The modern Menomini are losing their faith, and the knowledge of the old ways, but the belief in the efficacy of the war-bundle dies hard. As late as the Civil War the Menomini soldiers in the Wisconsin regiments carried these fetishes to the field with them, and one was used at Gettysburg.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY,
NEW YORK CITY.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY

OF WASHINGTON

Meeting of October 18, 1910

The 448th regular meeting was opened by the president, Dr J. Walter Fewkes, in the hall of the Public Library, October 18, 1910.

The speaker of the evening was M. CAPITAN, Professeur au Collège de France, who delivered a discourse entitled, Aperçu sur l'Archéologie Préhistorique de la France, illustrated with lantern slides. The lecturer illustrated and described Swiss dwellings, dolmens, and numerous implements of the chase used by the prehistoric races of France. Frequent comparisons were made with archeological objects from America. It was shown that religious and superstitious motives largely entered into the making of the earliest rock inscriptions.

Among the views shown were a reindeer found at Bruncquil; horses' skulls; elephants; female figures on rocks and stelæ from Mas d'Azil; a reproduction of the grotto at Lourdes, as also carved and incised figures of the horse and hippopotamus. The grotto of Eyzies, Dordogne, where Mr Otto Hauser has carried on extensive excavations, was also shown on the screen. Other slides illustrated household furnitures and utensils. It was also pointed out by the lecturer that the prehistoric inhabitants made use of the elevations and rugged surfaces in the rocks in the delineation of their drawings.

Meeting of November 15, 1910

The 449th regular meeting was held in the hall of the Public Library, November 15, 1910, with the president, Dr J. W. Fewkes, in the chair. The first paper of the evening was on New England Life in Old Almanacs, by Mr GEORGE R. STETSON. The earliest almanac extant from New England is dated 1645. The almanac literature forms quite an extensive library. In the Astor Library there are recorded about 2,000 titles. Besides the calendarium proper, the almanacs contain information and give advice on all the relations and conditions of life. Much attention is given in them to the movements of the celestial bodies and their phenomena, especially to comets. In fact, the old almanacs, like many of their later successors, were small cyclopedias, and thus shed much instructive and interesting light on the life of the times in all its relations and phases.

Dr ALEŠ HRDLIČKA followed with an account of the exploration of An Ancient Sepulcher at San Juan Teotihuacan, with Anthropological Notes on the Teotihuacan People. San Juan, which is about forty miles distant from the City of Mexico, was the sacred city of what was perhaps the first civilized race that inhabited Mexico. The site is marked by two stepped pyramids, called the "pyramid of the sun" and the "pyramid of the moon" respectively. They are faced by a court of monuments, which are assumed to have been temples, called the "street of the dead." The grave opened by Dr Hrdlička was situated about 250 yards southeast of the E.S.E. corner of the pyramid of the sun. In this grave, which was shielded by two cement floors (aside from layers of earth and rubble), were found two skeletons, one of a man about forty-five years of age, the other of a woman of over fifty years of age, buried in the classic contracted fetus-in-utero position. Both bodies must have been interred simultaneously for there was no displacement of any of the bones. They lay parallel, with heads to the east. Near the skeletons were found earthenware dishes, fragments of mother-of-pearl rings, beautiful obsidian knives of the long, slightly curved, flake variety, a shell disk, and a bowl provided with three short legs. The bones show no traces of disease or any injuries in life, but both the crania are artificially deformed; this is especially true of that of the female. The deformation is of the fronto-occipital variety. But the deformation is not so great as to prevent the recognition of the original type of the crania-they were both brachycephalic. The stature of the two individuals, as far as can be judged from the bones, was rather above medium, as compared with that of the present native population in the valley, and the same may be said of the strength of the bones.

Dr Hrdlička called attention to the following points of interest connected with the find: (1) the peculiar construction of the grave; (2) the fact that here were buried together an adult man and an adult woman suggests a sacrifice of the woman on the occasion of the death of her husband; (3) here is for the first time found what looks like clear evidence that the artificial head-deformation of the flathead type was actually practised by at least a part of the ancient inhabitants of these regions; and (4) it is evident that the ancient builders of Teotihuacan, or at least an important part of them, were of the brachycephalic type.

The two skeletons, as well as the objects found with them, are deposited in the San Juan Museum.

The paper was discussed by Messrs Lamb, Fewkes, Hewitt, and Gronberger.

Meeting of December 20, 1910

The 450th regular meeting was held in the hall of the Public Library, December 20, 1910, with the president, Dr J. Walter Fewkes, in the chair.

The paper of the evening was on The Winnebago Winter Feast, by Mr PAUL RADIN. The speaker gave a description of the ceremonies incident to this feast and dwelt on the religious and social elements connected with the celebration.

In the discussion, which followed the reading of the paper, Dr Swanton stated that among the Indians of the Pacific coast the corresponding ceremonies are observed on the death of an uncle and to strengthen a chief, but in either case the social element predominates over the religious. Mr La Flesche pointed out that among the Plains tribes the feasts are held about spring time, when life is awakened, heralded by the arrival of thunder. Mr Hewitt and Dr Fewkes gave parallels from the Iroquois and the Hopi Indians respectively.

Meeting of January 17, 1911

The 451st regular meeting was held in the hall of the Public Library, January 17, 1911, the president, Dr J. Walter Fewkes, in the chair.

The first paper of the evening was on The Totemic Complex, by Dr A. A. GOLDENWEISER. The speaker first gave a brief survey of the study of totemism from the latter half of the nineteenth century to the present time, as represented by Frazer, Morgan, Lang, etc., in England, and by Boas and others in America. He then pointed out the difference of conception and method between the British and American investigators and subjected the English point of view to a thoroughgoing criticism. This point of view is evolutionary and comparative. It assumes totemism as a necessary stage in the evolution of religion and hence, wherever it could trace the existence of one of the supposed elements of totemism, such as exogamy, tabu, or totemic names, it assumed the existence there of the full totemic system. In this way totemism was attributed to the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the Semites (by Robertson Smith). Dr Goldenweiser pointed out that the various features of totemism, such as exogamy, tabu, and descent from an animal are not necessarily found united, but may and do exist separately and independently from one another. Totemism can, therefore, not be studied as an organic whole but in its various elements. The element of descent is the main feature

which gives a social coherence and stability to a social group. Next to this in importance is the bond of union formed by common ceremonies.

The second paper was on The Medicine Arrows of the Cheyenne, by Dr TRUMAN MICHELSON. The speaker's informant was one of the two candidates for admission at the ceremonies in 1908. These consist of a long ritual, songs, and prayers, and last through seven days. Of these the first three days are preliminary. The persons taking part in the ceremony are the chief priest, and the candidate or candidates who are to be initiated, each accompanied by a friend who acts the "old man." The participants live during the seven days in lodges or tents within a closed precinct. The speaker recited parts of the songs and prayers addressed to sky and earth. These are accompanied by processions, moving from lodge to lodge, burning of pieces of sweet grass, etc. The central feature of the ceremony consists in laying arrows on the ground, with their heads to the north. The officating priest goes through various motions, while the candidate breathes four times on the arrows. No woman may witness the ceremony.

Both papers were discussed by Messrs Swanton, Hewitt, Hough, Fewkes, and Casanowicz.

Meeting of February 21, 1911

The 452d regular meeting was held in the hall of the Public Library, February 21, 1911, with Mr George R. Stetson, vice-president of the society, in the chair.

Dr DANIEL FOLKMAR presented a paper on Some Questions Arising in the First Census of European Races in the United States. The speaker, who is chief of the section on the foreign-born in the thirteenth census, and author of the "Dictionary of European and other Immigrant Races," dwelt at some length on a new feature introduced in the present census, namely, of classifying the foreign-born by their mother-tongue, in addition to that by country or political allegiance. The main part of the discourse was, however, occupied by a defense of the terminology, or nomenclature, adopted in the schedules of the census and in the dictionary, viz., "race" to designate the linguistic divisions of the immigrants, and "nationality" for the country of birth. The speaker admitted that in anthropology and biology the term race is applied to physical traits, but maintained that with the census it was not strictly a scientific question but a practical one, to designate and distinguish given groups of peoples who come to the shores of this country. The use of the term "race" seemed to him justified to designate linguistic groups, inasmuch as it points out something essential, that which descends by heredity. The paper as well as the dictionary, which the author laid before