File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17537635564).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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136 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL to secure information from the best sources, but being usually unacquainted with Indians and ignorant of their ways of thought, they do not know how to sift the true from the false and often cannot comprehend without elabo- rate explanations much of what they are told. A wise old man may talk of things that to him were matters of everyday life, but are not in the least un- derstood by the collector. The informant takes for granted in the inquirer a knowledge equal to his own and slurs over, as too familiar to need explana- tion, a multitude of things about which the inquirer knows nothing. The present day inquirer is likely to choose as interpreter some edu- cated Indian boy, speaking good English. Such an interpreter is too young to comprehend a narrative dealing with matters that fifty years ago were
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Dance house of the Crow Indians at Lodge Grass, Montana, an old Pawnee type of structure used in the hot dance. It has been given a corrugated tin roof and a modern cupola-like superstructure and so illustrates well the passing away of the old things commonplace. He is also likely to be unacquainted with many of the words used by an old man, for often such old men employ the language of oratory, which to-day is almost obsolete. Yet even if he does not understand the old man's meaning, the interpreter often will not confess this, but will give some interpretation which may be erroneous or obscure. The three persons engaged in the conversation, therefore, are almost certain to mis- understand one another, and the inquirer is likely to bring back material which may be wholly misleading. For the most part, the Indian young men of the present day do not understand why anyone should wish to set down, and as far as may be explain, all that can be learned about the old ways of their people. They regard the inquisitiveness about these things, which some white people show, as one of the eccentricities of that race, hardly susceptible of expla- nation, but from which if possible a profit should be derived. I have been

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