of copulation. This was continued, for probably half an hour or more, to the delight and approval of the interested mass of halfnaked humanity that packed the outer edge of the circle. The actors then disappeared as suddenly as they had come, with the exception of the man standing erect behind the musicians. few minutes they again returned, minus the wooden phalli but naked as before except for a strip of buckskin or of trader's calico thrown across the shoulders. The two leaders continued to keep time with their feather-tipped sticks, while the other eight gathered handfuls of earth and threw it on one another, all the time singing and dancing around the fire, then jumped through the blazing mass, circled, and danced again. This last performance however was more of a run than a dance, and more of a yell than a song. It was repeated five or six times. At the end of the last round the two leaders separated and stood each by one of the two stone phalli. After regarding each other for a few moments in silence, they seized the two emblems and ran out of the ring. The other eight followed in single file, hopping one after the other in toad-like fashion. As they passed, the man standing behind the musicians threw a double handful of earth on each. He then disappeared. After this all who wished passed into the circle and danced as long as they pleased.

YUMA,

ARIZONA.

THE FIFTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF

AMERICANISTS

BY GEORGE GRANT MACCURDY

The Fifteenth International Congress of Americanists was held in the Parliament building, Quebec, September 10th to 15th, 1906. About 250 members, active and associate, were in attendance, and the local interest in the proceedings was very gratifying. The Congress meets every two years, the places of meeting alternating between Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The Quebec Congress had a local coloring all its own, due to the presence of so many missionaries from various parts of Canada, whose contributions on the tribes among whom they are laboring were of special interest.

England was represented by Drs A. C. Haddon, of Cambridge, and D. Randall-MacIver, of Oxford; France by Professor Léon Lejeal, of the Collège de France, and Comte de Perigny; Germany by Professor and Mrs Eduard Seler and Dr Paul Ehrenreich, all of the University of Berlin; Mexico by Señor Leopoldo Batres, Conservator-general of the Archeological Monuments of the Republic, and Señor Santiago Sierra. The United States was not so well represented as it should have been, those present coming chiefly from Harvard and Yale universities, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Canadian interest and pride in the Congress were shown by the presence of many missionaries, as has been said, and by the loyal support of Quebec. The program included 91 papers, but only about half of these were read.

The Congress was formally opened on Monday morning by Sir Louis A. Jetté, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, and addresses of welcome were made by representatives of the Government and of the City of Quebec. The reading of papers began on Monday afternoon and continued until noon on Saturday following.

The opening paper by Professor Rivard was on the "French Dialects in Canada." Canadian French is neither classic French, corrupt French, nor a homogeneous patois, but a mode of speech both regional and uniform with the characters of the various patoises incorporated into the popular French tongue of northern France. Professor A. F. Chamberlain's first paper was on a similar subject -"The Vocabulary of Canadian French." He discussed Indian loan-words, English loan-words, words French in form but having meanings peculiar to Canada, old French words obsolete in France but preserved in Canada, French dialect words surviving in Canada, "Canadianisms" proper (i. e., words, etc., created de toute pièce in Canada), the language of the fishermen, etc., of the Gulf of St Lawrence, the speech of the Acadians, of the habitants, foresters, lumbermen, etc., the language of the voyageurs, coureurs des bois, hunters, trappers, etc., of the interior, and that of the settlers in the great Northwest. The vocabulary exhibits in marked fashion the influence of environment.

Professor E. L. Stevenson's two interesting communications were on the subject of cartography and both were illustrated by means of large photographic reproductions of early maps. In Comparative Fallacies of Early New-World Maps," a chart was exhibited to show, by means of superposition, the more striking fallacies of the first maps. Error in location is often strangely excessive as to both latitude and longitude, the reasons for this being sometimes obvious but often obscure. Very many of the most important early maps of the New World now known have been brought to light within the last few years. The most recent discovery is a fine specimen of the work of Hondius. A facsimile of this was exhibited for the first time.

There was an evening session on Monday at which two valuable papers were presented, both being illustrated by numerous lantern slides. Señor Leopoldo Batres described his excavations at Teotihuacan, and Father Jones identified the sites of Huron and Petun villages at the time of the Récollet and Jesuit missions, 1615–50.

Tuesday's sessions were devoted to Mexico and Yucatan, the Isthmus and South America. Professor Seler described "Two Specimens from the Collection Sologuren, Oaxaca," exhibiting

colored drawings of the same. M. Alphonse Gagnon sought to trace the origin of the civilization among the ancient races of Mexico and Central America. In his opinion it came from India or Chaldea

by way of Ceylon, Indo-China, Java, and Polynesia.

Dr Alfred M. Tozzer pointed out "Some Survivals of Ancient Forms of Culture among the Mayas of Yucatan and the Lacandones of Chiapas." The Maya of to-day are Catholics, but they still retain, in a modified form, a considerable number of their old beliefs. and customs. The Lacandones, being comparatively free from outside influence, have preserved many of their ancient customs. These include pilgrimages to ruined cities, where they offer incense to the gods. An elaborate ceremonial of the renewal of the incense burners is clearly a survival of a rite mentioned by Landa. Idols are anointed with blood drawn from the ear. Names and attributes. of deities recorded by early Spanish writers have survived, but no, knowledge of the hieroglyphic writing exists.

The paper by Dr George Grant MacCurdy dealt with "The Armadillo Motive in the Ancient Ceramic Art of Chiriqui." In the collection belonging to the Yale University Museum, the treatment of the armadillo includes all the steps from realism on the one side to highly conventionalized forms on the other. It appears as supports for tripods, as a shoulder ornament on vases, as handle decorations, and as ornamental features on the necks of vases. In many instances no trace of the armadillo as a recognizable unit remains. In its stead, symbols representing the foot, eye, tail, or carapace are employed either separately or in pleasing combinations. Tail or carapace symbols are often carried in meander around the necks of vases, each angular space being marked by a foot, or an eye symbol. The armadillo is so dominant a factor in the socalled biscuit or terra-cotta group of pottery that the latter might well be called the armadillo group instead. A study of the series leads one to the conclusion that many purely decorative motives had their origin in some life form or in elements thereof. In Egypt it seems to have been the lotus; in Chiriqui it was preeminently the armadillo.

Professor Lejeal presented a joint communication by himself and M. Eric Boman on "The Calchaqui Question." Their con

clusions, very different from those of Professor Juan B. Ambrosetti, are that the Calchaqui culture is closely related to the Andean culture with its center in Peru.

Miss Adela Breton, of Bath, England, offered two papers. Her "Note on Xochicalco" was read by Dr Gordon, and her excellent copies of the wall-paintings of Chichen Itza were exhibited by Dr Tozzer, who followed with his own notes on "The Maya Language Spoken in Yucatan," in which he pointed out the occurrence of an inclusive and an exclusive first person in these dialects.

Dr George B. Gordon's subject was "The Serpent Motive in the Ancient Art of Central America and India." This motive is so persistent in Central American and Mexican art as to form not less than three-fourths of all the ornament. The original model was the rattlesnake. In the art of India, the serpent occupies a position scarcely less prominent than that found in Central America; but the serpent image undergoes fewer changes that would tend to disguise its identity or affect the stability of the type. Dr Gordon's conclusions are that the resemblances are striking rather than profound, and not such as to justify a belief in an intimate relation between the cultures of the two countries or a historic connection between the two decorative systems.

One communication by Professor Seler has already been mentioned. He presented four more on Friday morning, all of them accompanied with drawings or lantern slides. The figures on the two reliefs from Huilocintla, District of Tuzpan, State of Vera Cruz, represent Quetzalcoatl torturing himself by passing a thorny stick through a hole in his tongue. Under the title of "Studies among the Ruins of Yucatan," Dr Seler described the maison du Nain at Uxmal, which he believes to have been a temple dedicated to the divinity of the planet Venus. Professor Seler's other contributions were on "Parallels in Mayan Manuscripts" and "The Reliefs in the Temple of the God of Pulque at Tepoztlan, State of Morelos, Mexico." He gave also brief abstracts of a paper by Dr Karl Sapper, of Tübingen, on "Choles and Chorties," and of one by Dr W. Lehmann of Berlin on the "Ancient Mexican Mosaics in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology."

Father J. Jetté's contribution on "The Social Condition of the