Читать книгу The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*)) - W J McGee - Страница 9

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Since most of the field work of the two expeditions lay in the neighboring Republic of Mexico, it became necessary to ask official sanction for the operations from the Mexican government; and it is a pleasure to say that every possible privilege and courtesy were extended by both federal and state officials. Especial acknowledgments are due to the Mexican minister (and afterward ambassador) to the United States, his Excellency Don Mateo Romero (now deceased); to the Ministro de Fomento of the Mexican Republic, Excelencia Don Fernando Leal; and to the governor of the State of Sonora, Señor Don Ramón Corral. Equal acknowledgments are due to various United States officials, notably Honorable W. Woodville Rockhill, First Assistant Secretary of State when the expeditions were planned; and it is a pleasure to advert to the active interest taken in both expeditions by Honorable S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and to the careful attention given the 1894 expedition by the late Dr. G. Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Institution.

Mr. Willard D. Johnson did invaluable service in connection with the second expedition, particularly in the execution of surveys and the construction of maps in inimitable style. Mr. William Dinwiddie is to be credited with the excellent photographs made during the 1894 expedition, with the representation of the devices used in Seri face-painting, and with various other aids to the investigation; while Mr. J. W. Mitchell is to be credited with the photographs made on Isla Tiburon, and with other contributions to the success of the 1895 expedition. Acknowledgments are due also to all of the participants in both expeditions, whose names appear in other paragraphs. Their contributions were not primarily intellectual, yet were of a kind and amount to be forever remembered among men who have worked and hungered and thirsted and stood guard together. The deepest debt connected with the field work is to the now venerable but ever vigorous pioneer, Señor Pascual Encinas; and no small part of this debt goes over to his estimable spouse, Señora Anita Encinas, who twice traversed the long road from Hermosillo to Costa Rica in the interest of the 1895 expedition.

The scientific results of the researches have been enriched by invaluable contributions from Director Powell’s store of ethnologic knowledge, and by suggestions from Messrs Frank Hamilton Cushing, F. W. Hodge, James Mooney, and other collaborators in the Bureau of American Ethnology. The qualities of the colored illustrations are due largely to the artistic skill of Mr. Wells M. Sawyer, by whom they were designed, and of Mr. DeLancey Gill, by whom the proofs were revised. The Spanish translations are due chiefly to Colonel F. F. Hilder, ethnologic translator of the Bureau, partly to Mr. Emanuele Fronani; though neither can be charged with errors of interpretation or of Englishing, both finally shaped by the author. The somatic determinations and discussions were by Dr. Ales Hrdlička, of New York; the tests for arrow poison were made by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia; while the philologic comparisons were made almost wholly (with notable thoroughness and perspicacity, and in such wise as to illustrate the wealth and utility of the linguistic collections of the Bureau) by Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt. Finally, it has become due, probably for the first time in the nearly four centuries of their history, to make public acknowledgment of services by Seri Indians, viz., subchief Mashém, the real sponsor for the Bureau vocabulary and many other data, and “El General” Kolusio, the outlaw interpreter of Hermosillo and contributor to certain historical identifications.