and which is of such importance to our
country as a training school for mariners, and as a medium through
which one of the most valuable food resources of the continent is
made available.
Prof. Goode referred to the mental and physical traits of the
New England fishermen, their enterprise as shown in their readi-
ness to adopt improved methods, their, intelligence and public
spirit. He spoke also of the education of the young fishermen,
and the injury to good seamanship resulting from the custom of
deferring the shipment of boys who formerly entered the business
at the age of ten or twelve but who now remain on shore until* they are
fifteen or sixteen, and have had their perceptive faculties dulled by
school training. Reference was made to the morality of the fisher-
men, the strict observance of the Sabbath to be met with among large
classes of them, and the entire absence of ardent spirits on the fish-
ing vessels. The character of their favorite books and newspapers,
their amusements, their dialect and their superstitions were dis-
cussed. The chief diseases were noted to be dyspepsia and rheu-
matism. They are, as a rule, long lived, though the fishing popu-
lation of large ports like Gloucester is decimated by disaster every
year or two. The financial profits vary from $1,000 to $100 a year
for each man, though sometimes a year's work results solely in an
embarrassing burden of debts.
Prof. Mason expressed surprise at the statement made in the
paper that the quality of American fishermen was deteriorating, in
consequence of the superior educational facilities now enjoyed by
the people. Prof. Goode accounted for it by the fact that education
tended to deter bright boys from engaging in the business. The
paper was further discussed by Dr. Morgan and others.
The second paper was by Major A. M. Hancock, of Maryland,
on Prehistoric Discoveries in the South of Spain, where he
was, for nearly seventeen years, United States consul. **
The paper was delivered extemporaneously and illustrated by
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 67
maps, charts, and specimens. From a stenographic report the fol-
lowing abstract of the paper has been prepared :
The speaker described certain remarkable prehistoric remains
which had been discovered while he was President of the Pre-
historic Society of the South of Spain.
The first of these were found in a cave which was called the
" Cave of the Bats," situated in the neighborhood of Albunal,
between Malaga and Almeria. It is called by that name because
when first discovered it was literally filled with bat-guano. This
was cleared away, and within were found, first, three skeletons in a
sitting posture, the center one of which, that of a woman, having
still remaining upon her skull a crown, weighing about i^4 ounces
of pure gold, 24 carats fine. She also had on, at the time of her
death, a tunic, made of the well known esparto grass, very finely
made. The other two were dressed pretty much the same, except
that the tunics were made of coarser but sound material.
Farther in were found three more skeletons, one of which had
the skull crushed between two stones, indicating, as he supposed,
that the man had been executed. Beside him was found an esparto
bag containing food carbonized by the atmosphere, and another
containing hatchets and arrow-heads, specimens of which were
exhibited, and of which he was supposed ^o be a maker.
At another point in this cave were found twelve skeletons ar-
ranged in a semi-circle, one of which occupying a central position
was that of a woman having on a hide tunic laced up under the
left arm. Each of these skeletons was in a fair state of preserva-
tion when found, but on exposure to the air they crumbled to dust.
Still farther internally fifty skeletons were found together, whose
character and surroundings indicated that they were warriors.
Lying all about them were many stone arrow-heads.
The speaker next described a stone temple, as he called it, being
in the nature of an enormous dolmen, or cromlech, situated on the
outskirts of the city of Antequera, and known as La Cueva de
Mengal.
68 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
It is built on an artificial mound, of which there
#
are two others.
The structure described is 90 feet long, 14 feet wide at its western
end, 18 feet in the center, and at the beginning of the vestibule
about 7 feet wide, and about 10 feet high. The five covering
stones weigh 450 tons. From the western end to the entrance of
the vestibule it is 59 feet, and the vestibule is 31 feet in length.
Immediately in front of this temple is a mountain, called La
Peiia de los Enamorados, presenting at its summit a perfect figure
of the human profile. As all other prehistoric caves of which he
had any knowledge faced directly east, his theory of this was.that
it was not intended as a burial mound, as some supposed, but as a
temple of worship, the officiating priest having La Peiia de los
Enamorados directly in his view.
The stone that covers the western end was estimated to weigh
160 tons. The nearest point from which these huge stones could
have been obtained was 18 miles distant, with two rivers inter-
vening.
The speaker also described a plain in the vicinity of Antequera,
which is strewn with oyster shells. This plain or basin is about
1,900 hundred feet above the level of the sea. It would seem to
have once been inhabited by prehistoric man who lived principally
upon oysters and left their shells scattered over the ground.
At the close of his remarks Major Hancock presented the Society
with a copy of a work descriptive of these and other archaeologi-
cal remains in the south of Spain entitled Antiqiiedades Prehistori-
cas de Andalucia, etc. , Por Don Manuel de Gongora y Martinez.
Madrid, 1868; 4to., pp. 158, with 149 figures, plates, and map ; also
two charts illustrating the profile and form of a dolmen described
by Major Hancock, in which were found numerous human and
other remains. These were accompanied by two worked flints from
the cave and portion of a fossil oyster shell found on the surface
of the plain, the latter appearing to consist chiefly of such shells,
and having a height of 1,900 feet above sea level.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 69
Forty-Third Regular Meeting, October 4, 1881.
Rev. J. Owen Dorsey read a translation, made by himself, of an
Omaha myth, entitled The Orphan and the Buffalo Woman.
The following is an abstract
:
Wahandhishige, the orphan, lived with his married sister, who
was unkind to him. She never allowed him to eat any choice piece
of meat, although her husband was a good hunter and brought
plenty of game to the lodge. A buffalo woman visited the orphan
when he was alone in the lodge, and made him eat some of the
meat, restoring the piece from which it had been cut to its proper
shape. This occurrence was repeated on three other days. Then
the orphan followed the woman, overtaking her by evening at a
white lodge on the prairie. While he slept the woman and lodge
disappeared, and when he awoke he was lying on the grass. This
happened on four days in succession. The myth then gives : 1st,
The adventures of the woman, after parting with the orphan ; 2d,
The adventures of the orphan when in pursuit of the woman. In
the first part is told the birth of her child, the white calf, (some say
two calves ;) his abduction by Ishtinike, the deceiver ; his escape
and return to his mother. Then follow the adventures of the or-
phan, showing how he overcame great difficulties that were destined
to hinder his pursuit ; how he crossed the great water, a deep canon,
a tract of land, covered with briers and thorns ; and how he went
even to the upper world. Returning from the upper world he
killed a number of the buffaloes ; then he took his family to his old
home. He discovered himself to his unkind sister and her husband,
who had been unfortunate since the departure of the orphan. They
received him and his family, and were rewarded by the return of
game and consequent prosperity. The sister profited by experience,
and was ever thereafter kind to her brother and his family.
The President of the Society read a paper on the Myths of the
WlNTUNS OF THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY. 1
1 This paper will he published in a much enlarged form in the " Annual Report
of the Bureau of Ethnology."
70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
In reply to an inquiry by Prof. Mason, Major Powall enumerated
certain tribes of Indians that bury their dead by clans.
Mr. Hinman stated that this was not the case with the Dakotas.
Prof. Mason remarked that he had discovered in the myths re-
lated by Mr. Dorsey and Major Powell a material substratum to the
mythical ; that is, the myth seemed to account for the origin of
inexplicable phenomena, by means of things no longer regarded as
mythical.
Major Powell replied that this idea proceeded from a mis-
understanding of the nature of Indian philosophy. With sav-
ages the production of effects at a distance from the cause does
not require the intervention of a material medium. He reviewed
the progress of the conception of wind through the different
grades of social progress, as seen in the Norse, the Greek, and the
later mythologies.
In reply to a question by Mr. Guss, he stated that he presumed
the order in which the different animals were slain by the boy
prodigy as he grew older correctly represented the degrees of
difhcultness with which the Indians regard the capture of these
animals ; the eagle, which was the last named, being taken by them
only with great skill.
Forty-Fourth Regular Meeting, October 18, 1881.
Mr. S. D. Hinman read a paper on The Stone God, or Ora-
cle, OF THE PUTETEMNI BAND OF PIUNKPATI DAKOTAS.
This oracle was seen by him while on an expedition with some
Dakot-an Indians across the James River Valley, in Dakota Terri-
tory. A Hunkpati man of the party gave the history of the stone,
and an account of its miraculous movement from the Sacred Hill
to the old dirt lodge village. This story Mr. Hinman related.
He then explained what the Dakota stone god is and the worship
paid to it. It was then shown from old papers preserved by the
Massachusetts Historical Society that this worship was probably
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 71
identical in many Indian tribes. The Oneida stone was described
as an illustration, and others were given which were formerly well-
known in New England and New York.
The paper closed with a description of the standing rock in
Dakota Territory, and the legend of that rock was related.
Mr. Guss spoke of the Oneida stone. He said that the word
Oneida meant people of the red granite stone. It was the tradition
that the Oneidas came out of the ground on that spot, though they
believed in a sort of transmigration of souls. He also mentioned
similar myths among Iroquois tribes clustering about the idea of a
standing stone, and remarked that the words Juniata and Oneida
were only corruptions of the same word.
Col. Mallery then read a paper on the Dangers of Symbolic
Interpretation. 1 The following is an abstract of the paper:
Few writers on the pictographs, customs, or religious rites of the
North American Indians have successfully resisted the temptation
to connect them symbolically with those of certain peoples of the
Eastern Hemisphere. The Spanish priests found among the Mexi-
cans many delineations of the cross and serpent which satisfactorily
proved to them the former introduction of Christianity ; Adair
delighted to show the existence of Israelite ceremonials among the
Muskoki ; and Lafiteau traced the customs of the Iroquois to the
pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. Schoolcraft is full of symbols of
a more abstract and supposed original character, such as power,
deity, and prophesy. The frequent recurrence on this continent
of the number four has become a new mine of treasure to writers
infatuated with the mysticism of numbers. Alphabets, Runic,
Akkad, Phoenician, and of all other imaginable origins, have been
distorted from the Dighton Rock and multitudinous later precious
" finds," while other inscriptions are photographed and lectured
upon to exhibit the profound knowledge by some race supposed,
sometime to have existed in North America, in the arbitrary
1 This paper was in part repeated under the title " Spurious Symbolism," in
"International Review," Vol. XII, pp. 45-52.
72 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
constellations of astronomy and zodiacal signs now in current
use. Our learned associations are invaded by monomaniacs, harm-
less, save for their occupation of valuable time, who show that
every ancient cisatlantic object means something different from
what is obvious to common sense, and their researches are gratified
by frauds and forgeries, sometimes originating in mischief and
sometimes in desire for gain.
The speaker then gave, at some length, the account of an at-
tempt, fortunately not successful, of an apparently honest enthusiast
to compromise the American Association for the Advancement of
Science at its late session in Cincinnati.
Such fanciful and misleading theories and statements require a
note of warning.
In examining the subject it seems proper to establish the precise
relation between signs and symbols. Those terms are often used
interchangeably, but with liability to misconstruction, as most per-
sons, whether with right or wrcng lexical definition, ascribe to
symbols an occult and mystic significance.
A sign is the most general—that by which anything is made
known or represented. A symbol has been defined as the sign of
something moral or intellectual by the images or properties of nat-
ural objects ; but that would include an emblem in which, by a
figure of thought, corporeal objects stand for moral and intellectual
qualities, and a symbol should be distinguished as that species of
emblem which is a constituted sign among men of such qualities.
An alphabet, or scheme of signs by which a language is written r
is not in its essence symbolical, and the Semitic scheme, the parent,,
notwithstanding the wide diversity of languages, of nearly all the
graphic systems prevailing in the world, had not even its origin in
symbols. The first step toward writing was the rude pictorial rep-
resentation of objects without indication of any accessories, fol-
lowed by application of symbolic meaning to some of the figures
most used and known, and some pictures, more and more abbre-
viated, also gradually became conventional signs, which, in time,.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 73
were made to stand for sounds either syllabic or alphabetic. So
the growth of symbols and phonetic characters, nearly related, but
quite distinct, proceeded simultaneously with increasing divarica-
tion. Most ancient writing was, indeed, hieroglyphic ; that is, a
record made by one ignorant of, or unwilling to use, a phonetic
method, but hieroglyphs dealt more in ideographic signs, repre-
senting objects by simply imitating their forms, than in those purely
symbolic, which indicated their nature or properties.
It is true that the letters of an alphabet may, like an infinity of
other objects, be adopted as symbols. In the science of algebra it
was convenient to represent known quantities by the first, and un-
known by the concluding letters of our alphabet, so that, in time,
A was considered a symbol of the fixed, or certain, and X of the
doubtful, or mutable. This is not criticised while the application
is limited and its wholly arbitrary nature borne in mind ; but sup-
pose some ardent algebraist and symbolist should insist that the
significance of these symbols was intrinsic to the letters, or even
suggested from their form: "Observe," he might say, " the very
frame of A, a pyramid standing on its base, the embodiment of
solidity, still further strengthened by a cross brace ! of course it
must signify the fixed and certain ! And X, two bars only united
at a middle point, top, base and sides nearly equal, and thus liable
to be deflected readily to any position, perhaps an image of the
spokes of a wheel never at rest, surely it is the vague, the unknown ! '
'
This reductio ad absurdum is not more obvious than many cases
where symbols are manufactured and misapplied by enthusiasts.
Volumes have been devoted to the symbolism in the arbitrary
signs used in arithmetical notation. The decimal system prevailed
only because the human race rejoices in ten figures for ready objec-
tive exhibit, and not some other digital allowance, and after the
expedients of notches in wood, bags of stones, strings of shells, and
the like, when the Hebrews and Greeks acquired the notion of
representing number by characters, they employed the letters of
the alphabets already in their possession. Our more convenient
74 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
notation came through the Arabs, who, about the ioth century, ob-
tained it from Hindostan (where, it is asserted, the figures were
anciently the initial letters of the Sanscrit names for the digits),
and has rendered easy those calculations and deductions which dis-
play many curious properties of, and relations between, numbers.
But it behooves to distinguish the ideas elucidated through mathe-
matical experiments from the mere signs or value of the notation
—
that is, the apparatus—so that the latter may not claim a retro-
active significance.
Many of the curious and often beautiful results from combina-
tion of numbers have, on close examination, no more intrinsic
import than the also curious and beautiful reflections produced by
turning a kaleidoscope, and dependent on much the same principles
of mathematical relations between quantities and magnitudes.
Devotees of symbolism, in their undue zealotry, seem to have
pried about with a number in their hands, determined to fit it into
some object, like trying a stray key to all accessible locks. A not
very ancient work set forth, among other attributes, of the number
7, with much flourish, that there are seven planets and seven metals,
which, indeed, was the limit then known, but we now recognize at
least fifty metals, and the planets have also increased on acquain-
tance apart from the asteriods, which, at the present rate of dis-
covery, may soon swell the list to two hundred.
Belief in the mysticism of numbers has often retarded scientific
research. Huygens, in 1655, discovered a satellite of Saturn. He
then stopped observations because the six planets (Saturn then
being the oldest known planet) and the six satellites, one of the
earth, four of Jupiter, and that one of Saturn made the perfect num-
ber of twelve. So he asserted solemnly that nothing more of plane-
tary system was left to be discovered. This blunder warns us not to
build symbols needlessly on the shifting sands of ignorance, to be
demolished by the advancing ocean-wave of science.
Symbols that have once reigned with perfect title may degenerate
into petty signs. The chevron, an honorable ordinary in heraldry,
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75
representing two rafters of a house united at the top, was originally
bestowed on the founder of a house or family thereafter entitled to
bear arms, and in that use was a perfect symbol. When the mod-
ern army uniform was planned the facility of forming an obtuse
angle by two strips of cloth led to the selection, from among all
the heraldic blazonry, of the chevron to mark the sleeves of non-
commissioned officers ; so that, while retaining both its name and
form, its purport wholly disappeared.
The initial character of medical prescriptions met a fate still
more humiliating ; once portraying the extended wings of Jove's
eagle and used as a prayer to the king of gods for his aid to the
action of the remedy, its very shape was corrupted until, resembling
the letter R with a flourish, [R] it is vulgarly called an abbreviation
of the word "Recipe." So, though once a sublime symbol, it has
ceased to be even a respectable sign.
The barber's pole, in the middle of its history, was, perhaps, a
symbol, having started as an honest, though prosaic sign, and ends,
in this country at least, as one neither appropriate nor sensible.
The bloody band used by barber chirurgeons in their phlebotomy,
wrapped, for convenience, spirally around a supporting rod, was, in
the last century, still found in some Old World nooks, and when that
utensil was exhibited in front of the sho,p it signified "bleeding
done here," just as the old boot the cobbler hangs over his door is
the advertisement of his humble calling. When the red band was
painted on the contrasting white ground of a pole, and the tonsor
only drew blood by accident instead of by profession, the device
might claim some symbolic dignity, but the blue stripe was lately
added in the United States ; so that, in the combination of colors
now shown, a fanciful physiologist may detect the distinction be-
tween venous and arterial blood, and the more poetic and religious
mind may be exalted to suggestions embracing the ark of the cove-
nant. Now, the change, under my personal observation, has oc-
curred from the enterprise of some patriotic barbers who added
blue to the red and white so as to include all the national colors,
76 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
and the fashion, once set to the imitative race which mainly does
our shaving, has lately advanced another step, so that their newest
poles show the blue in a union, with the proper arrangement of
stars, and the red and white stripes extending straight instead of
spirally, becoming nothing more nor less than a wooden United
States flag of clumsy shape.
In the examination of pictographs and of sign languages as
nearly connected with them, it is important to form a still more
explicit distinction between signs proper and symbols. All. char-
acters in Indian picture writing have been loosely styled symbols,
and as there is no logical distinction between the characters
impressed with enduring form and when merely outlined in the
ambient air, all Indian gestures, motions, and attitudes might with
equal appropriateness be called symbolic. While, however, all
symbols come under the generic head of signs, very few signs are
in accurate classification symbols. Symbols are less obvious and
more artificial than mere signs, require convention, are not only
abstract, but metaphysical, and often need explanation from history,
religion, and customs. They do not depict but suggest subjects
;
do not speak directly through the eye to the intelligence, but pre-
suppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact which the sign
recalls. The symbols of the ark, dove, olive branch, and rainbow
would be wholly meaningless to people unfamiliar with the Mosaic
or some similar cosmology, as would be the cross and the crescent
to those ignorant of history. The last named objects appeared in
the class of emblems when used in designating the conflicting
powers of Christendom and Islamism. Emblems do not necessarily
require any analogy between the objects representing, and the ob-
jects or qualities represented, but may arise from pure accident.
After a scurrilous jest the beggar's wallet became the emblem of
the confederated nobles, the Gueux, of the Netherlands ; and a sling,
in the early minority of Louis XIV., was adopted by the Frondeur
opponents of Mazarin, from the refrain of a song. The portraiture
of a fish, used, especially by the early Christians, for the name and
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 77
title of Jesus Christ was still more accidental, being, in the Greek
word iyObs, an acrostic composed of the initials of the several
Greek words signifying that name and title. The origin being
unknown to persons whose religious enthusiasm was as usual in
direct proportion to their ignorance, they expended much rhetoric
to prove that there was some true symbolic relation between an
actual fish and the Saviour of men. Apart from this misapplica-
tion, the fish undoubtedly became an emblem of Christ and of
Christianity, appearing frequently on the Roman catacombs, and
at one time it was used hermeneutically.
The several tribal signs for the Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, &c,
are their emblems precisely as the star-spangled flag is that of the
United States, but there is nothing symbolic in any of them. So
the signs for individual chiefs, when not merely translations of their
names, are emblematic of their family totems or personal distinc-
tions, and are no more symbols than are the distinctive shoulder-
straps of army officers. The crux ansata and the circle formed by a
snake biting its tail are symbols, but consensus as well as invention
was necessary for their establishment, and the Indians have pro-
duced nothing so esoteric, nothing which they intended for herme-
neutic as distinct from descriptive or mnemonic purposes. Both
picture writing and sign language can undoubtedly be and are em-
ployed to express highly metaphysical ideas, but to do that in a
symbolic system requires a development of the mode of expression
consequent upon a similar development of the mental idiocrasy of
the gesturers far beyond any yet found among historic tribes north
of Mexico. A very few of their signs may at first appear to be
symbolic, yet even those on closer examination will probably be
relegated to the class of emblems.
The point urged is that while many signs can be used as emblems
and both signs and emblems can be converted by convention into
symbols or be explained as such by perverted ingenuity, it is futile
to seek for that form of psychologic exuberance in the stage of
development attained by the tribes now under consideration. All
78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
predetermination to interpret either their signs or their pictographs
on the principles of symbolism as understood or pretended to be
understood by its admirers, and as are sometimes properly applied
to Egyptian hieroglyphs, results in mooning mysticism. This was
shown by a correspondent who enthusiastically lauded the Dakota
Calendar (which is a mere figuration of successive occurrences in
the history of the people), as a numerical exposition of the great
doctrines of the Sun religion in the equations of time, and proved
to his own satisfaction that our Indians preserved hermeneutically
the lost geometric cultus of pre-Cushite scientists. He might as
well have claimed it to be the tabulated dynasties of pre-Adamite
kings. The chart was exhibited with the true interpretation
compared with the symbolic read from the letter.
Another exhibition of this vicious practice was recently made in
the interpretation of an inscribed stone alleged to have been
unearthed near Zanesville, Ohio, an engraving of which was
exhibited. Two of the characters were supposed, in liberal exer-
cise of the imagination, to represent the A and £2 of the Greek
alphabet. At the comparatively late date when the arbitrary
arrangement of the letters of that alphabet had become fixed, the
initial and concluding letters might readily have been used to
represent respectfully the beginning and the end of any series or
number of things, and this figure of speech was employed in the
book of Revelations. In the attempted interpretation of the
inscription mentioned, which was hawked about to many scientific
bodies, and published over the whole country, the supposed alpha
and omega were assumed to constitute a universal as well as sacred
symbol for the everlasting Creator. The usual menu of Roman
feasts, commencing with eggs and ending with apples, was also
commonly known at the time when the book of Revelations was
written, and the phrase "a/? (too usque ad mala''1 was as appropriate
as " from alpha to omega" to express " from the beginning to the
end." In deciphering the stone it would, therefore, be as correct
in principle to take one of its oval and one of its round figures,
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 79
call them egg and apple, and make them the symbols of eternity.
In fact, not depending wholly for significance upon the order of
courses of a feast or the accident of alphabetical position, but
having intrinsic characteristics in reference to the origin and
fruition of life, the egg and apple translation would be more
acceptable to the general judgment, and it is recommended to
enthusiasts who insist on finding symbols where none exist.
Mr. Bigelow called attention to Fig. 71 of the chronological
chart of the Sioux Indians used in illustrating the paper, and
noted its resemblance to the ornamentations on Indian blankets.
Mr. Ward raised the question whether the letter, read by Col.
Mallery, on the symbolic interpretation of this chart, might not
have been intended as a burlesque.
Col. Mallery stated that it bore every mark of sincerity and
genuineness.
Prof. Mason spoke of the growing prevalence of this school of
symbolic interpretation, especially in Europe.
Mr. Ward inquired whether the recent attempts to explain the
origin of the Arabic numerals as a modification of straight lines
rested on any authentic basis.
Col. Mallery thought it did not.
Forty-fifth Regular Meeting, November 1, 1881.
Dr. Edward M. Gallaudet, President of the National Deaf-Mute
College, read a paper entitled How shall the Deaf be Educated? 1
The following is an abstract of the paper
:
A suitable classification is important to a proper consideration of
the question.
The class should be spoken of as the deaf. The term deaf-mute
should be applied to such only as are totally deaf and completely
dumb.
1 Published in full in the "International Review," Vol. XI (December,
1 88 1,) pp. 503-S16.
80 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Besides this sub-class, there are the speaking-deaf, the semi-
speaking deaf, the speaking semi-deaf, the mute semi-deaf, the hearing-
mute, and the hearing semi-mute, these two last sub-classes being,
usually, persons of feeble mental power.
With a class involving such essential differences among its sub-
classes and orders, no single method can be expected to be
successful.
The first requisite in the instruction of the deaf, as in all teach-
ing, is the establishment of a ready and adequate means of com-
munication between teacher and pupil.
The natural language of the deaf, is beyond all question, the
language of signs and gestures. But experiment has proved that
many deaf persons, including not a few congenitally deaf, may be
taught to speak, orally, and to understand what is said by others,
from the movement of their vocal organs.
The value of the power of speech is so great, that many have
insisted that all deaf persons can, and must be taught to speak.
To suppose that all can be taught to speak well is an error.
Many deaf persons are lacking in imitative power, in their power
over the muscles of their vocal organs, in their power of vision, and
in other particulars, which make it impossible for them to attain
success in speech.
For them it is the wise course to forego all effort to impart
speech, and give them education through the use of signs, the
manual alphabet, and writing.
Experience has abundantly proven that deaf persons so educated,
may lead happy and useful lives, mingling readily with hearing and
speaking people.
It is recommended that in all cases where success seems prob-
able attempts be made to teach the deaf to speak ; that where it is
practicable special schools for oral teaching should be maintained ;
that in all institutions for the education of the deaf articulation
should receive attention j that the manual alphabet should be used
in all schools for the deaf, and that signs should be made use of
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 81
even in oral schools, especially with advanced pupils, as a means
of conveying instruction in the form of lectures.
Col. Mallery spoke of the capability of sign language to express
abstract and abstruse ideas, and remarked that Mr. Edward B.
Tylor had maintained that it was incapable of such expression,
while Max Miiller claimed that these ideas were all derived from
sensuous ones. Mr. Tylor had ' given as examples of conceptions
not capable of being conveyed by signs, those of momentum and
plurality. He asked how this was.
President Gallaudet replied that for the conveyance of abstract
ideas, a certain amount of explanation in simpler terms was usually
necessary, but to say that abstract ideas, such as those of momentum
and plurality, could not be conveyed by signs, would simply pro-
voke a smile from any practical teacher of the deaf and dumb.
Dr. Fletcher inquired what proportion of deaf-mutes are found
capable of acquiring the power of oral speech.
President Gallaudet replied that this differed with the language,
the Italian being easiest to acquire, and that between one-third and
one-half the pupils could learn to speak it. With the English the
statistics did not cover a sufficiently long period to deduce the pro-
portion accurately, but he thought it would be about one-third. In
reply to the further question relative to the children of the deaf and
dumb lady whose letter he had read, he stated that they were all
normal, and remarked upon the small tendency of deafness to
descend to the offspring even of parents who are both afflicted.
Dr. Hoffman mentioned two deaf Indian children whom he
knew, and who seemed incapable of acquiring the sign language
of the tribe.
President Gallaudet could explain it only on the assumption that
they were mentally deficient.
Prof. Mason asked how far are we acquainted with the history of
the movement for the education of the deaf in different nations,
as Chinese, Japanese, etc.
6
82 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Col. Mallery said they were classed by Constanfine with the in-
sane.
President Gallaudet stated that no extended history of the matter
for the whole world existed. He had once undertaken such a work
but had been compelled by other duties to suspend it. He said that
records on the subject, in Europe, date back four or five centuries,
and schools had existed in France, Germany, and Italy for one
hundred and fifty years. He was certain no such institutions existed
in China. Japan has two small schools. He was invited, in 1867,
to go to China and establish a school, and had accepted the in-
vitation, when the rebellion broke out there and put an end to the
scheme.
Dr. Welling desired to learn in what sense deaf-mutes are
capable of receiving and expressing ideas of the higher class
;
whether deafness was a bar to the intellectual acquirements made
by other persons.
President Gallaudet replied that it interposes no obstacle to men-
tal development, except that connected with acoustics. He had
even questioned whether it did not tend to quicken thought by the
forced absence it imposes of the multiform distractions which enter
other people's minds through the ear.
In reply to Mr. Bigelow's question, whether the mere jar
produced by some sounds did not furnish a sort of substitute for
hearing in some cases, he said that this was simply feeling and not
hearing, and that deaf people were able to make some use of it.
Mr. Gilbert inquired whether there was a universal system of
signs, so that deaf-mutes of all nationalities could understand one
another.
President Gallaudet said that this was the nature of the true
sign language, but that besides this, special arbitrary signs were
used by different schools ; there was also an alphabetic language,
and this he regarded as really the most complete system. He
spoke of lip-reading, and said that Prof. Bell was now preparing a
list of words of different meaning and spelling, but requiring the
same position of the lips (Jwmophem.es).
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 83
Dr. Welling asked if sign language did not convey ideas to deaf
persons more directly and impressively than oral language.
President Gallaudet said that it certainly did, but only certain
kinds of ideas. He spoke of the superiority of the sign language
in large classes or where a great number of persons are addressed.
Dr. Hoffman mentioned the meeting of the Ute Indians with
the deaf-mutes at the National Deaf-Mute College, and said that
they were able to carry on a free interchange of ideas, showing
that the syntax was identical.
Dr. Fletcher inquired whether the presence of a beard or
moustache was not a serious obstacle to lip-reading. President
Gallaudet replied that it was a part of the regular course of
instruction to accustom the pupil to the beard and mustache, and
some became so expert that they could understand even when the
hand was held over the mouth and lips, by observing the peculiar
action of the other parts of the face, the eyes, head, etc.
Mr. Ward asked if any data existed for determining whether
educated deaf-mutes, as a class, had contributed their share to the
intellectual work of the world, and mentioned the case of Mr. Leo
Lesquereux, the well-known vegetable paleontologist. He said
that, considering how small the class is, it would not, of course,
require a very great absolute number to constitute its quota.
President Gallaudet thought that it had done so, and instanced a
number of deaf persons, of greater or less distinction in one way or
another, among them John Kitto, Charlotte Elizabeth, Ferd. Ber-
thier, and two brothers Moore, of Hoboken, embracing various
professions, authorship, and art. He further remarked that, of the
graduates from the National Deaf-Mute College, one had become a
successful patent lawyer and another an editor.
Mr. Henry Baker spoke of Mr. Parkinson, the patent lawyer re-
ferred to, testified to his intelligence and business ability, and said
that the degree of master of arts had been conferred upon him.
Mr. Ward said he thought the facts showed that the art of com
municating ideas was a necessary result of the possession of ideas
84 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
to communicate, and depended less than was commonly supposed
upon the possession of the faculty of oral speech. He expressed
his belief that if the human race, all other things being as they are,
had been destitute of that faculty they would have nevertheless
found means of carrying on the various functions of civilized
society very nearly the same as they now do.
Forty-Sixth Regular Meeting, November 15, 1881.
Mr. R. L. Packard read a paper reciting A Navajo Myth.
The following is an epitome of the myth :
The story in brief is that the Navajos first appeared as certain
animals, in a world under the earth we inhabit. There they lived
a long time, under the rule of twelve chiefs, one of whom was the
head chief. In consequence of the discovery of the infidelity of
the wife of this chief, an absolute separation of the sexes through-
out the tribe was effected, by the males crossing a large river, which
flowed near the camp. The two sexes lived apart four years, at the
end of which time many females had died, and the rest were
threatened with starvation, so that a reunion of the males and fe-
males was made necessary. After this had been effected a water
monster, which lived in the great water near which the people were
camped, was robbed of its young by Coyote ; the evening of the
same day the water began to rise and caused a flood, which drove
all the people up to a high mountain ; and the water still rising,
they planted a reed on the top of the mountain and fled to its in-
terior for safety. This reed grew rapidly and carried them to the
upper earth, which Badger was sent forth to explore. His report
was that the upper earth was covered by a sea, like the one which
had driven the people up the mountain below ; and that there were
four swans at the four corners, viz., the north, eastj south, and
west corners of this sea. with whom he had had a combat ; he and
Cicada vanquished the swans and the people came to the upper
earth, through the hole he had made, and took possession of the
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 85
whole region ; their wise men and medicine men (priests) made
the sun, moon, and stars (for it was as yet dark) after four days ex-
periment
; and one of the medicine men went with the sun to
regulate its movements and he was never afterwards seen, but con-
tinues with the sun to this day.
A similar wise or magic man, but of the Zuriis, went with the
moon.
After this they planted the seeds of trees and vegetation in gen-
eral, which they had brought up with them.
After increasing to a great number, a conflagration destroyed all
but a few of the people ; and after this remnant had again increased
to a large number, certain monstrous animals and a giant in human
form came and devoured all but one male and one female. Tins
female found a female child at the foot of a rainbow one day, which
she took home and raised as her daughter. In due time this child,
having grown to maturity, became the mother of two male children
by the sun. These children were infants in arms four days ; after
which they were able to run about four more days ; and at the end
of this period they were men grown.
On reaching manhood they asked their mother about their father
;
and being by her instructed, set off on a long journey to visit their
father, whose house they found far away in the East ; after an in-
terview with him they returned, journeying with their father in his
daily course in the heavens, to their own country ; and by his as-
sistance, killed the various monsters which had devoured their
people.
Under instructions from their father they consulted their mother
about re-peopling the earth ; and she, by magic, made one male and
one female in human shape ; and this pair was the source of nearly
all the Navajos.
This woman went then to a great ocean in the West, where she
still lives; and she and the sun-man are the deities which are
reverenced by the Navajos.
The story is localized by the introduction of the names of moun-
86 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
tains, etc., in the Navajo country, where the events are supposed to
have occurred, and was obtained from a half-breed Navajo, aided
by an old man of the tribe.
Mr. Gatschet remarked that the myth seemed to be a compound
of numerous traditional legends, and showed how a number of the
events recited might be allegorically interpreted; e. g., the separa-
tion of the men from the women probably represented the division
of day and night. The giant he thought was emblematic of the
sun.
Prof. Mason expressed surprise that no connection could be traced
between these Navajo myths and the Tinnee myths, notwithstanding
the certainty that the Navajos had migrated from British America
within comparatively recent times, and spoke of the rapidity with
which myths grow.
Dr. Hoffman asked if certain parts had not been omitted from
the myth as read.
Mr. Packard replied that he had tried to embrace all the essential
parts.
Col. Mallery spoke of the analogy between principal occurrences
described in the Navajo myth with those contained in the myths of
other peoples ; as for example, that of the separation of the sexes
with the story of the Amazons ; the rising of the waters with the
wide-spread tradition of a deluge ; and the occupation of the reed
with the fable of Jack and the bean-stalk. He also called attention
to the usual predominance of the number four.
Prof. J. Howard Gore then presented a communication on the
Regulative System of the Zunis. The following is an abstract
:
Zufii is situated in the western part of New Mexico, 12 miles from
Arizona and about 250 miles southwest of Santa Fe. It is built of
adobe ; the houses are contiguous, and in some places cover the irreg-
ular streets, thus uniting the whole town into three single buildings.
The subsistence of the people is derived from herds of sheep and
goats and from the soil. The minor crops are grown near the
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 87
town, while their corn fields are at Pescado, and the wheat is raised
at Mutria. The men plant and cultivate the crops and the women
gather, garner, and prepare the grain for use.
The, women receive more attention here than is usual among
Indians.*
The clan organization is for a triple purpose : to determine the
line of marriage, for social amusement, and for religious observ-
ances. Descent is in the female line. Monogamy exists. Divorces
are readily obtained, and are unattended by reproach, but are by
no means common.
In order to be a member of the religious order—the Priests of
the Bow—it is necessary to secure a scalp and undergo a number of
ordeals. The election of a person into this order is confirmed by
a great feast. All persons charged with murder are tried by this
order. The accused conducts his own case, and a member is
appointed to manage the prosecution. The decision is reached in
secret council and the verdict made known afterwards. If guilty
the criminal is executed privately.
Property is exclusively individual, and can be disposed of by the
owner without consulting any one. Children may own property
—
even land. The property of a man dying intestate descends to his
own children ; but at any time prior to his death he may name his
heirs. Seven caciques and one priestess constitute the supreme
ecclesiastical tribunal, to whom all disputes and doubted points in
religious or ceremonial matters are referred. A governor is the
chief civil authority ; he decides all minor questions himself, and
only summons a council when the importance of the case demands
it. In council no formal vote is taken ; each person so expresses
his opinion that the will of the majority is easily made known.
Women have no voice in the councils.
Prof. Mason inquired whether differences of social standing
regulated the occupancy of the Pueblo houses. Prof. Gore said
that this did not seem to be the case. The Priest of the Sun lives
88 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
in the upper house, fourth terrace, while in other cases the wealthier
classes usually live on the first story. The Governor's house was
not by any means in the finest quarter of the town.
Mr. Bigelow asked whether the Zufiis make formal wills, and
also how children are cared for. *
Prof. Gore replied that wills were merely verbal, and that the
wish of the deceased, however expressed, was conformed to when-
ever it was known. He was conversant with one contested will
case. He also stated that in their anomalous marriage relations
it did not always fall to the parents to take care of their own
children.
Mr. Gatschet spoke of an annual festivity celebrated on Mt.
Taylor, near Zufii. He also inquired whether the usual division
into gentes and phratries prevailed, and relative to the clans spoken
of, whether they attempt to prove their origin.
Prof. Gore said there were fifteen clans among the Zufiis, which
are organized chiefly for amusement and social intercourse, but were
permanent and of very ancient origin. These have no connection
with the usual division of the people into gentes. The gens merely
determines the line of marriage ; all must marry without their gentes.
Descent was in the female line. He then spoke of the various
ceremonies of the different clans, and gave a detailed account of a
feast of the Corn-clan which he witnessed. He said that the
music was sung in a language to a great extent unintelligible to
living Zunis, and which seemed to be a sort of sacred or classic
tongue handed down from remote antiquity, which no one dared
to change.
In reply to a question by Mr. Gilbert, he said this language
somewhat resembled the present Zufii language, but seemed to
be a sacerdotal, archaic form of it.
Prof. Mason said that the Creeks and Choctaws also have an
oratorical language having an elevated diction for state occasions.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89
Forty-Seventh Regular Meeting, December 6, 1881.
Mr. M. B. W. Hough read a paper entitled A Question in
Classification, of which the following is an abstract
:
Classification is made possible by the persistence of inherited
peculiarities, while it is rendered necessary by the diversities of
such peculiarities which meet us daily in the street. It proceeds
upon the present condition of affairs, but many considerations
must enter any discussion of the subject.
Races of men are described by color, habitation, and by families.
The last is the true method, but each observer has his own theory.
The proportionate diameter of the skull when measured laterally
and longitudinarily, and the contents of the brain in cubic inches
are also favorite methods. Men have also been divided into two
species by the position of the nostrils, whether close together or
wide apart.
The angle between lines drawn from the forehead and the base
of the brain, meeting at the front of the upper jaw, and the
relative prominence of the jaws compared with the forehead and
the chin, is used for the same purpose, and seem to be persistent.
A division founded on the cross section of the hair seems incisive,
but must, it would seem, yield to some, as yet, unrecognized
distinction, which shall divide men into two families of races.
The diversities of the individuals who compose these classes,
when each is taken as a whole, are manifold. One class delights
in repose, is ruled by desires and acts from impulse; the other
delights in action, is ruled by ideas and acts from motive ; one is
patient under restraint and satisfied with material comfort ; the
other is ambitious of improvement and impatient of control.
Anatomical differences are well known to specialists : one class has
less muscular development and more protruding mouth ; it has also
more flattened and scanty hair, accompanied by larger and more
active perspiratory glands, whether these facts are related or not.
The feet are less arched, arms longer, legs weaker, chests shallower,
90 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
and complexion darker ; and in culture, one class is behind the
other.
There are difficulties in the application of so simple a theory,
and the object of this paper is to ask where the line is to be drawn.
That there have been vast changes in existing climates and in
the present distribution of land and water is unquestioned ; with
corresponding effects, if not on the dispersal and variation of
humanity, at least on all then existing organic life.
But we know that man has existed on the earth for a long period
of time, and has moved from one place to another, as he does in
the present and will do in the future, from the same motives.
Whenever the Glacial Epoch occurred, as ice disappeared from
Western Europe, man was there. And this is a significant fact,
when connected with the other fact, that many northern forms of
animals and plants are found in the further south, while no southern
forms have invaded the north ; which opens space for momentous
speculations as to the original location of man. If his northern
origin is inconsistent with preconceived opinions, may he not,
early in his life as a species, have been separated into two divisions,
one being led north, the other south. If so, owing to permanent
geographical causes, those who went south encountered less variety
of condition than the other. Be this as it may, we see all over the
world reminders of the migrations of men, and the emigrants, who
usually occupy the more fertile and inviting regions, whenever
comparison is possible, seem to have improved on their kindred
who were left at home.
Is there such a division—one class embracing races of southern
origin, the other those who have arisen in colder climates, and
when found in southern latitudes are referred to the north ? The
line of such division seems widened at its boundaries, but this
widening is due to mixture of blood, which is shown in the
blending and fusion of the characteristics of each class.
Here arises the difficulty in the application of the theory—certain
people, by many qualities, belong to one class; in others, as clearly
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 91
resemble the other. This is the case with the natives of Australia,
who, resembling the one class in most if not all other things and
in mental and social condition, have the wavy hair, full beard, and
sharp sight of the other—where shall they be classed ? They have
no history or traditions, have never cultivated food-crops, clothed
themselves, or had permanent dwellings, and it is questioned
whether they knew the use of fire. Their appearance is analogous
to many races of animals and plants found on islands, similar to
those found on far off continents, yet specifically distinct, from
which long isolation is inferred. This seems, by its fossils, to be
true of the animals, and may well be true of the men of Australia.
They are also the only people, apparently, of the southern class
who have lived for ages in a temperate climate, and also who have
hair but slightly curled. Some writers derive them from the Non-
Aryan tribes of India, but as these are cultured—they all cultivate
food-crops, have dwellings, clothe themselves, and use fire, arts
that could not well be lost—and as emigrants usually take purpose
and knowledge with them, it seems that any such recent resem-
blances would be more reasonably accounted for by reversing the
course of the hypothetical migration.
Resemblances in language must be cautiously used in tracing
relationship, as will be seen in the known origin of the so called
Latin Nations of Europe.
While upon such separation as has been suggested, one portion
went in one direction and the other in another, each would be
soon modified by changed conditions, and would divide into clans,
tribes, nations, and races ; each class retaining the common as well
as class characteristics. No special reference is made to American
ethnology, for whether its pre-historic races are of single, or as is
likely, of three-fold origin, they are all referred to northern
sources.
The earlier relics of our kind show indices of the same grade of
culture ; so the farther back we go in the line of descent the more
likenesses are found in people who seem widely separated in habita-
92 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
tion and apparently in blood. This fact explains many things
which seem to be contradictory.
All this is general, but illustration and application are not far to
seek. That the key to distinctions between classes, as well as races,
is to be found in the bodily frame, and is now in the hands of
those who study it, is, I believe, beyond doubt. Will somebody
learn to use it ?
Upon this communication Mr. Ward remarked that he had been
struck by the analogy which it suggested between the geographical
distribution of the human races and that of the lower animals and
of plants. It seemed that in the one case as well as in the other
the physically inferior types predominated in the southern hemi-
sphere, and particularly in South America and Australia. Africa,
however, constituted an exception, so far as animals and plants were
concerned, and he raised the question whether this might not be
due to the fact that geologically that continent properly belongs
with Europe and Asia, with which it was connected until quite
recent times, and whether the size of land areas did not have
something to do with the degree of development made by the life
inhabiting them ; he also queried further whether this might not be
in turn due to the relative length of time during which such dev-
elopment has been going on, presuming that it might have begun
much earlier on the great northeastern continent. He spoke of the
oft-repeated remark made by geologists and naturalists that America
is really the Old World, and said that, in so far as life at least was
concerned, the reverse must be the case, if, by the age of a fauna is
meant the length of time it has been developing, as measured by
the degree of advancement attained. From that point of view
Australia would be the youngest continent, after which would fol-
low South America, then North America, making the Old World
in fact old zoologically and phytologically as well as anthropologi-
cally. That the human races, notwithstanding their superior migra-
tory power, had retained certain of the same geographical peculi-
arities that characterize the lower forms of life, he thought quite
probable.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 93
Prof. Otis T. Mason then read a paper on The Definition of
Anthropology and its Sub-Divisions. 1
A running discussion followed upon the various terms adapted to
the classification of the phenomena of anthropology.
Forty-Eighth Regular Meeting, December 20, 1881.
Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled The Anthropocentric
Theory. 2 The following is an abstract
:
The aim of the paper was to bring together into something like
logical order a few of the more salient facts which have been cited
in favor of and against the belief in the existence of a beneficent
agency in nature, more especially as operating in the direction of
the welfare and advantage of man, considered as the end toward
which the various processes of the universe have tended. These
statements of fact were accompanied by such explanations, qualifi-
cations, and other comments as seemed necessary to secure their
proper appreciation and their true bearing upon the problem.
The speaker called attention to the fact that writers of a teleo-
logical bias are continually advancing what they regard as proofs
of intelligent design and benevolent provision in behalf of sentient
beings, especially man. Until within quite a recent period all phi-
losophy was strictly anthropocentric, and the lower grades of
creatures capable of enjoyment and suffering were wholly ignored
;
but in later times a few of this school have expanded their scheme
to embrace the animal world in general, rendering it zoocetitric
instead of anthropocentric, although the existence of large orders
of purely predatory creatures had proved a somewhat discouraging
fact for their philosophy to assimilate.
Most of the examples that have been brought forward as estab-
lishing the operation of a designing intelligence and beneficent
l
," American Naturalist," Vol. XVI., (January, 1882,) pp. 66-67.
2 This paper will form part of Chapter VIII of the author's work " Dynamic
Sociology," in press.
94 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
intent in the universe—optimistic facts, so called—can be classed
under two general heads: They are either, i, cases of natural or
genetic adaptation ; or, 2, they are mere coincidences.
Still a third class was, however, named in which the advantage
is more apparent than real and becomes greatly reduced or dis-
appears altogether on closer examination.
Under the first of these groups the following instances were
enumerated
:
1. A modern scientific writer had stated that in the case of the
maternal instinct it was a mere accident that the course of action
which the instinct prompts should be one that was conducive to the
welfare of the offspring.
Against this view it was urged that this apparently fortuitous adap-
tation was clearly a genetic one and had been developed under the
operation of the selective laws now generally recognized in biology.
2. The alleged excess of male over female births, supposed to be
brought about for the purpose of supplying the loss of males
incident to war and their more exposed mode of life, was questioned
as a fact; the loss of males by violence being, probably, nearly
compensated for by the greater delicacy of maternal functions;
yet, if the supposed excess were proved, it might do no more than
show that it was an advantage that it be so, which, on adaptation
principles, would amount to accounting for the fact.
3. That the specific gravity of aquatic animals should almost
exactly equal that of their medium was held to be a clear case of
natural adaptation.
4. The allied fact that the bones of birds are hollow and com-
municate with the outer air was explained in the same manner.
5. The existence of the coal measures was cited as a favorite
theme of optimists, and it was shown that it partook of the char-
acter partly of the first and partly of the second group. If it be true,
as generally believed, that the process of their deposition had the
effect to purify the atmosphere of its alleged excess of carbonic
acid gas, then the fact must have constituted one of the conditions
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 95
to the development of higher forms of life, including human life,
and as such it performs the office of an efficient and not afinal cause.
Since the close of the sixteenth century, when coal began to come
into general use as fuel, it may have also produced a new effect
upon the development of the race by greatly enhancing their
comfort and consequent efficiency for action. In so far the
correlation between the existence of the coal measures and the
advancement of man has a causal relation and constitutes a case of
adaptation ; in any other sense it must be regarded as a pure
coincidence.
6. Very similar to this case is that of the late appearance,
geologically speaking, of the most important economic families of
plants, and particularly the Rosacea and Graminece. These plants
were shown to have been, equally with the coal measures, a condi-
tion to the existence of the higher forms of animal life which have
been genetically adapted to them. Considered from any other
point of view the co-existence is purely accidental.
Under the second group, or that of pure coincidences, the
following cases were noted :
i. The alleged advantage to man of the spheroidal form of the
earth in preventing irregularities in its motions, due to mountains
and other inequalities of its surface, which the equatorial meniscus
neutralizes. This, Kant, who first suggested it, proposed to explain
on teleological principles, and he rebukes the attempt to explain it
as due to the equilibrium necessarily produced by the formerly
fluid mass of the rotating planet. But as the mechanical explana-
tion is complete without the teleological one, and will apply to any
case, even where it might be a disadvantage, the latter is at least
unnecessary.
2. The fact that there is no relation of dependence between the
dispersive and refractive powers of different substances, and which
alone renders the construction of the achromatic lens possible.
This was mentioned as a most fortunate case under the present head ;
but it was questioned whether this were not rather to have been
96 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
pected than the contrary, and whether admiratidh be really the
proper attitude to maintain towards it.
3. It had been remarked by Brinkley " that if the velocity of
light had been much less than it is astronomy would have been all
but an impossible science." If it had been greater than it is,
however, astronomical observation would have been in the same
degree facilitated ; and there was the same antecedent probability
that it would be greater as less.
4. As a final case under this head was noted the circumstance
that if the manufacture of alcohol had been so simple a process
that the lowest races could have at all times obtained an unlimited
amount of it, this would probably have effectually prevented the
social development of the race, if it did not entirely extinguish it.
It is a fortunate coincidence, therefore, that its production is only
possible by races that have advanced far enough intellectually to be
capable of foreseeing to some extent its evil effects and of exercising
a certain control over their appetite for it.
Passing to the third group, or those instances in which the
advantage is more apparent than real, only a single . case was
adduced as a type of the class.
This was the fact, so strenuously insisted upon by certain physi-
cists, and notably Count Rumford, as a wise provision of nature in
the interest of man, that water attains its greatest-density at about
39^° Fahrenheit, instead of at the actual freezing point. This
view was based upon the supposition that if it were otherwise all
bodies of water, even the ocean, would be frozen solid as often as
the temperature fell to 32 . The fallacy of this reasoning has long
been exposed, and it has been shown : first, that this property does
not apply to the salt water of the ocean, which is about in the state
from which the worst results of the theory would occur ; second,
that these results do not occur there, and would not in any liquid,
but rather the opposite ones, viz., that bodies of water would never
freeze over in temperate climates at all, since the superincumbent
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 97
mass of the water would prevent the cold from penetrating to the
bottom, where alone congelation could take place if ice were
heavier instead of lighter than water ; and, third, that instead of
water having been singled out as the only substance to be en-
dowed with this property, it is now found that many others possess
it, such as glass, bismuth, antimony, and even iron ; so that inde-
pendently of design the chances that water should possess it are
about the same as that it should not, while the property itself is
really of very doubtful advantage.
Upon an enumeration, therefore, of such cases only as seem to
favor the anthropocentric theory it was maintained that the claim
was a weak one. Unless the theory of adaptation is wholly re-
jected, the greater part of the illustrations fall under that head.
A large share of the remainder are such as would be as likely to
occur in the manner that they do, as otherwise, under the operation
of the mathematical law of probabilities. The number of coinci-
dences that can be noted is not greater than ought to be expected,
or than are met with in other departments of human experience,
while a few cases turn out, when fully understood, to be of doubtful
advantage.
The speaker next proceeded to enumerate cases of the opposite
general class, or such as seemed opposed to the doctrine of a special
beneficent agency in the interest of man. This, he stated, was a
much easier task than the preceding, which is itself a strong pre-
sumption against the optimistic view.
The illustrations adduced were grouped under three general
heads, viz., i, such as exhibit a condition generally unfavorable to
life on the globe, either of men, animals, or plants
—
anti-biocentric
facts
;
— 2, such as negative, in one form or another, the assumption
that the human race has been the special object of benevolent de-
sign
—
anti-anthropocentric facts
;
—and, 3, those in consequence of
which social progress tends to defeat itself
—
anti-sociocentric facts.
7
98 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
A bare enumeration of the many cases cited is all that can be
given in this abstract.
Under the first of those groups the following facts were set down
:
i. That the longitudinal cohesion of the outer bark of many-
trees restricts their natural growth by binding the trunk too tightly
and compressing the cells of the cambium layer. So obvious is
this that horticulturists successfully relieve them by artificially slit-
ting the bark.
2. That many plants bloom during a period of mild weather in
autumn or winter, when there is no possibility that their fruit can
reach maturity.
3. That the sting of many insects is so strongly barbed that it
cannot be withdrawn from the body stung, but instead is extracted
from that of the insect along with the viscera to which it is attached,
resulting in the death of the latter. As only females are provided
with stings the destruction of so many of that sex must be a disad-
vantage to the species.
4. That female opossums having only thirteen teats have been
known to give birth to fifteen or sixteen young, and, as the con-
tinued life of each embryo depends upon its permanent attachment
to a teat, the excess over the number of the latter must necessarily
perish.
5. That moths, beetles, ephemerae, and other insects possess a
suicidal propensity to fly into a flame.
6. That birds and animals on newly discovered islands have no
innate fear of man, and allow themselves to be readily caught, so
that they are soon exterminated.
7. That animals attacked with rabies immediately acquire a dis-
position to bite others, whereby the deadly malady is multiplied.
8. That many imperfectly integrated annelids labor under a
great disadvantage from being obliged to support a multitude of
similar organs in different somites.
While none of the above facts are capable of a teleological, or
optimistic explanation, it was shown in each case that from the
point of view of evolution they may all be readily accounted for.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 99
Under the second, or anthropocentric group proper, the fol-
lowing facts were co-ordinated
:
Three cases, under the general head of "rudimentary organs,"
as they are called, which, while they perform no known functions,
are at the same time the seats of dangerous diseases, viz. :
i. The tonsils, as the seat of tonsilitis.
2. The thyroid gland, the seat of the disease called goitre, or
bronchocele.
3. The vermiform appendage of the intestines, in which two
dangerous forms of disease are located.
Each of these has been traced back to a form in the lower ani-
mals, in which it was an active organ, which not only accounts for
the existing vestige on true scientific grounds, but at the same time
argues the descent of man from them. Yet this fails to relieve the
optimist from the onus of proving a teleological advantage from
them as they now exist.
4. Allied to these cases, but of less general renown, is that of the
exposed condition of the lower extremity of the spinal cord, which,
under certain circumstances, becomes the seat of a fatal malady
known as rachidian meningitis. This condition, which is peculiar
to man, is explained morphologically as a result of the assumption
by man of the erect posture, in separating the sacral vertebras and
exposing the spinal cord.
The remaining cases cited under this head were taken from
widely different fields :
5. That the ability to predict the weather is at once the most
practically important and the most limited of scientific achieve-
ments.
6. That, as Laplace has shown, the elements of the solar system,
from the human point of view, fall far short of the optimum.
7. That if, as many astronomers suppose, the moons of the larger
planets are inhabited and derive their light and heat chiefly from
their primaries, it is an ill-devised arrangement that in all cases
they should always present one and the same side to them, leaving
the other hemisphere in perpetual darkness.
100 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
8. That it would be much better for man if there could be about
sixteen hour's day to eight of night, corresponding to the normal
requirements of activity and rest, and saving an average of four
waking hours in darkness, with the accompanying cost of artificial
illumination.
9. The misfortune was dwelt upon that all races should have been
condemned to the use of either the quinary, decimal, or vigesimal
system of notation, when either nine, twelve, or sixteen, but es-
pecially eight, would have constituted a basis so much superior in
point of practical value. Genetically, it is easily explained as the
result of man's possession of twenty digits.
10. That the human body should possess a specific gravity a trifle
greater than that of water, coupled with the fact that man is not
endowed with a natural instinct to swim ; and this on a planet of
whose superficial area two and four-fifths times as much is water as
land, and which he is obliged to traverse in all directions. His
supposed descent from purely terrestrial, or even partially arboreal
anthropoid apes, would be a satisfactory genetic explanation of
both these circustances ; but its admission would be no relief to
the optimist from explaining them teleologically.
11. The brevity of human life was cited as an important barrier
to intellectual progress. So large a portion of every one's lifetime
is required to prepare for any useful work that little time is left for
its accomplishment, and many are deterred from undertaking
anything of real value. This, it was maintained, might as well
have been otherwise, as there is nothing necessarily impossible in
the limit of human life being two hundred years any more than in
its being one hundred.
12. Living beings are so constituted that they multiply many
times, often many hundred times, faster than their conditions
would permit if the excess were not constantly kept down by the
friction of the environment manifesting itself in a variety of ways.
In the case of men, who form no exception to this law, disease,
accident, violence, war, pestilence, and famine are among the
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 101
scourges that perform this office, the true cosmical nature of which is
masked by our familiarity with the phenomena. The amount of
suffering that would be saved if, instead of this method, that of
diminished fertility or the destruction of unborn germs of life were
adopted, is incalculable.
To these cases were added the following wholly disconnected but
none the less apposite facts :
13. That the worst of all living enemies of mankind are too
minute to be discovered by the highest-powered microscopes—the
germs of disease.
14. That in temperate latitudes, where the bulk of the world's
population occurs, northerly winds predominate in winter and
southerly in summer, thus exaggerating the extremes of heat and
cold.
15. That in mountainous regions the rainfall is chiefly on the
tops of the mountains where it is not needed, leaving the otherwise
fertile valleys and plains arid and parched.
16. That the most useful as well as the most beautiful objects in
nature are usually the most rare.
17. That, whereas pleasures are usually moderate and brief, pains
are often intense and protracted.
Under the last of the three general classes of anti-optimistic
facts specified above, viz., the anti-sociocentric, or anti-progressive
group, it was shown :
1. That social progress is rhythmical, and that its alternate flows
and ebbs occasion incalculable waste, from the circumstance that
only a part of what is gained by the flood-tide is retained after the
ebb-tide is over.
2. That the study of phenomena has always had to be commenced
from the top, and that the superficial view must be taken before
the fundamental view can be gained ; so that the work of intellec-
tual progress has consisted in the removal, not merely of ignorance,
but of error.
3. That moral and social science, the most practically important
102 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
branches of knowledge, labor under difficulties from which all other
sciences are exempt, since every attempt to analyze the phenomena
of human action and social life into their simpler elements—a pro-
cess essential to the study of any science—conflicts with received
opinions and shocks a morbid sense which claims a preternatural
character for the human race.
4. That the labor performed in the interest of social progress is
unremunerative, and must usually be performed in the face of
strenuous opposition ; which is alone sufficient to deter most men,
however capable, from undertaking it.
5. That true merit is generally content to remain in obscurity,
while the volatile elements of society thrust themselves into undue
prominence and exert a greatly disproportionate influence.
6. That the mass of mankind wholly misconceive their own in-
terests, and are generally found siding with the party that seeks to
despoil them of their most valuable rights and liberties.
7. That the past tendency of the human intellect has been to
ignore realities and waste its energies on empty speculations about
transcendental questions.
8. That, while men have always had the most need, they have,
at the same time, manifested the least disposition to exercise their
intellectual faculties.
9. That in the present state of scientific progress the discovery
of truth is rapidly distancing popular intelligence, so that it is im-
possible to assimilate the knowledge brought forth.
And finally
:
10. That each and all of the many errors which the increasing
intelligence of the world has successively swept away, have been
defended to the last by at least a few of the most honored minds of
the age, and have at last been compelled tardily to succumb to a
sort of popular verdict, or to the combined force of the lesser lights
and younger heads, reluctantly declining to follow longer those to
whom they had been accustomed to look to for counsel and in-
tellectual guidance.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 103
In conclusion the speaker remarked that there were some to
whom an apology might be due for so protracted an enumeration
of the pro's and con's of optimism—a philosophy which may be
supposed to have long been obsolete. To such, however, he could
only express his regret that the mass of mankind have by no means
reached their advanced position. While optimism, as a philosophic
tenet, defined by the scholars of a century ago, has, it must be
admitted, ceased to engross the attention of thinking minds, the
qualified form of it which constitutes the anthropocentric theory,
and toward which the foregoing considerations have been principally
directed, still forms the very warp of the current philosophy outside
of the domain of science, and to a great extent within that domain.
It is the essence of all teleological conceptions, and so generally
pervades the prevalent views of life and action, as to distort com-
pletely the popular conception of the relations between man and
the universe. The great mass of men still believe in a conscious
intelligence, either without or within the universe, which is perpetu-
ally adjusting means to ends in nature. The majority regard that
intelligence as in a manner benign and sympathetic, and while
shutting their eyes to such facts as have been here set forth, are
ever on the alert to gather evidence, however slender, in support
of providential interference and intelligent design.
Mr. S. D. Hinman then read a paper entitled The Rabbit and
the Spring.—A Dakotan Tale.
Upon this paper Prof. Mason remarked that nearly the same
story occurs in " Uncle Remus." He said it was possible that the
negroes of the South might have learned it from the Southern In-
dians. He had formerly reasoned that the selection by the negroes
of the rabbit as the hero of so many of their stories was because
they thought that timid animal best typified their own helpless con-
dition, from which a belief widely prevailed that they were yet to
emerge victorious over all the influences that tended to hold them
down.
104 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
Mr. Gilbert inquired whether the story was regarded as a myth,
or whether it belonged to the proper folk-lore of the tribe.
Mr. Kinman thought that it was not believed in as a fact.
Forty-Ninth Regular Meeting, January 3, 1882.
Dr. Robert Fletcher read a paper entitled Paul Broca ; His Life
and Work in Anthropology. 1
Dr. Antisell inquired whether the report was true that Paul Broca
died of internal aneurism.
Dr. Fletcher replied that this was not developed by the autopsy
and was a mere supposition.
Prof. Mason spoke of a letter he had once received from Broca,
in which he advised American anthropologists to confine their
investigations to their own country as the most promising field of
research.
Dr. Antisell remarked that Broca was the first to observe the
perforated skulls.
Dr. Fletcher said that he had treated this subject specially in a
paper read at a previous meeting, which accounted for his touching
so lightly upon it in the present one.
Prof. Mason asked whether it could be considered as the estab-
lished opinion that the faculty of speech is located in the third
frontal convolution of the brain. He said that he had heard both
Dr. Otis and Dr. Woodward speak very skeptically about it, and
cite a case in which this lobe was carried away entirely, and the
man talked more than before.
Dr. Fletcher replied that there was some conflicting evidence on
the subject, but that the doctrine had recently gained ground. He
1 " Paul Broca and the French School of Anthropology
;
:
' in " The Saturday
Lectures," delivered in the Lecture Rocm of the U. S. National Museum under
the auspices of the Anthropological and Biological Societies of Washington, in
March and April, 1882; Boston, D. Lothrop & Co., 18S2 ; Washington, Judd &
Detweiler, 1882, pp. H3-142; also separate, as Saturday Lecture No. 6.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 105
said that the views of Dr. Otis and Dr. Woodward which had been
given must have been expressed some time ago, and he was quite
sure they had been greatly modified since. He thought Dr. Otis
believed in the doctrine at the time of his death, and that Dr.
Woodward now accepts it with limitations.
106 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT,
J. W. Powell.
Delivered February 7, 1882.
OUTLINES OF SOCIOLOGY. 1
By organized association men live together in bodies politic.
That men may live in peace, render one another assistance, and act
together as units for mutual protection, is the purpose subserved by
organized association. In order that men may associate, their con-
duct must be regulated. For the regulation of conduct there must be
organization, and the plan upon which a body politic is organized
depends upon the nature of the regulation for which it is used
—
organ is adapted to function.
The organization of the body politic constitutes the State.
Again, there must be
—
First, some method of determining the particulars of conduct
that require regulation and the quality and quantity of regulation
required.
Second, there must be means of enforcing regulation.
Third, there must be means of determining whether conduct
conforms to rule.
The machinery established by a society for accomplishing these
purposes constitutes Government.
Yet again, there are the rules which the body politic determines
to be necessary for peace, mutual assistance, protection, and the
common welfare, and these constitute the Law.
The science of sociology, from the nature of the functions of
social organization, may be fundamentally divided into "three sub-
1,1 The Saturday Lectures," &c, pp. 60-82; also, separate as " Saturday Lec-
ture" No. 4.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 107
jects: the constitution of the state, the form of the government,
and the regulation embodied in the law—the state, the government,
the law.
THE STATE.
A state is a body politic—an organized group of men with an
established government and a body of determined law. In the
organization of societies units of different orders are discovered.
A society of the highest or first order is made up of a number of
societies or groups of a second order, and these may again be made
up of a number of groups of a third or fourth order. The term
state as here used embraces the entire body of men included in
the largest unit (and consequently all the men of each subordinate
unit) when it refers to the body politic as a group of men, and
when it refers to the organization it includes the constituent plan
of the largest and its included units. It should be noticed that
this use of the term state is not consistent with a common practice
in this country, but we may illustrate by reference thereto. The
term state would thus be synonymous with the United States, in-
cluding its several units of states, counties, townships, cities, wards,
and all other subordinate divisions. The term state, then, is used
to designate an organized body of people of the highest order,
embracing all its subsidiary organizations.
SOCIOLOGIC CLASSES.
In the foregoing characterization of the state it has been con-
sidered as a body politic organized for civil government, that is,
for the regulation of the conduct of the individuals of the state as
they are related to one another. But the conduct of the members
of the state, or of the entire body politic, may have relations to
other bodies politic ; so that conduct must be regulated in its
internal relations and in its external relations.
Now, the relations of state to state may be regulated by common
agreement, and they are thus regulated to a large extent. But
108 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
this regulation is imperfect and weak from the fact that no common
government is organized to which all the states are alike obedient.
The lack of such a common government for states leads to the
settlement of disputes by war. Each state prepares itself to enforce
its wishes or defend its rights by resort to arms. It seems probable
that in the earliest stages of society all able-bodied men take part
in its military affairs. But very early a differentiation is discovered
by which a part only of the men belong to the army ; and thus we
have the military class as distinguished from the civil class.
In all governments which have hitherto existed, human conduct
has been regulated in its relations to supernatural beings. It has
always been believed that the welfare of mankind depends largely,
or even primarily, upon the will of the gods, or of one god—the
Supreme Ruler of the Universe.
The relation of man to his god gives rise to religion. The con-
duct involved is religious conduct ; and hence religion comes to be
an important factor in determining the constitution of the state,
the nature of the government, and the character of the law.
Thus in the constitution of the state we find three classes of
people more or less distinctly differentiated : the civil, the mili-
tary, and the priestly. As these classes appear in the constitution
of the state they also affect in varying degree the form of the
government, and the relations arising therefrom are regulated by
law.
SOCIAL RANKS.
In many stages of society grades, or ranks, of people are dis-
covered, based upon heredity, possession of land, wealth, and other
circumstances giving rise to aristocracies—common people and
slaves, patricians and plebeians.
CORPORATIONS.
In many states two grand classes of organizations are found. The
first class is directly related to government and embraces the organi-
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 109
zations mentioned above as grouped in different orders. The
second class is indirectly related to government. These organi-
zations serve a variety of purposes. Men are organized into
societies for religious, charitable, educational, industrial, and other
ends, and such societies will here be called corporations. These
organizations of the minor class, unlike those of the major class,
do not constitute a part of the government, but they form a part
of the state and must necessarily be considered in the plan of the
state. While not a part of the government in any important way
they are connected therewith. The regulation of conduct involved
in the successful working of such corporations may be immediately
determined by the bodies of men severally involved, and expressed
in charters, constitutions, by-laws, and rules of order. But over
all these is the law of the government, with which the rules or
laws of the several minor organizations must conform, and for the
ultimate enforcement of which government is to a large extent
responsible. Thus we have the major and minor organizations of
the state, the major and minor laws of the state, and the govern-
ment of the state directly enforcing the major laws and indirectly
enforcing the minor laws.
The science called Sociology in its three great divisions
—
the
state, the government, and the law—deals with all organizations of
the people for whatsoever purpose they may be formed.
A part of the regulation of a state belongs to the major, another
part to the minor, organizations of the state, but the functions of
the two classes of regulation are not clearly and permanently dif-
ferentiated. A particular system of regulation may be relegated
now to the government and now to a society of the minor class,
or the system of regulation may be divided between them. For
example, the government may entirely control a system of educa-
tion, or the system of education may be entirely controlled by
minor societies ; or, again, a part of the educational system may
belong to the government and a part to minor societies. The
boundary lines between major and minor regulation are ever
shifting.
110 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
A STATE IS A PLEXUS OF ORGANIZATIONS.
In the foregoing statement it is seen that the grand unit of social
organization, the state, is itself composed of many minor organi-
zations, forming units in a descending series, so that the state has a
compound structure. It also has a complex structure. Before de-
fining this complexity an illustration from biology may be in place.
An animal is composed of many organs performing different
functions,—the organ of thought, the organs of breathing, the
organs of digestion, the organs of circulation, the organs of loco-
motion, and so forth. Running through all these organs and
forming a plexus with them, are the systems of tissues—the nervous,
vascular, and muscular systems— the whole forming a compli-
cated system of organs and tissues, rendering the organism exces-
sively complex in physical constitution.
In the examination of the constitution of any particular state it
will usually be that one system of organization permeates and
pervades other systems in such a manner that the individual state
is excessively complex. Through the series of units into which
the state is organized for the purposes of government, both classes
and ranks are interwoven, and through the government units—the
classes and the ranks—corporations are interwoven.
In the Muskoki Confederacy there are forty-nine tribes, each
one having a government of its own. But these forty-nine tribes
are organized in such a manner that a common government is
provided for the whole. Now, the confederacy is the grand unit,
the tribes are units of a second order. But the clans of one tribe
are also the clans of another, so that each clan is distributed
through many tribes, and each clan has a government of its own,
subsidiary to the government of the tribe, and again subsidiary to
the government of the confederacy. The organization for a clan
is woven through the organization for a tribe in such a manner as
to make the constitution of the state complex.
In those states where the organizations which we have here
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. ill
called corporations are highly developed, the corporations them-
selves render the constitution of the state complex. Church
organizations do not conform to state lines, but extend their
operations and their control over their own members regardless of
political divisions.
All states that have been studied have been thus found both
compound and complex. Such are the essential characteristics of
the social organization of mankind into states.
THE GOVERNMENT.
The differentiation from the state of an organized system of
regulation gives rise to government. If a condition of society
could exist in which each member in the state should take an equal
and like part with all the others in the regulation of conduct, the
state would be without a government in the sense in which that
term is here used ; but in the bodies politic which are known
certain individuals are selected by one or other process to per-
form special functions in the regulation of the conduct of the
people composing the state. The government is the sociologic
organ differentiated from the state for the regulation of conduct.
The functions to be performed by a government are of three
classes—legislative, executive, and judicial. For if conduct is to be
regulated it is necessary
—
First, to determine in what particulars, and to establish the rules.
This gives the law-making power, which will here be denominated
the legislative department.
Second, to provide machinery for the enforcement of the law.
This is here denominated the executive department.
Third, to interpret the law. In society the particulars of conduct
and the relations of conduct are vastly multifarious, approaching
infinity. The formulated rules of conduct—the law—can never so
keep pace with conduct itself that every specific act of social life
shall have its corresponding formulated rule. It is therefore neces-
sary that the general rules embraced in the law be interpreted and
112 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
applied to the specific act. This is usually done by the individual,
who is supposed, and whose duty it is, to know the laws of the state
;
but the individual may yet have imperfect knowledge. Still, as a
member of the body politic, his conduct has its effect upon others
who themselves may have imperfect knowledge of the law and
its application to specific acts. This imperfection of knowledge
necessitates an interpretation of the law. Again, bias of interest,
bias of prejudice, and bias of passion, all have their effect in modi-
fying individual opinion relating to the law. Under these circum-
stances it is found necessary for the state to devise, as a part of its
government, some organ for the interpretation of the law in its
application to specific acts. This gives rise to the judicial depart-
ment of government.
These three great functions have never been clearly differentiated
in the organization of a government ; but the distinctions have
usually been perceived and a partial differentiation of organs is
ever found.
In the constitution of the state, it has been seen, three grand
classes arise—the civil, the military, and the religious. Wherever
in the state such classes appear, the form of government is adapted
to the regulation which the constitution of the state demands, and
in this manner the functions of government may be classified as
civil, military, and religious—the military government inhering in
the army, the religious government in the priesthood : and armies
and priesthoods are constituent parts of such governments.
Usually in all stages of society, military government is entirely
subordinate to civil government, but there are times in the middle
stages of society when the military government assumes inordinate
proportions, so that the civil government becomes subsidiary
thereto ; but such military governments performing civil functions
are ephemeral.
Again, in the constitution of the state, religious organizations
invariably constitute an important factor. In the lowest tribes a
priesthood is a part of the government. In certain stages of society
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 113
a priesthood sometimes acquires inordinate powers, and ecclesiasti-
cal, or religious, governments are organized ; but such governments
arise only occasionally and are ephemeral.
In the constitution of the state two classes of organization are
found—those relating directly to the government, called the major
organizations, and those relating indirectly to the government, called
the minor organizations, or corporations ; and each organization de-
velops from its own body of members a government of its own,
through which, in partj it is related to the government of the state
and to other organizations of the minor class. These minor or-
ganizations are also directly related to the government of the state
and to one another through the individuals of which they are com-
posed.
Government is the specialized organ for the regulation of the
conduct of the individuals of the state, and is functionally divided
into the legislative, executive, and judicial departments, with a still
further functional division running through these, giving civil,
military, and religious government. To the government of the
state, in its several units and classes, the government of corpora-
tions is subsidiary and obedient.
THE LAW.
The law is composed of the rules of conduct which the govern-
ment endeavors to enforce. These rules of conduct control the
individuals of the state in their relations to one another. Conduct,
in its relation to the individuals involved, is either directly or in-
directly personal. Conduct may be directly personal in its rela-
tions to two or more individuals, or it may be indirectly personal
in that it affects the relations of the individuals through the medium
of property. The first gives rise to what I shall denominate per-
sonal law, the second to property law.
Again, in the organization of the body politic, minor bodies
have been described, and designated as corporations, including in
the term all bodies politic of the minor class, i. e., all private cor-
8
114 TRANSACTIONS OF TJIFC
porations as distinct from municipal or government corporations.
The relations of individuals to one another, as members of a corpo-
ration, are controlled by i lie corporations themselves in their organ-
ized capacities, bul these regulations must conform to the law of
the state, and are ultimately relegated for their enforcement to the
government. But the control of corporations in their relations to
one another, in their relations lo the government, and in their rela-
tions to the individuals of the state, gives rise to a body of corpo-
ra/ion law.
Again, sini e government is differentiated as the organ of regula-
tion, the organ itself must be controlled—the conduct of the
government si be regulated. This gives rise to what I shall
denominate government law.
It has been seen that the conduct of a state, and of the indi-
viduals of a state, has relation lo other states. The rules for the
regulation of this conduct gives rise to international law.
As no common government exists between states to enforce
international law, armies are organized, and for the regulation of
their conduct military law is developed.
The condui i pertaining to the relation which exists between men
and deity gives rise to the organization of ecclesiastical bodies.
For the government of these bodies, and for the enforcement of
the rules of conduct which religion imposes, religious law appears.
The law, then, the body of rules which the state endeavors
directly or indirectly to enforce, maybe properly classed as follows:
i. Personal law.
2. Properly law.
3. Corporation law.
4. Government law.
5. International law.
6. Military law.
7. Religious law.
In addition to this classification of law on the basis of the
particulars of conduct to be controlled, another fundamental
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 115
classification is found running through and interwoven with each
of the others. This classification depends upon the method by
which regulation is accomplished. General rules of conduct are
established, and these general rules are applied to specific acts.
Thus duties and rights, or rights active and passive, are determined.
Usually, to these rules determining rights, the individuals of the
state conform their conduct ; but to an important extent they do
not. To the extent that conduct is conformatory to the law, right
is done ; to the extent that conduct is not in conformity with the
law, wrong is done. Now, government does not attempt to control
conduct by directly enforcing right-doing, but indirectly, by punish-
ing wrong-doing, and this gives rise to a body of laws relating to
wrongs, which may be designated as criminal law.
Crimes may be committed against personal law, property law,
corporation law, government law, international law, military law,
and religious law ; so that the classification of law relating to rights
and duties furnishes the proper basis for the classification of law
relating to wrongs, I. e., crimes.
COURSE OK EVOLUTION OF THE STATE.
In considering the particulars of. conduct that states have at-
tempted to regulate we find they can be classified on still another
basis than that presented in considering the subject of law. Con-
duct may relate to the perpetuation of the species, or it may relate
to the welfare of the individual. Though this classification serves
no important purpose in the study of the subject of law, yet it
is necessary in considering the constitution of the state and the
form of the government.
In the earlier and lower stages of society, conduct relating to the
perpetuation of the species is held to be of primary importance,
while conduct relating to the welfare of individuals is held to be
of secondary importance, in such a manner that the organization
of the state is based primarily on the former and secondarily on
the latter.
1 16 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
In the perpetuation of the species the functions of reproduction
are dependent upon the biologic organization of mankind, dividing
the human race into two classes
—
male and fetnalc—and the very-
earliest states yet discovered have their plans of organization based
on sex, and composed of classified bodies of kindred.
This may be stated in another way. In the earliest forms of
society conduct involving the relations of the sexes and the rela-
tions of kindred arising therefrom was first brought under regula-
tion. The primary and principal source of disagreement among
primitive men at the inception of organized society grew out of
their desires for the possession of women. Men first came into
conflict with one another on account of women, and to live together
in peace it became necessary to organize government and enact
law regulating marriage and kinship relations arising therefrom.
The government and the law relate primarily to kinship, regula-
ting the relation of the sexes, and the relation of the several mem-
bers of bodies of kindred ; that is, the state is organized on kinship.
Governmental functions are performed by men whose positions in
the government are determined by kinship, and rules relating to
kinship and the reproduction of the species constitute the larger
body of the law. The law regulates marriage and the rights and
duties of the several members of a body of kindred to one another.
Individuals are held responsible only to their kindred, and certain
groups of kindred are held responsible to other groups of kindred.
When other conduct, such as the distribution of game taken from
the forest, or fish from the sea, is regulated, the rules or laws pertain-
ing thereto involve considerations of kinship, and this is extended
so far that a large body of rights to property are kinship rights. In
this manner all the earlier forms of the state of which we have
knowledge are based on kinship. This gives us kinship society and
tribal government.
In the highest forms of social organization discovered in the
nations of civilization the regulation of conduct embodied in the
government and the law, relates chiefly and primarily to the welfare
I
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 117
of the individual, and secondarily to the perpetuation of the species;
and of the conduct relating to the welfare of the individual that
which relates to property has an overwhelming predominance.
In the earliest stages of society small wealth is accumulated, and
industries for the production of property and wealth are compara-
tively undeveloped. In the higher stages of society greatly accu-
mulated wealth is found, and industries are differentiated and in-
dustrial organizations multiplied beyond all others. As, therefore,
the organs of government must be adapted to its functions, the plan
of government in such a state must be based upon property. Thus
property, society, and national government are constituted.
In kinship states the fundamental classification of the people for
the purposes of government is by kindred ; in property states the
fundamental classification of the people for purposes of government
is by territory. Between these stages—the lowest and the highest
—
many intermediate forms are found. No hard and fast lines can be
drawn. A clear distinction can be made only between the lowest
and the highest. Survivals of kinship society exist in all govern-
ments where position, t. <?., office, in the government is hereditary,
while property society with the government of the highest civiliza-
tion is reached only by republics.
The history of the constitution of the state is the history of the
evolution of kinship society into property society.
There is yet another way by which this evolution may be charac-
terized, namely, by the progressing differentiation of the organs of
the state, and by the progressing integration of states. The dif-
erentiation of organs in the state is represented in three ways
:
First, by the multiplication of organs of government.
Second, by the multiplication of the orders of units and the
specialization of the subordinate units so that subordinate organiza-
tions perform special functions. Thus cities may be divided into
wards, counties into towns.
Third, by the multiplication of corporations for specific purposes.
Such organizations in the lowest stages of society appear only in a
118 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
crude form, but as society advances they are perfected and greatly
multiplied, until in modern civilized society a state becomes a vast
plexus of corporations.
In the earlier stages of society each state is small, being com-
posed only of a body of kindred by consanguinity and affinity,
actual or artificial. As each state is small many states are found.
In order that unification of states may progress organization by
kinship must give way, and gradually it does give way, to be re-
placed by organization on a property basis. Organization on a prop-
erty basis appears in many ways, but chiefly in two. First, captives
in war and other persons are made slaves, and themselves become
property ; and, second, a particular form of property—land
—
gradually comes to be of prime importance, and is at last taken as
the basis of the primary classification of the state, which is terri-
torial.
By various processes of alliance, by conquest, by development of
feudalities, and by slavery, states are integrated, and by the devel-
opment of the organs of government and private corporations, the
classes of the state are differentiated, and with this the plan of the
state is changed from a kinship to a property basis.
COURSE OF EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT.
The earliest form of government of which we have knowledge
consists of an assembly composed of men, from which are excluded
all deemed too young or too old to exhibit due wisdom. This
assembly is the law-making power, /. e. , the legislature, and the law
applying power, i. e., the court. It is, in fact, the body of able
men meeting to confer and decide upon conduct, and is essentially
legislature and judiciary undifferentiated. This assembly has a
presiding officer who obtains the position by common consent or
formal choice, and who sometimes acts as an executive officer in
carrying out the decisions of the assembly. But this executive
power, though it may sometimes, does not invariably inhere in the
presiding officer.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 119
Sometimes, and perhaps usually, the executive power is delegated
to a committee of the assembly. The committee may be appointed
temporarily to carry out a specific determination of the assembly,
or it may be a standing committee to carry out a class of determi-
nations. The form of government thus described probably exists
at present in some of the tribes of Australia and elsewhere, as such
accounts are given by travelers and students of ethnology ; but
these accounts are incomplete, and have been made by persons not
thoroughly trained in this branch of anthropologic research, so that
altogether the existence of such a government is at present uncertain.
It is also probable that this form of government has existed in past
times among tribes who have now advanced beyond it. The line
of argument on which this is based cannot here be presented, and
it is but fair to say that positive conclusions have not been reached.
A somewhat higher form of government has been discovered in
America and elsewhere, which may be more thoroughly described.
In this the assembly of the people is more definitely organized.
The presiding officer is formally selected, and his tenure of office is
for life, unless otherwise formally determined by the assembly for
cause. In addition to this, a chief or system of chiefs is found
whose duties are executive. The chief is also a member of the
assembly, but is not a chief by virtue of such membership but by
choice of the people. The chieftaincy is never hereditary.
In the most highly developed governments the three great classi-
fications of governmental functions are highly, though not com-
pletely, differentiated, giving rise to legislative, executive, and
judicial departments, represented by the assembly, the ruler, and
the court.
The assembly itself is elaborately organized and differentiated
into two or more correlated divisions. Executive functions are
highly differentiated and distributed among various classes of officers
over whom the ruler presides. The judicial functions also are
differentiated, and superior and subordinate courts are organized.
Between the two forms thus described, many intermediate forms
120 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
are discovered, and the course of progress is wayward"and various.
In the earlier part of this course, judicial functions are to a greater
or less extent assumed by the executive, and for a long time this
division of the functions of the court between the two departments
of government continues—being claimed, now by one, now by the
other. At times, too, in the course of progress, legislative func-
tions are assumed by the executive department, and a conflict is
waged for supremacy. At last, by various processes, the court is
organized.
Three of these processes must here be mentioned. As states
increase in size the business of adjudication becomes so great that
proper attention cannot be given to the multiplicity of cases
arising. Under these circumstances committees of the assembly
are appointed with judicial powers, at first extremely limited but
gradually enlarged, until courts are developed. On the other hand,
where judicial power has to a greater or less extent been assumed
by the executive department, the rulers find themselves overwhelmed
with business and appoint subordinates in the first instance to ad-
judicate specific cases, but gradually the powers of these subordi-
nates are enlarged, until courts are thus established.
Again, ecclesiastical bodies claiming superior virtue and wisdom
sometimes assume to adjudicate, but such adjudication is gradually
relegated to specified officers of the body, and thus ecclesiastical
courts are developed.
The courts originating from the assembly, from the ruler, and
from the ecclesiastical body alike, may be more or less multifarious.
When they spring up in the same state their jurisdiction is at first
imperfectly defined. Each strives for supremacy, and thus jurisdic-
tion overlaps jurisdiction. This conflict ultimately results in the
organization of a system of courts integrated in a superior court
and differentiated by the establishment of a variety of inferior
courts with jurisdiction more carefully defined, the function of the
inferior courts being controlled and restricted within proper bounds
by appeal to the superior.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 121
Thus, at last, the functions of the primitive assembly, originally
legislative, executive, and judicial, are differentiated, and the legis-
lature, the ruler, and the court are established.
THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION OF LAW.
In the development of the tribe into the nation, conduct develops
from extreme simplicity to extreme complexity, and for the regula-
tion of conduct the law must likewise develop.
PERSONAL LAW.
A large part of personal law belongs to family law. Perhaps the
earliest and lowest form of the family is that in which brothers in a
group marry their own sisters in a group : all the brothers are the
husbands of all the sisters. The family is thus composed of hus-
bands and wives, parents and children, grandparents and grand-
children, and brothers and sisters. Collateral lines of kinship are
not established. There are no uncles and aunts, no male cousins
and female cousins, and no nephews and neices. This is known as
the Punaluan family, or system of kinship.
Another form, known as the Malayan family, or system of kinship,
is found, involving a larger tribe and a higher organization. In
this, a group of men, being brothers, marry a group of women,
sisters to one another, but not sisters to the men whom they marry.
For the regulation of this form of communal marriage a tribe is
divided into classes. Often there are three classes, which are di-
vided into male and female—making in all, six. Let these be
represented by letters : A represents a male class, and A 1 a female
class. The class A are brothers and the class A 1 are their sisters. B
represents a class, and B1 a class, brothers and sisters ; and C and
C 1 are like classes. Then the class A, being brothers to one another,
may not marry their sisters A 1 , but marry the class of women B 1
who are sisters to one another. The class B marry the class C, and
the class C marry the class A1 . Now, in this family, descent is in
the female line. The children then of A and B l will belong to the
122 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
class B and B l
,
the children of B and C 1 will belong 'to the class
C and C l , and the children of C and A1 will belong to the class A
and A 1 , and through these cycles the generations pass.
The kinship system is further developed in this family, and
gives brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters,
grandfathers and grandmothers, and grandsons and daughters. It
also gives aunts and uncles. The children call their father and
father's brothers, all fathers, and their mother and mother's sisters,
all mothers ; but their father's sisters are aunts, and their mother's
brothers are uncles. The children of their father's brothers they
call brothers, the children of their mother's sisters they call sisters;
but the children of their father's sisters they call cousins, and the
children of their mother's brothers they call cousins.
This family is widely spread in Australia and elsewhere, and the
kinship system is still more widely spread, as it exists among all the
tribes of North and South America, in parts of Europe, Asia,
and Africa, and in some of the islands of the sea.
The Punaluan system of kinship is known to exist, but the form
of communal marriage is not known. The Malayan system of
kinship and marriage is known. Its simplest and most common
form only has been given.
The development of this into the polygamic and monogamic
systems of marriage is accomplished in diverse ways among many
tribes. The group of husbands and group of wives constituting
one family comes to be very large and narrower restrictions are
adopted—thus, sons of one mother will be married in a group to
the daughters of another mother, and various other restrictive
regulations will appear, but all involving a common principle,
namely, that the husbands and wives have no choice. Selection is
made by legal appointment.
Legal appointment develops into individual selection through
three processes
:
First. The parties interested, consulting their own wishes, elope;
and marriage by elopement, though illegal at first, is made legal on
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 123
the day of jubilee. This procedure widely prevails among the
North American Indians.
Second. It ofttimes happens that in the vicissitude of life cer-
tain groups, or families, of sisters increase in number, while the
groups of brothers to whom they belong decrease in number, and
vice versa. Under these circumstances a few men are entitled to
many wives, and the law holds this to be justice. In such cases it
may happen that a man who belongs to a large male group having
rights of marriage in a small female group, will, with his friends,
capture a bride from some larger group of women. This is always
resisted, and conflict ensues. If the capturing party succeed, the
law then holds that the warfare was the final arbitrament and the
controversy ends ; and if the capturing party fail, the contest must,
in like manner, cease.
Third. Marriage by capture develops into a third form. A
man being entitled to more than one woman is challenged by a
man who, by the vicissitudes of life and death, is entitled to none,
and the right to a woman is thus decided by wager of battle
between the two men immediately interested. This duel is gradu-
ally regulated by law in such a manner that fatal results do not
ensue, and the conflict ends controversy, and thereafter the dispu-
tants are, themselves, friends.
These three forms of marriage—by elopement, by capture, and
by duel, are gradually regulated, and come to be recognized as
legal, and so communal marriage is developed into polygamic and
monogamic marriage ; and thus by a long process the Malayan
system of marriage and the Malayan system of kinship are de-
veloped into the monogamic family and kinship. But it usually
happens that the system of kinship embodied in the terms of
relationship, remains longer than the system of marriage, that is,
the evolution of language does not keep pace with 'the evolution
of customary law, so that we find many tribes having the Malayan
system of kinship, yet not having the Malayan system of marriage,
124 TRANSACTIONS OP THE
but having polygamic marriage and marriage by legal appointment,
and with these, marriage by elopement, by capture, and by duel.
In the family law of very early society descent is in the female
line, the control of the children belongs to the mother and her
consanguineal kindred, and the father and his kindred have no
control over the family. The husband is but the guest of the wife
and her friends.
During the process of development from communal marriage,
and the system of kinship involved, to monogamic marriage and
its system of kinship, a change from descent in the female to
descent in the male line occurs, and with this change the control of
the family is relegated to the husband and father, and rapidly this
control becomes absolute, and the patriarchal family is established,
in which the father has power of life and death over his wives and
children and all their descendants ; but gradually this power is
regulated by law.
A method by which descent is changed from the female to the
male line, that is, by which mother-right is changed to father-right,
appears among the North American Indians. When the gentes of
which a tribe is composed do not live in a compact village but are
spread over a large area of country, so that each gens lives alone,
separated by miles of distance from the others, the consanguineal
relatives of the wives, who are the guardians and masters of the
family, are not present and cannot exercise control. Under such
circumstances authority is gradually assumed by the husbands, and
the line of descent is ultimately changed. There may be other
methods by which this change is made.
PROPERTY LAW.
Property law is naturally divided into two classes
—
property in
chattels and property in land.
To a large extent in primitive society chattel property is com-
munal—owned by classes or clans—but a few articles, such as cloth-
ing, ornaments, and some implements and utensils, are owned by in-
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 125
dividuals, yet no large accumulation of these things is permitted to
the individual. Under these circumstances barter and sale are
clogged because individuals cannot freely exchange—the consent
of two bodies of persons being necessary therefor. As industries
are differentiated, that is, in the beginning of the differentiation
of labor, articles are exchanged by regulation—the price is always
the legal price. Inheritance is by clan, not from parent to child.
In the progress of social organization communal chattels become
personal property. Inheritance by clan gradually becomes inherit-
ance by nearest of kin, and, finally, wills are invented, and in-
heritance by designation of the owner is developed. Then with
the development of money, barter is changed into sale, and legally
fixed price, by certain curious processes, is changed into competitive
price.
In the most primitive society the land is held by the state and
used only as a hunting ground, or as the source of vegetal food
naturally grown thereon, while the streams and coasts are held as
fisheries ; but where rude cultivation begins small areas are re-
deemed, and usually cultivated land is held by tribe or clan.
Thus, tenure to cultivated land is communal.
Communal ownership is gradually developed into ownership in
severalty by a variety of processes interesting in themselves, but
multifarious and complex, so that the subject may not here be
treated at large.
With the change in the character of tenure to property from
communal to individual ownership, there grows up a large body of
law relating to contract.
[The consideration of the evolution of corporation law is omitted.]
GOVERNMENT LAW.
In lower tribes, government law consists of a few simple rules,
regulating the manner of calling the assembly, the order of de-
liberation, and the method of announcing the decision, while the
126 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
chief or committee executes the law in obedience to «. few equally
simple rules. In higher nations, where the legislature, the ruler,
and the court appear, government law is greatly elaborated. The
legislature is organized by processes provided bylaw, and controlled
by organic, or constitutional, law, and a body of parliamentary law
is developed regulating its method of procedure. The executive
department is governed by organic law, by law emanating from the
legislature, and by a large body of rules originating within itself.
The judicial department is also controlled by organic law, by
directory laws emanating from the legislature, and by the rules of
the court, involving a complex system of procedure.
From such simplicity to such complexity do we arrive by the
processes of evolution.
CRIMINAL LAW.
Of crimes resulting from the regulation of the relations of the
sexes, marriage within the proscribed group is held to be the most
heinous in primitive society. It is never condoned, never com-
pounded. Infidelity after marriage may be condoned or com-
pounded.
Crimes relating to personal injuries include murder, maiming,
and slander. Murder may be punished by the taking of life—not
necessarily the life of the murderer, but one of his clan. But
murder may be compounded, and primitive law fixes the value of
individuals according to sex and rank. Murder may be atoned for
by substitution, that is, the murderer may be expatriated, driven
from his family, and thus become dead to his own people,
and then he may be adopted by the injured family and made to
replace the murdered person. Thus the wife of the murdered man
may adopt the murderer for her husband, and, in this adoption he
loses his own name and all relations of kinship, and accepts the
name and kinship relations of the murdered man.
Maiming is punished by maiming—" an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth"—and maiming maybe compounded, and the
value of the several parts of the body is specified by law.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 127
Slander is punished the same as the crime alleged in the slander,
and slander may be pleaded as a justifying cause for murder and
maiming ; slander may also be compounded.
In primitive society by far the largest body of crimes is included
under the practice of witchcraft, and this is terribly punished.
Abnormal conditions of body, aberrations of mind, and infelicities
of temper are all interpreted as evidences that the possessors thereof
are uncanny people, and to a large extent deafness and blindness
before old age from causes that cannot be readily understood, and
all loathsome or strange diseases, are likely to be attributed to
sorcery, so that the practice of witchcraft is everywhere believed in,
and witches and wizards are multiplied. Witchcraft is punished by
death, but after conviction in the court, appeal to supernatural
decision is always permitted, and thus we have the origin of trial
by ordeal.
Criminal law in the higher stages of society need not be charac-
terized, but certain lines of evolution may be pointed out. The
groups in which marriage is prohibited, giving rise to the crime of
incest, change from artificial groups to groups constituted by degrees
of consanguineal kinship, male and female. Thus classifications
by artificial and analogic characteristics give place to classifica-
tions by essential and homologic characteristics. Gradually too,
in the progress of society from the earliest to the latest stages, the
motive of the murderer is considered, and accidental killing and
maiming are differentiated from willful murder and other personal
injuries, and in the higher stages of society, such willful injuries,
being essential crimes, are not compounded nor atoned for by sub-
stitution.
In the crimes which come from the unlawful acquisition of prop-
erty the punishment by multiple restitution found, in the lower
states, is superseded by fines which go to the state and by imprison-
ment. In the lower stages of society property crimes are thefts
;
in the higher stages, property crimes are thefts and frauds.
In the lower stages of society a large body of the crime is witch-
128 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
craft, and this gradually disappears with the progress of culture.
It should be noticed that in early society there is a very large body
of artificial crimes—especially those relating to sorcery. Again,
there is a large body of artificial crimes relating to personal in-
juries, from the fact that willful injury is not differentiated from
accidental injury. In the course of evolution such artificial
crimes are eliminated from the law. On the other hand, by reason
of the ever increasing complexity of the relations of men, the
classes of real crimes are multiplied.
There is yet another line of progress. In primitive society two
principles are found to exist side by side as fundamental theories in
the administration of the law.
The first is that justice must be done—that justice which the
primitive law recognizes.
The second, that there must be end to controversy so that peace
may prevail and society be not disorganized ; and this must be
accomplished though the former fail.
To secure end to controversy there is resort to two methods
:
First, days or other periods of jubilee are appointed at which all
crimes, except murder and incest, are forgiven. In the lowest
societies it is a day of jubilee, coming once a year ; in higher
societies it is a year of jubilee, coming at longer periods. With
progressing society this method of ending controversy is adopted
in the case of crimes which are manifestly artificial in the state of
culture to which the people have arrived, and by this means willful
murder is at first differentiated from accidental killing.
Second, controversy is terminated and the punishment of artificial
crime is avoided by the establishment of cities of refuge.
Now, cities of refuge come to be such in a curious manner. In
the early history of mankind, cities are states and autonomous
;
one state does not punish the crimes committed in another ; and
men committing crimes flee from their own states to Others, be-
come incorporated therein by adoption, and thus secure immunity
from punishment. When on the first organization of nations,
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 129
two or more city-states are consolidated and placed under one
general government, certain cities often remain as places of refuge,
but with an important restriction, namely, that the crimes belong
to the classes which have been here described as artificial.
Thus days of jubilee and cities of refuge are important agencies
in the evolution of criminal law.
The growth of law in its entire course is governed in many
important respects by the theory of the origin of law and the
source of its authority. This subject involves the discussion of the
evolution of philosophy and cannot now be undertaken. It is the
highest and most important subject with which the mind of man
can grapple, as it involves the whole theory of human conduct—the
ethics of mankind.
In the foregoing the organization of society for government,
/'. e., for purposes of regulation, has been considered. This is the
organization to secure peace. The organization of society by the
differentiation of industries and their integration through com-
merce has been necessarily omitted.

INDEX.
Aboriginal burial cave in the valley of the
South Shenandoah
cemeteries near Piscataway, Mary-
land
paint-quarry
shell-heaps at Pope's Creek, Mary-
Page.
31
22
22
land
Abstract ideas conveyed by signs
" Abstract of Transactions of the Anthro-
pological Society'"
Abstracts of papers, how published
Aecotink, Virginia, Ossuary at
Achromatic lens, fact rendering its con-
struction possib'e
Active members
, List of.
Adair on supposed Israelite ceremonials
among the Muskoki
Adams, A. Wellington
Addresses of the President, when to be
delivered
Vice-Presidents, how
and when to be delivered
Adjectives of color in Indian languages ...
Admission fee
Age, Maximum, attained by the Innuits...
of prehistoric remains, Determina-
tion of the
Akkad alphabet, Imaginary, from the
Dighton Rock "
glyphs, Discovery of gesture signs
23
81
11,21
11
27
Alabama, Number of fishermen in
Alaska, Aborigines of
, Proportion of fishermen in..,
Albunol, Spain, Cave situated near
Alcohol, fortunate difficulty of its manu-
facture
Almeria. Spain, Prehistoric cave situated
near
Amazons, Story of the
Amendments to the Constitution of the
Anthropological Society, Provision for
"American Antiquariau and Oriental Jour-
nal," Paper published in the
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, Account of the pro-
ceedings of the Anthropological sec-
tion ol the, at Saratoga
"American Journal of Philology," Paper
published in the
"American Naturalist," Papers published
in the 22,
Amphibious aborigines of Alaska
Amulets, Cranial „
26
23,93
33
47,48
Page.
Ancient maps of North America 23-
Annelids, Inadaptation apparent in some... 98
Annual address of President Powell on
limitations to the use of some anthro-
pological data 29
the evolution of
language 25
the outlines of
sociology io(>
meetings 15, 24, 28
"Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth-
nology," Papers published in the.
..23, 2fi, 27,
29,59
Aniequera, Spain, Remarkable plain in the
vicinity of, strewn with, oyster-shells... 68
Anthropocentric theory 93
Anthropologic data, Limitations to the use
of some
Anthropologv, Definition and subdivisions
of
Anti anthropocentric facts
Anti-biocentric facts
Antimony, Maximum density temperature
of
29
as
97
97
97
Anti-optimistic facts 97, 101
Anti-progressive facts 101
"Antiquedadesprehistoricasde Andalucia" 08
Antisell, Thomas 10, 17, 30, 57, 104
Anti-sociocentric facts 97, 101
Application of gestures to the interpre-
tation of pictographs 58
Archreologic research, Progress of, in the
United States
Archaeology, Provision for a section of, in
the original constitution
"Archiv fur Angenheilkunde," Paper
published in the
"Archives of Ophthalmology," Paper pub-
lished in the
Aristocracies, Origin of
Arrow-head making
1Z
21
108
21
Assembly, Earliest form of the 118, 119
5
17
At Lee, S. Yorke..
Augusta, A. T
Austrians employed in the fisheries of the
United States
Azores, Natives of the, employed in the
fisheries of the United States
Aztec and Guatemalan antiquities, Obser-
vations on 21
Baker, Frank 17
Baker, Henry M 17, 83
Baird, Spencer F 5, 11, 20
Barber's pole, Origin of the 75
131
132 INDEX.
Page.
Bark of trees, Injurious longitudinal co-
hesion of the 98
Beard and moustache not a serious ob-
stacle to lip-reading 83
Beauty, Transition of. from the males of
animals to the females of the human
race 38
Bee, II. P. Discovery by, of a prehistoric
cave in Mexico 24
Bell, A. Graham 02
Bell, A. M. on vowel sounds GO, Gl
homophemes 82
Berlin, A. F 20
Berthier, Ferd 83
Bessels, Emil 17
Bigelow. Otis 5, 17, 79,82, 88
Birds, Bones of, why hollow 94
Births, Excess of male over female 94
Bismuth, Maximum density temperature
of 97
Blood-letting. Theory of savages respecting
the efficacy of 50
Boccaccio 29
Boehmer, Geooge fl 5
Bones of birds, why hollow 94
Bransford, J. F 17
Bristol Bay 33
British Provinces, Natives of the, employed
in the fisheries of the United States... 04
Broca, Paul 104
, cause of his death 104
, his life and work in anthropology .. 104
, on prehistoric trephining 47^19
Bronchocele 99
Brown, J. Stanley 17
Buffalo woman G9
"Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of
Washington," Paper published in the.. 23
"Bulletin of the United States Entomo-
logical Commission," Paper published
in ihe 24
Burchard, Horatio C 17
Burdiek, Edson A 5, 17
Burial by clans 70
customs of the North American
Indians 25
, Some modes of Indian 21
Burial cave, Aboriginal, in the valley of
the South Shenandoah 31
Burnett, Swan M 3, 17
, Paper read by 21
California, Number of fishermen in 63
Call, The original, for the formation of the
Society '. 5
Cape Newenham 33
Cape Verd Islands, Natives of the, em-
gloycd in the fisheries of the United
tales 04
Capitalists, foreign, Control of industries
in South America by 43
Captives made slaves 118
Capture, Marriage by 123, 124
Page.
Carter, Drake f. 20
Cave of the Bats G7
,
Remarkable prehistoric, in the val-
ley of the Kio Nazas, Mexico 24
Celts, Turtle-back, and their uses 24
Cemeteries. Aboriginal, near Piscataway,
Maryland 22
Cessions of land by Indian tribes to the
United States 26
Chart, A strange 25
Chattels, Property in 124
Chevron, Origin of the 74
Chickering, J. W., Jr 17
thief, Duties of the 119
, how appointed 119
Chieftaincy never hereditary 119
Children of savages rarely maltreated 39
Chinamen employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Choctaws, Oratorical language of the 88
Christ, The fish as a symbol of 77
Cicero, Deviation of, from the rules for the
use of tlie subjunctive 30
Cities of refuge 128
Civil class 108
government 112
I ivilization 27
Clark, Hyde, Interest shown by, in the ap-
plication of gesture signs to the btuay
of hieroglyphs, <fec 59
Classification, A question in 88-91
of races, Bases of the 89
Clippings, newspaper, Collections to be
made of 14
Clothing worn by the Seminole women 57
Coal-measures, how related to human de-
velopment 94
Coincidences 94, 95, 97
Color-blindness as affected by race 21
Color-names, Indian 22
Color-sense of children in the public
schools 21
Comfort, G. C 20
Committee, Executive of the assembly 119
Communal marriage 121
ownership 125
Comparative mythology of the two Indies.. 22
Comparison of a written language with
one that is spoken only 23
Competition, industrial. Evils of 41
Conduct, Regulation of 106,113
relating to the perpetuation of the
species 115, 116
welfare of the individ-
ual 115, H6
Connecticut, Number of fishermen in 63
Constitution of the Society, Amendments
made to the 12
as amended Jan. 17, 1882 13
, Provision for the amend-
ment of the 19
The, original 16
INDEX. 133
Page.
35
Consumption, Prevalence of, among the
Innuits
Contract, Law of 125
"Contributions to North American Eth-
nology," Paper published in the 47
Controversy, Necessity of securing end to 128
Corn clan of the Zufiis 88
Corporation law 114
Corporations, Civilized society a plexus of 118
, Origin, development, and future
destiny of 43, 108, 109, 113, 117, 118
43
13
20
-, Regulation of
,
Corresponding member!
, List of.
Secretary
Coues, Elliott
Council and officers of the Society, 18S2-'S3
of the Society, Duties of the
, how formed 13
Council-houses 34, 35
Course of evolution of government 118
the state 115, 118
Court, Origin of the 119, 120
, The, primarily merged in the as-
sembly IIS
Cowan, Frank 20
Crania, Perforated 49, 50, 104
Cranial amulets and prehistoric trephining 47, 48
Creek and Seminole languages originally
the same 57
Creeks, Oratorical language of the 8S
Crime, Evolution of the conception of 127
Crimes, Artificial ' 128
considered most heinous in savage
law 126
Criminal law 115, 126, 127
Crux ansata 77
Cueva de Mengal 67
Culture, Attempts to force, injurious 45
, Categories of 14, 15
Curator of the Society 13
, Duties of the 15
, Report of the 16
Cushiug, Frank II 5, 10, 17, 24
, Papers read by 21
Dakota calendar, Ridiculous attempts to
interpret symbolically
Dakotan tale, A
Dakotas, Huukpati
Dangers of symbolic interpretation
Darkness, An average of four waking hours
spent in by man
Darwin on sexual selection
Day and night, Disadvantages of the exis-
ting distribution of
Days ot jubilee 123,
Deaf, Education of the, in China and Japan, 81
Europe
, How shall the, be educated ? 79
persons taught to speak
78
103
70
71
100
38
100
128
,
80
80
Deaf mutes. Classification of..
Proportion of, capable of learning to
Page.
80
Sispeak
Deafness not. a bar to intellectual develop-
ment sj
Decimal system of notation, why adopted.
.73, 100
, Defectiveness of the 100
Definition of anthropology and its subdi-
visions 93
De Hass, Wills 5, 10, 24
, Papers read by 22, 25
Delaware, Number of fishermen in 63
Deliberative assemblies, A study of 22
government among the North
American Indians. Development of 25
Democracy distinguished from sociocracy 42
Departments of government Ill, 119, 120, 121
Dependent interrogative, Deviation from
the rule requiring the subjunctive in
the 30
Descent, Line of 124
Determination of the age of prehistoric
remains 24
Development of deliberative, government
among the North American Indians... 25
Dighton Rock 71
Discoveries, how announced to the So-
ciety 7
Discovery of truth more rapid than it is
possible to utilize it 102
Discussion of papers read before the So-
ciety 15
Disease, Cosmical meaning of. 100
, how accounted for by Indians 50, 51
Disease-germs the worst enemies of man.. 101
Diseases to which Indians are most sub-
ject 35
Distance, Savage ideas of the production
of effects at a 70
Divorces among the Zufiis 87
Donations to the Society 9
Donder"s theory of vowel sounds 59
Dorsey, J. Owen 17
, Papers read by 62, G9
, Remarks by 39,55
Dubois, Charles L 17
Duel, Marriage by 123, 124
Dumbarten aboriginal soa.p-stone quarry... 26
Dutton, C. E 18
Dwight, Theo. F 18
"Dynamic Sociology," Papers taken from 26, 9.1
Ecclesiastical bodies, Origin of 120
Economic families of plants, Late appear-
ance of the 95
Education, National, compared with pri-
vate 40
of the Indians in institutions lo-
cated in civilized communities, Unsat-
isfactory results of 45, 46
134 INDEX.
Page.
Education of the lower races, Proper limits
to the 45
Effacing power of tropical forest growth... 24
Egyptian glyphs, Gesture signs as aids in
deciphering 59
Eight, Advantages of the number, as the
basis of a system of notation 100
Eighteenth regular meeting 25
Eighth regular meeting 22
Eleventh regular meeting 23
Elizabeth, Charlotte 83
Elopement, Marriage by 122,124
Emblems, History of religious 76
End to controversy, Necessity of securing.. 128
Englishmen, Number of, employed in the
fisheries of the United States 64, 65
Enumeration of untaxed Indians 27
Environment, Friction of the 100
Epilepsy, Trephining as a cure for 49, 50
Erect posture, Diseases due to the assump-
tion of the 99
Error, Defense of, by great men 102
Ethnology, Provision for a section of 7
" Evening Star," paper published in the.... 25
Everett. William, Paper furnished by 51
Evolution of Government 118
language 25
law 121
marriage ceremonies and its
import 36
the state 115, 118
Executive committee of the assembly 119
department of government Ill, 119
Exogamy and endogamy 39
Extinguishment of the Indian title by the
United States 26
Failures, business, Cause of 41
Family, Government developed from the.. 43
law 121
Famine, Cosmical significance of 100
Farquharson, R. J 20
Father-right 124
Fay, Edward Allen 3, 18, 28
, Paper read by 26
, Remarks by 30
Fecundity too great for the means of sub-
sistence 100
Fees and dues of the Society 9, 16
Fertiliz-rs, Use of agricultural, by the
American Indians and the early Eng-
lish colonists 23
Feudalism the transition stage from kin-
ship government to property govern-
ment 43
Feudalities, Development of 118
Fifteenth regular meeting 24
Fifth regular meeting 22
Finance, Transition of, from private to
public control 42
First regular meeting 21
Fish, The, as a symbol of Christ 77
Page.
Fisheries of the United^ State-, Value of
the product of the 63
Fishermen, Diseases most prevalent
among 60
, Effect of education upon 66
, Longevity of. 66
of the United States 62
, Financial profits of 66
, Foreign born 64, 65
, Intellectual and
moral status of tne 66
, Number of. 63
, Semi-professional 63
Fletcher, Robert 3, 18
, Papers read by 47, 104
, Remarks by 50,51,81,83
Flint, Weston 18
Florida, Number of fishermen in 63
Forest Growth in Trinidad Island, Effacing
power of 24
Fortieth regular meeting 58
Forty-eighih regular meeting 93
Forty-fifth regular meeting 79
Forty-first regular meeting 59
Forty-fourth regular meeting 70
Forty-ninth regular meeting 104
Forty-second regular meeting
Forty-seventh regular meeting
Forty-sixth regular meeting
Forty-third regular meeting
Four creations of mankind, The
—
lati myth
, Frequency of the number..
-a Tua-
Fourteenth regular meeting
Fourth regular meeting
French and Indian half breeds of the
Northwest
-, Number of, employed in the fish-
62
88
84
69
86
71
24
'21
eries of the United States.
Friction of the environment.
Fristoe, E. T
64
100
18
Gallaudet, E. M 18, 24
, Paper read by 79
, Remarks by 81,83
Gannett, Henry 18
Gatchet, Albert S 10, 18, 28
, Papers read by 22, 26
, Remarks by 86, 88
18
13
15
Gedney, ('. D
General Secretary of the Society
, Duties of the
Geographical distribution of the human
races analogous to that of animals
Georgia, Number of fishermen in
Germans employed in the fisheries of the
United States
Germs of disease the worst enemies of
man
Gesture speech of man
Gestures, Application of, to the interpreta-
tion of pictogiaphs
101
23
INDEX. 135
Page.
Gifts to the Society, Disposition of 1C
Gilbert, G. K 3, 10, 18, 24
, Paper read by 21
, Remarks by 82,104
Gill, Theodore, Paper read by 22
Gilman, Perforated crania exhumed by 49
Glass, Maximum density temperature of... 97
Glyphs, Egyptian and Akkad, Gesture
signs included in 59
God, Relation of man to his 108
Godwin, H. P.*. 18
Goitre, Local seat and occasion of. 99
Goode, G. Brown 18
, Papers read by 23, 62
, Remarks by 06
Gore, J. Howard 3, 18, 28
, Papers read by 22, 25, 27, 86
, Remarks by 50, 87
Government control of public interests,
Necessity for 40, 41, 42
, Course of evolution of 118
, Definition of 106, 111
, Departments of Ill, 119-121
developed from the family 43
, Earliest form of 118
, Evolution of. 118
. Functions of 111,113
law 114, 125, 126
, Tendency toward cosmopolitan 43
, why formerly unpopular 43
Gramineee, Late appearance of the 9.5
Grammatic processes 25
Greek mythology, Conception of wind in
the 70
Greeks employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Group marriage 124
Guatemala, Sculptures from 59
Guatemalan antiquities, Observations on
Aztec and 21
Guss, A. L., Paper read by 26
, Remarks by 36, 70, 71
Habel, S., Work of, on Guatemalan sculp-
tures 59
Hagner, Chas. E 18
Half-breeds, French and Indian, in the
Northwest 22
Hancock, A. M 20
, Paper read by 66
Harvard, Victor, on French and Indian
half breeds of the Northwest 22
Hawkes, VVm. H 18
Hayden, Horace Edwin 20
Helmholtz's theory of vowel sounds 59
Henshaw, H. W 3,18
Hieroglyphs distinguished from symbols.. 73
Hinman, S. D 18
, Papers read by 70,103
, Remarks by 104
Page.
Historical notice of the Anthropological
Society of VVashington 5
History and identity of the Shawnee In-
dians, An inquiry into the 27
Hoff, W, Bainbridge, Paper read by 25
Hoffman, VV. J 3, 18, 28
, Papers read by 23, 58
, Remarks by 81, 83, 86
Holmes, Wm. H 18
Homophemes 82
Honorary members 13
, List of. 20
Hough, Franklin B 18
Hough, M. B. W 18
, Papers read by 27, 88
How shall the deaf be educated ? 79
Hoy, P. R 20
Human body, Specific gravity of the 100
Hunkpati Dakotas 70
Huntington, D. L 18
Hutcheson, David 18
Ideographic signs 73
Inca skull 49, 50
Indian bread, Tuckahoe, or 27
color-names 22
half-breeds employed in the fish-
eries of the United States 64
, French and, of the North-
west 22
mounds in the Shenandoah Valley... 28
title, method and chronology of its
extinguishment by the United States.. 26
Indians employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Individual, Conduct relating to the wel-
fare of the 115, 116
ownership, Transition from com-
munal to 125
selection, Marriage by 122
Industry destined to become the basis of
society instead of property as now 43
, Natural evolution of 43
Inequalites in the distribution of wealth... 41
Ingersoll, Ernest 18
Inheritance by clan 125
Innuits of Alaska, Description of the 33
Insects, Defective adaptation in the stings
of 98
, Suicidal propensity of, to fly into a
flame 98
Instinct, Maternal, how developed 94
Intellectual faculties, Great need and little
disposition to exercise the 102
Interests, The masses misconceive their
own 102
International law 114
"International Review," Papers published
in the 71, 79
"Introduction to the study of Indian lan-
guages" 25
136 INDEX.
" Introduction to the study of mortuary
customs among the North American
Indians " 25
Irish, Number of. Employed in the fisher-
ies of the United Stales 64
Iron, Maximum density temperature of... 97
Irwin, John, Jr 18
Is thought possible without language?
—
case of a deaf mute 27
Ishtinike 09
Italians, Number of, employed in the fish-
eries of the United States 64
" Jack and the bean-stalk," Story of. 80
James River Valley, Dakota, Stone god, or
oracle, located in the 70
Johnson, Jos. Taber 18
Jubilee, Days of 123, 128
Judicial department of government..H2, 119, 120
Juniata, the word identical in origin with
Oneida 71
Jurisprudence formerly left to private in-
dividuals 42
Justice the primary object of the law 128
Kabyles, Trephining practiced by the 48
Kanakas employed in the fisheries of the
United States 04
Kant's theory of the advantages of the
spheroidal form of the earth 95
Kashimas, or council houses of the Innuits 34
Keifer, J. Warren 20
Kennan, George 18
Keyser, Joseph 32
Kiaks, or skin boats, of the Innuits 33
King, A. F. A 3,18
, Papers read by 36
, Remarks by 39
Kinship government 43
, Malayan system of 121, 123
relations, Necessity for regulating... 11G
rights 110
society 116, 118
Kitto, John 83
Kuskoquim, Inhabitants of the lower 33
Lafiteau on the resemblance of Iroquois
customs to those of pre-IIellenic
Greece 71
Laissez faire 42
La Lozere, Rondelle discovered in the
dolmens of 47
Land, Origin of property in 118, 124
, Tenure to cultivated, communal 125
Lang, John C 5, 10, 24
, Paper read by 23
Language, Evolution of 25
, Is thought possible without? 27
Laplace on the want of adaptation to hu-
man needs presented by the solar sys-
tem 99
Lascars employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Page.
Latinists. modern, Deviations by, from the
rule for the dependent interrogative... 30
Law, Course of evolution of the 121
, Criminal 126, 127
, Definition of the 106, 113
, Government 125, 126
of battle 30
Lee, William 18
Leech, Daniel 18
Legal appointment, Marriage by 122
Legislative department of government.. 111,119
Legislature, Origin of the 118
Lens, Achromatic, principle on which con-
structed 95
Lesquereux, Leo 83
Libbey, Joseph 18
Life, Human, disadvantages of its brevity.. 100
Light, advantages of its great velocity 96
Limestone Hill, Virginia, Aboriginal cave
situated on. 31
Limitations to the use of some anthropo-
logic data 29
Line of descent 124
Lip-reading 82, 83
Loew, Oscar 20
Logan, Dr., Assistance of, in examining
aboriginal cave 32
Louisiana, Number of fishermen in 63
Lubbock, Sir John, Views of, on the devel-
opment of marriage institutions 37, 39
Lucas Championniere, on prehistoric
trephining 48
Lull, E. P 18
, Paper read by 24
Luray, Virginia, Aboriginal burial cave
situated near 31
MacArthur, Arthur 18
MacCauley, Clay 18
, Paper read by 55
, Remarks by 50, 57
Macfarland, Henry B. F 18
Maiming, Punishment for 126
Maine, Number of fishermen in 03
Major and minor organizations 209,113
Malaga, Spain, Prehistoric cave situated
near 67
Malayan family 121,122
system of kinship and marriage.. 121, 123
Malays employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Male sexual selection 38
Mallery, Garrick 3, 5, 10, 18, 24, 28
, Papers read by 22, 23, 27, 71
, Remarks by 58, 79, 81, 86
Man, Pre-social 26
, Zoological relations of 22
Manuscripts, Collection of, for the Society.. 14
Maps, Ancient, of North America 23
Marriage by capture 123, 124
duel 12*
INDEX. 137
Marriage by elopement 122, 124
groups 121
individual selection 122
legal appointment 122
wager of battle 123,124
ceremonies, Evolution of 36
, Development of polygamic and mon-
ogamic 122, 123
, Malayan system of 123
Maryland, Number of fishermen in C3
Mason, Otis T 3, 5, 10, 18, 24, 28
, Papers read by 21, 44, 03
, Remarks by 23, 30, 35, 00, 55, 50, 57, 50,
GO, 70, 70, 81, 8G, 87, 103, 104
Massachusetts, Number of fishermen in... G3
Massannuttnn Mountain, Aboriginal cave
situated near
Massawomekes, Who were the ?
Maternal in-tinct. how developed..
Matthews, Washington
McGuire, J. D
-, Paper read by.
31
26
94
20
IS
24
McLennan on primitive marriage 37, 39
Meetings of the Society 15
, Annual 15, 24, 28
omitted 27, 28
, Preliminary 5, G, 10
, Special 14
13
i:t
17
Members of the Society
, how elected
, hist of
Membership in (he Society, Report of the
Council upon
Meneal, LaCueva de, near Antequcra
Menstruation in human races and in ani-
mals
Merit content to remain in obscurity 102
Merrit, Dr., Paper furnished by 51
Metamorphosis, belief of the Sioux In-
dians that men turn into animals 51
Michigan, Number of fishermen in G3
Military class in society 10S
30
government 112
law 114
Minorcans employed in the fisheries of
the United States G4
Minutes, Beading of 16
Missionary work, What constitutes prac-
tical 46
Mississippi, Number of fishermen in G3
Money, Development of 125
Monogamy, Advantages of 37
among the Zufiis 87
, Origin of. 122, 123
Monopolies, Cause of 41
Montague, A. P 19
Moods in the principal Neo-Latin lan-
guages, Somo peculiarities in the use
of 29
Moons of the larger planets, Mabitability
of the 99
Moore, The brothers, of Hoboken (deaf-
routes) A 83
Moral science, Difficulties in the way of... 101
Morgan, James E 5, 19
, Remarks by 3G
Morris, John G 20
Mortuary customs, Contributions to the
study of 25
Mother-right 124
Mound-builders, An inquiry into the as-
sumed southern origin of the 25
Mounds, Indian, in the Shenandoah val-
ley 28
Mount Taylor, New Mexico, Annual fes-
tivity of the Zufiis celebrated on 88
Moustache and beard not a serious ob-
stacle to lip-reading 83
Muller, Max, on the origin of abstract
ideas 81
Murder, Punishment of, in primitive so-
ciety 126
Murphy, P. J 19
Muskoki, confederacy, Government of the 110
, Supposed Israelite ceremouials
among the 71
Mythology, Comparative, of the two Indies 22
Myths of the Wintuns of the Sacramento
Valley 69
Name of the Society 5, 13
National banking vs private banking 40
Deaf mute College, Character of the
graduates from the 83
government, Transition from tribal
government to 117
Medical College, Meetings of the
Society in the Lower Lecture Hall of
the 11
savings banks 41
"National Medical Review," Paper pub-
lished in the 21
Nations, need that they be self-sustaining 43
Natural law not enonomical 41
Navajo myth S4
Negroes employed in the fisheries of the
United States '. G4, 65
N61aton on the Inca skull 49
Nelson, E. W 19
Neo-Latin languages, Peculiarities in the
use of moods in 29
Newenham, Cape 33
New Hampshire, Number of fishermen in G3
New Jersey, Number of fishermen in 63
New York, Number of fishermen in 63
Nineteenth regular meeting 25
Ninth regular meeting 22
Norris, J. A 19
Norris, P. W 5, 19
, Paper read by 21
Norse mythology, Conception of wind, in
the 70
North Carolina, Number of fishermen in .. G3
Notes and queries 16
138 INDEX.
Numas, Two governments at the same time
among the 46
Numbers, Superstitions about., 71
13Object of the Anthropological Society ...
Octonal system of notation, Superiority
of the 100
CEstruational selection 30,37
Officers of the Anthropological Society for
the year 1879-80 10
1880-'81 24
1881-82 28
1882-83 3
, how designated and elected.. lg
Ohio, Number of fishermen in 03
Old World old in fact 92
Omaha myths 52,69
Oneida stone 71
Oothout, William 32,33
Optimism, Prevalence and influence of...„ 103
Optimistic facts 94
Opossums 98
Order of business 16
Oregon, Number of fishermen in 63
Organism, Analogy of the state to a living 110
Organizations, Major and minor social.... 109, 113
Original call for the formation of the
Society 5
constitution of the Society 6
Orphan and the buffalo woman, The 69
Orthoepy, Savage and civilized 28
Ossuary at Accotink, Virginia 27
Otis, George A 10,24,28
, Views of, relative to the localization
of the faculty of speech 104, 105
Otter gens of the Seminoles 57
Outlines of Sociology 10G
Ovulation, Comparative study of, needed.. 39
Ownership, Transition from communal to
individual 125
Packard, R. L., Paper read by 84
Pains intense and protracted as compared
with pleasures 101
Paint-quarry, An aboriginal 22
Papers read before the Society, Number of 11
, Reading and discussion of. 16
, Reference of, to the Council 14
Parkinson (deaf-mute patent lawyer) 83
Parts of speech, Differentiation of the 25
Pathology, how viewed by Indians 50
Patriarchal family, Origin of the 124
Paul Broca, See Broca.
Peculiarities in the use of moods in the
principal Neo-Latin languages 29
Pefia de los Enamorados, La 08
"Penn Monthly," Paper published in the.. 39
Perforated skulls 49,50, 104
Perpetuation of the species, Conduct re-
lating to the 115
Page.
Personal characteristics of the Florida
Seminoles ' 55, 66
law 113, 114, 121
Pescado, Cornfields of the Zunis located at 86
Pestilence, Cosmical meaning of 100
Petrarch 29
Petroff, Ivan 19
, Paper read by 33
, Remarks by 35,36
Phenomena, Necessity that superficial
precede fundamental study of 101
Philology, Section of 7
Pictographs, Appl ication of gestures to the
interpretation of 58,76
22
59
21
19
-, Indian, in New Mexico
-, Rational interpretation of..
, Some Indiau
Pilling, J. C
Plants, Unseasonable blooming of 98
Plautus, Deviation of, from the rules for
the use of the subjunctive 30
Pleasures moderate and brief as compared
with pains 101
Poisoned weapons of North and South
America 23
Political economy, Discrepancy between
the theory and the practice of 40, 42
, Positive, not taught in col-
leges 42
science, Negative character of 40, 42
Politico-social functions 39
Polygamy, Development of, out of group-
marriage 122, 123
Polynesian Islands, Trephining practiced
by the natives of the 48
Porter, Samuel 19
, Papers read by 27, 59
Portuguese employed in the fisheries of
the United States 64
subjunctive 30
Positive political economy not taught in
colleges 42
Posthumous trephining 50
Post-office, Government management of
the 40
Powell, J. W 3, 10, 11, 19, 21, 24, 28
, Papers read by 27, 69
, Presidential addresses of 25, 29, 106
, Remarks by 35, 39, 42, 45, 47, 50, 51, 55,
57, 59, 02, 70
Pratt, Capt, Unsuccessful attempt of, to
obtain students from the Seminoles ... 57
Prehistoric discoveries in the south of
Spain 66
Society of the South of Spain 67
trephining 47
Preliminary meetings leading to the for-
mation of the Anthropological Society
of Washington ~ 5,6,10
Prentiss, D. W 19
Prescriptions, Origin of the initial charac-
ter of (U). 75
Preservation of ancient monuments 23
INDEX. 139
Page.
President of the Society 13
, Addresses of the, 11, 25, 29, 100
, Duties of the 14
Presiding officer of the primitive assem-
bly 118, 119
Pre-social man 26
Price, how fixed in primitive society 125
Prices, Unnecessary fluctuations in 41
Priesthood, Origin of the : 112
Priestly class in primitive society 108
Priests of the bow, a religious order of the
Zufiis 87
27
22
" Princeton Review," Paper published in
the
Progress of archoeologic research in the
United States
Pronunciation, A universal system of, im-
possible 62
Property government 43
in land 118
law 113, 114, 124
laws of the Zufiis 87
, Predominant influence of, in higher
types of society 117, 118
society, Transition from kinship so-
ciety to 117, 118
Protection to home industries 41
Proudfit, S. V 19
Pruniferes on cranial amulets 47
Publications in the possession of the So-
ciety, Disposition of. 14
of the Society 15
Punaluan family 121, 122
Putetemni, Stone god, or oracle of the 70
Question in classification, A..
Rabbit and the spring, The a Dakotan
tale
-, why chosen as the hero of negro
103
stories 103
Rabies, how propagated 98
Rachidian meningitis 99
Railways, Government control of 40, 41
Rainfall, greatest where least needed 101
Ranks, Social 108
Realities, Tendency of the mind to ignore
Recording Secretary
Recurrent sexual coincidence
Redding, B. B
Regents' Room of the Smithsonian Insti-
tution, Meetings of the Society held in
102
the 11
Regulation, Means of enforcing 106
Regulative system of the Zufiis 80
Reisinger, W. W 5,10,19
Relic hunting 21
Religion, Origin of 108
Religious government 112, 113
law 114
Retiring president. Address of the 14
Reynolds, Elmer H 5, 10, 19, 24
, Papers read by 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31
Page.
Reynolds, Elmer R., Remarks by 35
Rhees, Wm. J 5, 19
Rhode Island, Number of fishermen in 03
Rigutini, Giuseppe 29
Riley, C. V 19
, Letter read by, concerning a cave
in Mexico 24
Rio Nazas, Remarkable cave in the valley
of the 24
Ritchie, Louis W 19
Rivett-Carnac, J. H 20
Rock, Miles 3, 5, 19, 28
, Paper read by 22
, Remarks by 43
Roman folk-speech, Forms of the imper-
fect and pluperfect subjunctive in the 26
senate, The old 22
Romance languages, Testimony of the,
concerning the forms of the imperfect
and pluperfect subjunctive in the Ro-
man folk-speech 26
Rondelles 47,48
Rosacese, Late geological appearance of
the 95
Royee, C. C 10,28
, Papers read by 20,27
Rudimentary organs 99
Ruler, The, in primitive government 119
Rumford, Count, on the maximum density
temperature of water 96
Runic alphabet 7]
Sable river, Perforated crania from the
mounds of 49
Sacred Hill, Dakota 70
Language of the Zufiis 88
Sailor fishermen 65
Salt water, Maximum density temperature
of 96
Saturday LectUFes 104, 106
Savage and civilized orthoepy 28
mind in the presence of civilization 44
Saving banks, National 41
Scandinavians, Number of, employed in
the fisheries of the United States 64
Scheme of the tenth census for the enu-
meration of untaxed Indians 27
Schoolcraft, symbols employed by 71
Scudder, W. P 19
Sea water drank by the Innuits 34,36
, Maximum density tempera-
ture of 96
Searing, Practice of, among Indians 50
Second annual meeting 24
regular meeting 21
Secretary to the Council 13
, Duties of the 15
Sections 14
Seely, F. A 3, 19, 28
Seminole, meaning of the word 57
Seminoles, Personal characteristics of the 55,56
.Refusal of the, to accept government
aid 57
140 INDEX.
Page
Seminoles, Ruling gentes of the 67
Semi-professional fishermen C3
Senega, Deviation of, from the rules forthe
use of the subjunctive 30
Sentence, Integration of the 25
Seventeenth regular meeting 25
Seventh regular meeting 22
Sex, Fundamental social distinction of 11C
Sexual selection 30,38
Shawnee Indians, An inquiry into the his-
tory and identity of the 27
Shell-heaps, Aboriginal, at Pope's Creek,
Maryland 23
, Of South River, Maryland 24
Shenandoah, South, Cave in the valley of
the 31
Valley, Indian mounds in the 28
Shop-keepers in ihe fisheries C2
Shoresmen in the fisheries G2
Shufeldt, R. W 19
Sickness, how explained by the Sioux 51
Sign language among the North American
Indians compared with that among
other peoples and deaf mutes 23
the natural language 80
Signs distinguished from symbols 72
Simpson, Lenox W 5
Sitting Bull 51
Sixteenth regular and second annual
meeting 24
Sixth regular meeting 22
Skin tents 35
Slafter, Edmund F 20
Slander, Punishment for 12G
Slavery, Origin of lis
Slaves, how first made 118
Slavs employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Smiley, C. W 19
Smith, Adam, Negative ideas of. 40
Smith, John D 19
"Smithsonian Report," Paper to appear in
the 27
Snodgrass, J. E 5
Soap, Use of urine as a substitute for 35
Soap-stone quarry, The Dumbarton abor-
iginal 26
Social progress, Rhythmical character of.. 101
ranks in primitive society 108
science, Difficulties in the way of.... 101
units 43
Socialism distinguished from Sociocracy.. 42
Sociocracy defined 42
Sociologic classes 107
Sociology, Outlines <»f 106
, Scope of the science of. 109
Solar system. Elements of, not adapted to
human needs 99
Somatology, Section of 13
Sorcery an artificial crime 128
South Carolina, Number of fishermen in... 63
Page.
South River, Maryland, Shell heaps of 24
South Shenandoah, Cave in the valley of
the 31
Sowers, Z. T 19
Spain, Prehistoric discoveries in south of.. 66
Spaniards employed in the fisheries of the
United States 64
Spear, Ellis 19
Special Meetings of the Society, how
called 14
Species, Conduct relating to the perpetua-
tion of tho 115,116
Specific gravity of aquatic animals 94
the human body 100
Specimens, Collection of, for the Society... 7
Speculations, Tendency of the mind to
waste time in empty 102
Speech, Location of the faculty of 104
Spencer, Herbert, effect of his doctrines on
political economy 42
, Views of, respecting primitive mar-
riage 37
Spheroidal form of the earth, Advantages
of the, to man 95
Spurious symbolism 71, 73
Squier on the Inca skull 49
Standing Rock, Dakota 71
stones 71
Stanton, J. O 19
State, Definition of the.... 106, 107, 109
, Evolution of the 115, 118
regulation 40, 41, 42
, The, a plexus of organizations ... 109, 118
Stebbins, Benton 1' 32
Stevenson, James 19
Sting of insects, Want of adaptation dis-
played in the 98
Stone god, or oracle, of the Putetemni
band of Hunkpati Dakotas 70
Stories of travelers, Unscientific character
of 39
Strange chart, A 25
Subjunctive imperfect and pluperfect in
the Roman folk speech. 26
, Use of the, in different languages .. 29
Sudatory 35
Supernatural beings, Relations of men to.. 108
Superstitions 28
of the Sioux Indians 51
Swallow, Benjamin 19
Sweat-house, or sudatory 35
Sweet, Henry, on vowel sounds 60
Symbolic interpretation, Dangers of 71
Symbolism, Spurious 71,73
Symbols distinguished from signs 73
Talker, The, a sort of chief of the Numas.. 46
Tameness of birds and animals on newly
discovered islands 98
Tar Baby, Folk-story of the 24
Telegraphs, Government control of. 40, 41
INDEX. 141
Telephone, Use of, in the study of vowel
sounds
"Tenth regular meeting
Terence, Deviation of, from the rules for
the use of the subjunctive
Testimony of the Romance languages con-
cerning the forma of the imperfect
and pluperfect subjunctive in the Ro-
man-folk >peeeh
Texas, Number of fishermen in
Third annual meeting
regular meeting
Page.
Thirteenth regular meeting
Thirtieth regular meeting
Thirty-eighth regular meeting
Thirty-fifth regular meeting 33
Thirty-first regular meeting 28
Thirty-fourth regular meeting 47
Thirty-ninth regular meeting 55
Thirty-second regular and third annual 29
meeting 28
Thirty-seventh regular meeting 44
Thirty-sixth regular meeting 39
Thirty-third regular meeting 29
Thomas, Cyrus 19
Thomas, Henry L 19,28
, Paper read by 29
, Remarks by 57
Thompson, J. Ford 19
Thought possible without language ? Is 27
Three Cranberries, Story of the 24
Thunders, The young chief and the 52
Thyroid gland 99
Tiger gens of the Seminoles 57
Tinnfie myths 86
Title, The Indian method and chro-
nology of its extinguishment by the
United States 26
Togiak, Innuits living on the 31
Toner, J. M 5, G, 10, 19, 24, 28
Tonsilitis 99
Tonsils 99
Tonsure of priests explainod as a survival
of trephining 49
Transactions of the Anthropological So-
ciety 21
Transcendental questions, Empty specula-
tions about 102
Treasurer of the Society
.
, Duties of the
13
15
Trephining as a cure for epilepsy 49, 50
w—, Posthumous ..„ 50
, Prehistoric 47
Tribal government 11C
society Wyandot government
a short study of 27
Trinidad Island, On the effacing power of
forest growth in 24
True, Frederick VV 19
Tualati myth, A 26
Tuckahoe, or Indian bread 27
Turtle-back celts and their uses 24
Page.
"Twelfth Annual Report of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and ethnolo-
gy ," Paper published iu the 26
Twelfth regular meeting 23
Twentieth regular meeting 26
Twenty-eighth regular meeting 27
Twenty-fifth regular meeting 27
Twenty-first regular meeting 26
Twenty-fourth regular meeting 26
Twenty-ninth regular meeting 27
Twenty-second regular meeting 26
Twenty-seventh regular meeting 27
Twenty-sixth regular meeting 27
Twenty-third regular meeting 26
Tylor, Edward B., on the power of sign
language to convey abstract ideas 81
; Uncle Remus" 103
Unremunerative character of progressive
work 102
Untaxed Indians, Enumeration of
Upham, Edwin P
Urine, Use of, as a substitute for soap....
Vermiform appendage.
Vice Presidents.
Duties of the
Vining, E. P
Virginia, Number of fishermen in
Visitors not admitted to annual meetings..
Volatile elements of society, Undue prom-
inence of the 102
Vowel systemization 59
27
5
36
99
13
14
lit
63
15
Wager of battle, Marriage by 123, 124
Wahandhishige G9
War a means of keeping down excess of
population 100
Ward, Lester F 3, 5, 19, 28
, Papers read by 2G, 28, 39, 93
, Remarks by 30, 37, 47, 01, 79, S3, 92
Waste of created products in unregulated
industry 41
Water, Maximum density temperature of.. 96
Weather, Difficulty of the art of predicting
the 99
Welling, James C 3, 19, 28
, Remarks by 30, 46, 83
White, C. A 10,24
White-tailed deer, Superstitions of the
Sioux Indians respecting the 51
Whitford, W. C 20
Who were the Massawon.ekes ? 26
Williamson, Joseph 32, 33
Wilson, Joseph M 5, 10, 24
Winchell, Alexander 20
Wind gens of the Seminoles 57
, Progress of the conception of 70
Winds so distributed through the seasons
as to exaggerate the extremes of heat
and cold ... 101
142 INDEX.
Page.
Wintuns of the Sacramento Valley, Myths
of the .* on
Wisconsin, Number of fishermen in 63
Witchcraft, Prominence of, as a crime in
primitive society 127
Women made the slaves ot men 37
not enslaved in any North American
tribes of Indians 39
the cause of the first conflicts among
men 116
Woodward, J. J. on the location of the
faculty of speech 104,105
Written language. Comparison of a, with
one that is spoken only 23
Page.
Wyandot government—j—a short study of
tribal society 27
Yarrow, H. C 19, 21, 23
, Papers read by 25, 51
Young chief and the thunders, The 52
Zoocentric philosophy.. 93
Zoological relations of man 22
Zufii, how situated and constructed 86
women, how treated 87
Zufiis, Clan organization of the 87
, Industries of the 87
, Regulative system of the ... 86