Bureau of Ethnology

“ The Bureau of Ethnology has its missionaries among many of the tribes in our domain, no longer bent on their destruction, but treating them with the greatest consideration, in order to win their confidence, to get down to their level, to think their thoughts, to charm from them the sibylline secrets. ”

“ Being brought into contact with many tribes, it was possible to collect a large amount of original material. Subsequently, when the Bureau of Ethnology was organized, this store was largely increased through the labors of others. Since then a very large body of literature published in Indian languages has been accumulated, and a great number of vocabularies have been gathered by the Bureau 26 assistants and by collaborators in various parts of the country. ”

“ As a consequence the student of Indian languages and customs finds himself in a tangle, as regards tribal names, which it is beyond the power of the individual worker, unaided, to unravel. The scope of the work in question includes the attempt to trace the several names back to their sources and to ascertain their original and proper application, to define their meaning when possible, and to relegate each tribe under its proper title to the linguistic family to which it belongs. In the completion of this work the whole force of the Bureau assists. ”

“ The exertions of several of the officers of this Bureau have been successful in obtaining full details and clear explanations both of the traditions and the ceremonials of several of the Indian tribes, notably those of the Zuñi and the Navajo, published in former annual reports. The present paper by Mr. Dorsey takes an important place in this new collection of materials for the study of Indian philosophy, from which valuable results have been already acquired. ”

“ A long residence with any one tribe frequently inoculates the student with the same patriotic spirit. Bringing to his study of a particular tribe an inadequate conception of Indian attainments and a low impression of their moral and intellectual plane, the constant recital of its virtues, the bravery and prowess of its men in war, their generosity, the chaste conduct and obedience of its women as contrasted with the opposite qualities of all other tribes, speedily tends to partisanship. ”

“ Tribal organization according to the totemic system is practically broken up, as the Indians are generally located upon or near the several reservations set apart for them by the General Government, where they have been under more or less restraint by the United States Indian agents and the missionaries. ”

“ Others occupy so little space that the colors representing them are hardly discernible upon the map. Some of them contain but a single tribe; others are represented by scores of tribes. In the case of a few, the term “family” is commensurate with language, since there is but one 28 language and no dialects. In the case of others, their tribes spoke several languages, so distinct from one another as to be for the most part mutually unintelligible, and the languages shade into many dialects more or less diverse. ”

“ These and other 31 similar facts sufficiently prove the power of individual tribes or gentes to sunder relations with the great body of their kindred and to remove to distant homes. Tested by linguistic evidence, such instances appear to be exceptional, and the fact remains that in the great majority of cases the tribes composing linguistic families occupy continuous areas, and hence are and have been practically sedentary. Nor is the bond of a common language, strong and enduring as that bond is usually thought to be, entirely sufficient to explain the phenomenon here pointed out. ”

“ Moreover, opportunities for collecting linguistic material are growing fewer day by day, as tribes are consolidated upon reservations, as they become civilized, and as the older Indians, who alone are skilled in their language, die, leaving, it may be, only a few imperfect vocabularies as a basis for future study. History has bequeathed to us the names of many tribes, which became extinct in early colonial times, of whose language not a hint is left and whose linguistic relations must ever remain unknown. ”

“ A third occasion for the development of this primitive religion inheres in the social organization of mankind, primarily expressed in the love of man and woman for each other, but finally expressed in all the relations of kin and kith and in the relations of tribe with tribe. ”

“ Where many peoples, each few in number, are thrown together, an intertribal language is developed. To a large extent this is gesture speech; but to a limited extent useful and important words are adopted by various tribes, and out of this material an intertribal “jargon” is established. Travelers and all others who do not thoroughly study a language are far more likely to acquire this jargon speech than the real speech of the people; and the tendency to base relationship upon such jargons has led to confusion. ”

“ Second, the attempt has more frequently been made to establish an ethnic classification than a linguistic classification, and linguistic characteristics have been confused with biotic peculiarities, arts, habits, customs, and other human activities, so that radical differences of language have often been ignored and slight differences have been held to be of primary value. ”

“ A simple democracy exists among these people, and they have a variety of tribal offices to fill. In this way the men of the tribe are graded, and they pass from grade to grade by a selection practically made by the people. And this leads to a constant discussion of the virtues and abilities of all the male members of the clan, from boyhood to old age. He is most successful in obtaining clan and tribal promotion who is most useful to the clan and the tribe. ”

“ In all tribes that still retain something of their ancient organization we find this sacred knowledge committed to the keeping of various secret societies, each of which has its peculiar ritual with regular initiation and degrees of advancement. ”

“ Hoffman presents a paper on the “Midē ́wiwin, or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa,” and sets forth the vestiges of a once powerful organization existing among these people. Mr. Mooney has made a study of the Cherokee with the same end in view. In the opinion of the Director they are important contributions to this subject. The same lines of investigation have been carried on by other members of the Bureau with other tribes where societies and practices have been but little modified by the contact of the white man, and where the subject is therefore much more plainly arrayed. ”

“ The relative positions of the families and the relative size of the areas occupied by them, however, and not their exact boundaries, are the chief concern in a linguistic map, and for the purpose of establishing these, and, in a rough way, the boundaries of the territory held by the tribes composing them, these data are very important, and when compared with one another and corrected by more definite data, when such are at hand, they have usually been found to be sufficient for the purpose. ”

“ Third, although representing a small population, the numerous tribes had overspread North America and had possessed themselves of all the territory, which, in the case of a great majority of tribes, was owned in common by the tribe. ”

“ Very few of the natives were sufficiently conversant with English or Spanish to serve as interpreters, so that it was difficult to secure trustworthy results. A white man who had lived over six years among them was of material help, and several mythologic and other texts were obtained with tolerable correctness through his aid. ”

“ The commendation these works have received from critical journals reveals with painful distinctness the fact that we have no science of American ethnology. Such a science, resting as it must upon verified facts, and dealing with the institutions, arts and inventions, usages and customs, languages, religious beliefs, and plan of government of the Indian tribes, would, were it fairly established, command as well as deserve the respect of the American people. With the exception of an amateur here and there, American scholars have not been willing to devote themselves to so vast a work. ”

“ Our later investigators are doing their work more and more on the plan of direct visitation, and I make no doubt a science of American ethnology will yet come into existence among us and rise high in public estimation from the important results it will rapidly achieve. ”

“ In Indian ethnography the subjects of primary importance are the gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy. They exhibit the organization of society. Next to these are the tenure and functions of the office of sachem and chief, the functions of the council of chiefs, and the tenure and functions of the office of principal war-chief. ”

“ The Ethnic Council shall study and make proposals on ethnic issues to the National Assembly; exercise the power of overseeing the implementation of policies on ethnic groups, programmes and plans for socio-economic development in mountainous and ethnic minority areas. ”

“ At the present day the progress of research has in practice, however, restricted the “ethnologist” as a rule to the study of one or more branches only of so wide a subject, and the word “ethnology” is used with a somewhat vague meaning for any ethnological study; each country or nation has thus its own separate ethnology. It becomes more convenient, therefore, to deal with the ethnology as a special subject in each case. “Ethnography,” in so far as it has a distinctive province, is then conveniently restricted to the scientific mapping out of different racial regions, nations and tribes ”

“ Every ethnic group has the right to use its own spoken and written language to preserve its own identity and to promote its fine customs, practices, traditions and culture.
4. The State shall implement a policy of comprehensive development and create the conditions for the minority ethnicities to draw upon/further their internal strengths and develop together with the country. ”

“ For purely practical reasons, connected with the minute division of labor that has become imperative with modern specialization, ethnology has in practice concerned itself with the cruder cultures of peoples without a knowledge of writing. But this division is an illogical and artificial one. As the biologist can study life as manifested in the human organism as well as in the amoeba, so the ethnologist might examine and describe the usages of modern America as well as those of the Hopi Indians. ”

“ However, a resurgence of ethnic pride combined with increasing interest shown by governmental agencies in the safeguarding of cultural diversity are bringing native languages and oral practices to the foreground. ”

“ The participating States note the efforts undertaken to protect and create conditions for the promotion of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of certain national minorities by establishing, as one of the possible means to achieve these aims, appropriate local or autonomous administrations corresponding to the specific historical and territorial circumstances of such minorities and in accordance with the policies of the State concerned. ”

“ Yet of such varied hues were they, that the most profound ethnologist would be perplexed to decide whether the man should be classed among the Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Indian, or Negro race, or whether he was a hybrid compound of all five. ”

“ Article 30 In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language. ”

“ By definition, ethnography is "the scientific description of nations or races of men, their customs, habits, and differences." [2] Frontier ethnography is the scientific description of the full institutional pattern of a particular group of people, located specifically on a certain frontier, within a certain period of time. That institutional pattern is described from the analysis of data concerning the political and economic systems, and the social structure, including religion, the family, the value system, social classes, art, music, recreation, mythology, and folklore. ”

“ It is the ethnologist's business merely to record impartially what racial, tribal, social, and religious differences still survive, and, if he can, to show how far they have been, and are being, obliterated by the spread of education, and by growing self-confidence and ambition among educated Indians. ”

“ States shall take effective measures, in consultation with the indigenous peoples concerned, to eliminate prejudice and discrimination and to promote tolerance, understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all segments of society. ”

“ The Government, it is believed, owes it to itself to originate a body of facts on this subject of an entirely authentic character, from which the race at large may be correctly judged by all classes of citizens, and its policy respecting the tribes under its guardianship, and its treatment of them, properly understood and appreciated. ”

“ Reflections such as these teach us how closely the study of ethnographic science is related to practical politics. Ethnography, indeed, is the necessary basis of correct history and sound statesmanship. It offers to history a foundation on natural law; it explains events by showing their dependence on the physical structure, the mental pecularities, and the geographic surroundings of the peoples engaged in them; it presents, in its present pictures of savage life, the condition of the highest nations in the earlier stages of their culture. ”

“ Article 11 Free ethnic development of foreign-language elements of the population of the Republic is to be promoted by legislative and administrative action. In particular, they must on no account be prevented from using their native language in matters of education, internal administration and administration of justice. ”