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In 1845 Dr. Butler married Anna Bates, daughter of President Bates of Middlebury College, who died in 1892. They had four children who survived him.

He wrote letters for the New York Observer during his first foreign tour and made similar contributions to leading papers during his other journeys.

For the New York Nation he was a contributor for twentyfive years, his articles in all numbering over 250, the last one written when he was nearly ninety. He also wrote on a great variety of widely differing topics in which he displayed the same activity as in his travels.

He was connected with the Wisconsin State Historical Society as curator and Vice President from 1867 to 1900, and maintained his interest in it till his death, having been very influential in giving it its high standing in the country and of which he said, it "has been the thing for which I have cared most."

Of him the New York Nation said "his saturation with the language of Shakespeare and of the Greek authors oozed up in his writings giving a characteristic quaintness to his style".

Our associate Mr. R. G. Thwaites, said of him "as for his uniform kindness of temper, his fair frank estimate of things they charmed us all. To our 'grand old man', age brought no narrowness of view, no tendency to cynicism, no crabbedness of soul; he was to the last, mellow, open hearted, responsive to the best impulses of his day."

He became a member of this society in 1854, standing third in seniority at his death, and showed his interest in it by constant letters and gifts, delivering a paper on the Copper Age in Wisconsin, in 1877, on The New Found Journal of Charles Floyd in 1894 when he was in his eightieth year and sent a short notice of A Brewster Autograph in Wisconsin for the meeting in April 1902. He also prepared an exhaustive and touching memorial of his long time friend the late Charles Kendall Adams, which was presented to the society in April 1905, when he was past ninety.

Full notices of him may be found in the New York Nation of Nov. 30th, 1905, and the Wisconsin State Journal, published in Madison, of the date of Nov. 21st, 1905, and in the Proceedings of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. He inspired great affection in all who knew him and will be long missed by a wide circle of friends.

Samuel Pierpont Langley was born in Roxbury, now Boston, Aug. 22d, 1834, and died at Aiken, S. C., Feb. 27th, 1906, his residence for many years having been in Washington, D. C.

He was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1887 till death. He was an architect and civil engineer and attained great distinction as an astronomer and physicist.

Many American and Foreign colleges and universities conferred degrees upon him and he was a member of numerous learned societies. He joined this society in 1888. S. U.

COLUMBUS, RAMON PANE AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN

ANTHROPOLOGY.

BY EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE.

ABOUT three weeks hence on May 20th will be celebrated the 400th anniversary of the death of Columbus. Apparently little notice will be taken of this anniversary in the United States. To the American people at large the event of supreme interest in the career of the Admiral is, of course, the discovery of the New World, and the quadricentenary of that was celebrated with an elaboration which naturally precludes any considerable expenditure of effort and enthusiasm within the same generation in commemoration of the death of the discoverer. Yet this anniversary should not pass unnoticed, least of all by a learned society devoted to the study of American antiquities, for Christopher Columbus not only revealed the field of our studies to the world but actually in person set on foot the first systematic study of American primitive custom, religion and folklore ever undertaken. He is in a sense therefore the founder of American Anthropology. This phase of the varied activities of the discoverer has received in our day little or no attention. To all appearances it is not even mentioned in Justin Winsor's six hundred page biography. Such neglect is owing in part to the discredit that has been cast upon the life of Columbus by his son Ferdinand in consequence of which its contents have not been studied with due critical appreciation.

In Ferdinand's biography of his father, commonly referred to under the first word of the Italian title as the Historie, are imbedded not a few fragments of Columbus' own letters

and other documents not commonly reproduced in the selections from his writings. To two such documents as presenting the evidence of Columbus' interest and efforts in the field of American Anthropology I invite your attention this morning.

The first contains the discoverer's own brief summary of what he was able to learn of the beliefs of the natives of Española during the period of his second voyage, 1493—96, and the record of his commissioning the Friar Ramon Pane who had learned the language of the islanders, " to collect all their ceremonies and antiquities." The second is Ramon's report of his observations and inquiries and is not only the first treatise ever written in the field of American Antiquities, but to this day remains our most authentic record of the religion and folk-lore of the long since extinct Tainos, the aboriginal inhabitants of Hayti.

The original Spanish text of these documents is no longer extant and, like the Historie which contains them, they are known to us in full only in the Italian translation of that work published in Venice in 1571 by Alfonso Ulloa.

The observations of Columbus first referred to were recorded in his narrative of his second voyage which we possess only in the abridgments of Las Casas and Ferdinand Columbus. Both of these authors in condensing the original, incorporated passages in the exact words of the Admiral, and it is from such a passage in Ferdinand's abridgment that we derive the Admiral's account of the religion of primitive Hayti. Ferdinand writes: "Our people also learned many other things which seem to me worthy to be related in this our history. Beginning then with religion I will record here the very words of the Admiral who wrote as follows:"

"I was able to discover neither idolatry nor any other sect among them, although all their kings, who are many, not only in Española but also in all the other islands and on the main land* each have a house apart from the village, in which there is nothing except some wooden *I. e. Cuba, which Columbus believed to be the main land.

images carved in relief which are called cemis,* nor is there anything done in such a house for any other object or service except for these cemis, by means of a kind of ceremony and prayer which they go to make in it as we go to churches. In this house they have a finely wrought table, round like a wooden dish in which is some powder which is placed by them on the heads of these cemis in performing a certain ceremony; then with a cane that has two branches which they place in their nostrils they snuff up this dust. The words that they say none of our people understand. With this powder they lose consciousness and become like drunken men.

They give a name to this figure, and I believe it is that of a father, grandfather or of both, since they have more than one such, and some more than ten, all in memory, as I have said, of some one of their ancestors. I have heard them praise one more than another, and have seen them show it more devotion and do more reverence to one than another as we do in processions where there is need.

Both the Caciques and the peoples boast to each other of having the best cemis. When they go to these cemis of theirs and enter the house where he is they are on their guard with respect to the Christians and do not suffer them to enter it. On the contrary, if they suspect they are coming, they take the cemi or the cemis away and hide them in the woods for fear they may be taken from them; and what is more laughable they have the custom of stealing each other's cemis. It happened once, when they suspected us, that the Christians entered the said house with them and of a sudden the cemi gave a loud cry and spoke in their language from which it was discovered that it was artfully constructed because being hollow, they had fitted to the lower part a trumpet or tube which extended to a dark part of the house covered with leaves and branches where there was a person who spoke what the Cacique wanted him to say so far as it could be done with a tube. Whereupon our men having suspected what might be the case, kicked the cemi over and found the facts as I have just described. When the Cacique saw that it was discovered by our men he besought them urgently not to say anything to the Indians, his subjects, nor to others because by this deceit he kept them in obedience.

This then we can say, there is some semblance of idolatry, at least among those who do not know the secret and the deception of their Caciques because they believe that the one who speaks is the cemi. In general all the people are deceived and the Cacique alone is the one who is conscious of and promotes their false belief by means of which he draws from his people all those tributes as seems good to him. Likewise most of the Caciques have three stones to which they and their

*Ulloa in his Italian gives this word in various forms e. g. cemi, cimi, cimini and cimiche. The correct form is cemi with the accent on the last syllable. Las Casas says, "Estas-llamaban cemi, la ultima silaba luenga y aguda." Docs. Inéditos para la Historia de España, LXVI, 436. The late J. Walter Fewkes published an article with illustrations "On Zemes from Santo Domingo" in the American Anthropologist, IV, 167-175.

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