that morning, he had seen a white flag waved at the Castillo for a moment. It was evident that these were signals made, not for our benefit, but for that of others, as the flags were placed in positions where we would not have seen them except by accident. After a brief consultation with our men, who all agreed that an attack was imminent, we decided to finish our work hurriedly and leave. The remainder of the time was spent in bringing the tablets out into the

FIG. 83. Ruin of small shrine with grotesque god on pillar. Ranch Santa Rita, Cozumel Island.

light and photographing them. After this we sent off all the men but one in the first boat from the north beach. Then, with our remaining man, we passed up to the south beach through the woods and embarked.

The use of white and black flags in signalling has been reported of the Indians in this vicinity. Grijalva says that the Indians of the coast signalled to him with flags. When Mr Holmes and Mr E. H. Thompson were off Tuloom on Mr Armour's yacht, they saw flags used as signals. I have no doubt that the party camped

AM. ANTH. N. S., 13-36

on the point discovered our presence and sent a man up to the Castillo to find out our numbers when we came ashore, and then signalled back a report to the village. An attack, I believe, would inevitably have followed had we waited a few hours longer.

During my stay at Cozumel I visited a small ruin at Rancha Santa Rita, on the north end of the island, where I took a few photographs. One of these (fig. 83) shows a supporting column carved with the grotesque figure of a god, more suggestive of Mexico than Yucatan. The building is situated on a low artificial

pyramid.

In closing I wish to express my thanks to Mr E. H. Thompson, of Merida, to Mr W. B. Young, agent of the Ward line, Progreso, to Mr Blake, manager of the Ferro Cariles Unidos of Yucatan, and to Señor Louis Medina, for their kindness to me during my stay in Merida; and to Mr Oscar Caldwell, of Caldwell and Bonastre, for his helpfulness at Cozumel. To Mr William D. Parmelee, who was with me through the entire trip merely for pleasure, I owe more than to anyone else such success as I have had.

BOSTON, MASS.

A COMPARATIVE SKETCH OF THE MENOMINI1

BY ALANSON SKINNER

HE Menomini were found by Europeans in the vicinity of

THE

Green Bay, Wisconsin, not far from the present reservation.

Their own tradition states that they first came into existence as transformed animals at the mouth of the Menomini River, near where the city of Marinette now stands. Certain it is that the Menomini have occupied the general vicinity of the region in which they now live for a comparatively long period, probably as neighbors to the Winnebago, who have a very similar origin myth. They state that they did not come into contact with the Sauk, their nearest cultural relatives, until considerably later an assertion borne out by historical evidence. Besides the "official" tradition of their origin, there is a firm conviction among the older men that at one time their ancestors dwelt farther east, by the shores of the salt water.

MATERIAL CULTURE

In some respects, owing to the collections preserved in various museums scattered throughout the country, the material culture

1 Several years before his death, the late Dr William Jones made a preliminary trip to the Menomini reservation in northern Wisconsin under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History of New York. His intention was to return to the tribe at some future time in order to make a more detailed study, but his untimely demise ended these plans abruptly. As the Menomini are little known to ethnologists, save through Hoffman's paper in the 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the museum was desirous of continuing the work in this field, and consequently I was detailed to take up the task where Dr Jones left off.

In 1909 I paid a flying visit to the reservation, and in the summer of 1910 a more extended stay was made, supplemented by a still longer visit in 1911. A very complete collection representing the ethnology of the tribe was secured, and data were collected with the intent of publishing a monograph on the Menomini at some not far distant date. At present Mr John V. Satterlee, U. S. Government interpreter, a half-breed member of the tribe, is engaged as permanent field-worker for the museum in further adding to the data which he has very materially assisted in collecting, and the writer expects to pay several more visits to the reservation in furthering this work.

of the Central Algonkin peoples, the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago,1 Potawatomi, and Kickapoo, affords better material for comparison with that of the Menomini than any other phase of their ethnology. The Ojibway and the Ottawa in general are not included because their affinities seem to lie with the northern Algonkin group.

Garments. In the main the garments of the olden time Menomini were almost identical with those of the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Potawatomi. They were not much different from those of the Ojibway, but lacked a number of their characteristics, this being more especially noticeable when the northern bands are considered. They also showed some similarities to the Iroquois and more eastern Algonkin tribes-the Lenapé or Delaware in particular.

Like their neighbors, the Sauk and Fox, the Menomini men roached their hair, but this coiffure was assumed for warlike purposes only; the ordinary style was to wear the hair long and flowing, with the scalp-lock hanging braided from the crown. The daily headdress was a fur band, preferably of otterskin, or a woven sash bound around the brows. A northern and western feature was

the use of the entire skin of an otter worn turbanwise.

The shirts and leggings formerly used by the men were of leather, often dyed a dark blue or black, and generally embroidered with porcupine quills. So far as my knowledge extends the custom of dyeing the clothing was not common in the east, but sporadic examples occur. The Florida Seminole still dye their buckskin leggings a reddish brown with oak bark. The so-called Missisauga, or eastern band of Ojibway, are known to have made black-dyed moccasins some years ago, and the custom of coloring small pouches and other leather objects designed to be decorated with porcupine quill-work was rather more widely spread.

While the breechclouts of the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Ojibway of today are invariably decorated with beadwork, those of the Menomini are plain, and there is evidence that this was always the case.

Menomini moccasins were puckered in front, and were of the soft-soled woodland type. They resemble an antique Ojibway form, 1 The Winnebago are Siouan linguistically, but belong to the same general cultural

area.

and are like those of the Delaware and of the Mohawk Iroquois. They are entirely different from those worn by the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Potawatomi.

Owing to the fact that they lived so far from the buffalo country, robes made of buffalo skin were seldom if ever to be had, although smaller ceremonial articles made from buffalo skin or bone were used.

The women's costume resembled that of the other Central tribes. It was a two-piece garment in contradistinction to the simple single gown of the Plains and the north. Besides its range

in the Central region, this type had a somewhat widespread eastern distribution. It was found among the Iroquois of New York, and the Delaware, although there is reason to believe that these peoples never used upper garments, other than robes before European contact, wearing only a skirt or leggings. A somewhat similar type of two-piece woman's garment has been observed among the Missisauga Ojibway, the Penobscot of Maine, and the Seminole of Florida. The Cheyenne, when first known, used this type of squaw dress but later abandoned it. The chief variations, within and without the Central district, occur in the presence or absence of a waist, and its shape.

Among the Menomini the garments were a shirt-waist, formerly plain, but now adorned with a huge ruffled cape; a skirt made of a piece of square leather wrapped once around the waist, and left open at one side. The border of the skirt was beautifully ornamented with porcupine-quill embroidery. Short leggings, reaching to the knees, and dainty moccasins completed the costume.

The favorite way of wearing the hair was to plait it in a single braid down the back, but it was sometimes "clubbed " and covered with a cylindrical headdress from which swung beaded or quilled trailers. This type is more often found among the Sauk, Fox, and Winnebago. In earlier times it is said that the woman's headdress was not ornamented.

Of course, in recent years, buckskin has given way to traders' cloth, and porcupine quills to beads, and later to silk ribbon appliqué, but the general type of the garments has remained the same. Nowadays the women cover their costume with a profusion of German silver brooches of native make.