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UNIVERSITY  OF 

ILLINOr:  LIBRARY 

AT  U.-jAi>iA  CtlAMPAIGN 

NAT.  HIST.  SURV. 


FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BULLETIN 


Fit-Id  Mustum 

oi  Natural  History 

Bulletin 


/••  -  •  ■■.ullcr 


IjcIU  Mustuni  ot  Natural  History 
Fv>undcU  XS'ii 
'esideni  and  Director:  E.  Leiand  Webber 


CONTENTS 

3  rielil  Briifs 

4  hi'ld  Musfum  Tiiuf". 

c  C  jtl  Aki-U\  as  Stulpliir 

10  Cjrl  AkfU-\  as  Naturalist    lavidirmisl,  IriM-ntor 

13  Our  I  ns  ironmcnl 

If  South  Sfas  Islands:  faradisi-  and  IVrdition 

NtH  Learning  Musfum  i'roKram 
hy  A'lihi-'iiv  Ptciffi'r  ;>ro;4Vf  coordinator 

20  Ktiman  Huttlr  Caps 

by  Donald  Whitconib.  oisistanl  curator  of  Middle  Eastern 
arrheology  and  ethnology 

2.1  Indix  (or  1979  (Vol.  50» 

27  lanuary  and  Februar>  at  Field  Miis<nim 

Cak'ndjr  nl  coming  events 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  C   Swanchild.  Ir 

Mm   T   Slanton  Armour 
Ceorif  R    Bakrr 
Robert  O   Bm 
Cordon  B«nt 
Harrv  O   B»rth»r 
Bowrn  Blair 
Sljnton  R   Cook 


N 


K    rvkinson.  |r. 
-rllry  II 

c 

h 


MuRo  I    Mrlvoin 
vv      .-  M    Mitchell 

.  F   Murphy.  )r. 
jjrrrs  I   O  Connor 
luTHn  H   Rannom 
John  S   RunnrlN 
Will.am  I     Scrlr 
I  muh 


Life  Trustees 

William  McCormick  Blair 
loscph  N    Field 
Cliltord  C    Crcufi 
Samuel  Insull.  Ir 
William  v.  Kahler 
lohn  T    Pine.  Ir. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M    Simpson 
I.  Howard  Wood 


COVER 

Human  skull,  with  face  fanned  from  ihrcdded  fiber  jfum  coconut 
milk,  and  ^>ossihly  breadfruit  juice.  From  Southern  Malekula.  New 
Hebndes  Cat  133149  Collected  hy  curator  A.B  Lewis  during 
Joseph  N.  Field  Ex^yedition  of  1909-13.  Photo  by  Ron  Testa. 

The  face  is  shai>ed  to  resemble  that  of  the  recently  deceased  man 
from  whom  the  skull  is  taken  The  skull  is  then  placed  aloi'  a  life-size 
effigy  of  the  man.  also  formed  to  resemble  that  of  the  deceased  After 
being  borne  in  funeral  rites,  the  effigy  or  rambaramp.  is  allowed  to 
decay,  no  special  efforts  being  made  to  presence  it. 

See  pages  16-19  for  discussion  of  South  Seas  Islands  Paradise 
and  Perdition,  theme  of  forthcoming  sequence  in  National  Endow- 
ment for  the  Humanities  Learning  Museum  Program  at  Field 
Museum. 


Edward  R 

Mr^    TV— t- 
E   Le 
lulun  n    i.imm* 
Blaine  I   Yamngton 


Swijt 
Telling 

n   Tieken 

•■r 


-  04S-94O>  »  puMnhfd  monlhly 


''  r»aniy  rrtwct  ih* 

-r  Musmm  phon« 

'.tusnm  of  Natural 

II    eObOS    ISSN: 


^  Ob 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


Staff  Appointments 

Field  Museum's  new  assistant  develop- 
ment officer  is  Larry  E.  Clary,  who  most 
recently  was  with  the  Development  Of- 
fice of  the  University  of  Chicago.  A 
native  of  the  Chicago  area,  Clary  holds  a 
B  A.  in  English  from  the  University  of 
Chicago.  He  succeeds  William  J.  Maurer, 
who  resigned  to  become  university  rela- 
tions director  for  Purdue  University, 
Calumet  Division. 

Jacqueline  M.  Felicetti  has  been 
named  membership  secretary,  suc- 
ceeding Dorothy  Roder,  who  is  now  head 
of  the  Field  Museum  Tours  Program. 
Ms.  Felicetti  comes  from  the  American 
Bar  Association,  where  she  was  acting 
director  of  membership.  She  is  a  native 
Chicagoan  and  holds  a  B  A  from  Loyola 
University  of  Chicago. 

Philip  Hanson,  formerly  head,  Har- 
ris Extension  Loan  Program,  has  been 
promoted  to  head.  Group  Programs 
Division,  succeeding  Carol  SchoU,  who 
has  resigned.  Raymond  F.  Bernard  has 
returned  to  Field  Museum  to  serve  as 
resource  coordinator  of  Harris  Exten- 
sion, a  new  post  within  the  recently 
reorganized  Harris  Extension,  a  unit  of 
the  Department  of  Education.  Bernard 
was  formerly  an  assistant  in  the  Divi- 
sion of  Reptiles  and  Amphibians. 

Tanisse  R.  Bushman  has  been 
named  managing  editor  of  scientific 
publications.  A  native  of  LaGrange,  111., 
Miss  Bushman  was  most  recently  an 
editorial  assistant  at  Arthur  Young  & 
Co.,  Chicago.  She  succeeds  Pat  Williams, 
who  had  held  the  post  since  1961.  Mrs. 
Williams  resigned  to  accept  another 
position. 


Norman  W.  Nelson  Retires 

Norman  W.  Nelson,  assistant  director, 
administration,  retired  in  November, 
1979,  after  serving  eight  years  in  that 
position:  prior  to  that  he  had  been  Field 
Museum's  business  manager,  the  post 
he  occupied  upon  joining  the  staff  in 
1965.  As  assistant  director,  administra- 
tion —  a  new  position  created  in  1971  — 
Nelsons  area  of  responsibility  included 
business  and  financial  matters,  building 
operations,  personnel,  security,  and 
other  general  services. 

Nelson's  contribution  to  Field 
Museum's  growth  and  development  dur- 
ing his  almost  15  years  on  the  staff  were 
enormous.  His  stewardship  of  the 
finances  of  the  museum  was  exemplary. 
When  plans  for  and  the  execution  of  the 
building  renovation  were  required,  the 
responsibility  for  its  supervision  and 
working  with  the  architect,  engineers. 


construction  manager,  staff  space  plan- 
ning committee,  and  the  facilities  plan- 
ning committee  of  the  Board  of  IVustees 
were  assigned  to  Nelson.  The  renovation 
project  is  now  largely  complete  and  — 
exceptional  among  present-day  building 
renovation  programs  —  it  is  within 
budget  and  without  large  cost  overruns. 
His  counsel  on  all  phases  of  museum 
operations  was  always  sound,  and  staff 
members  often  found  in  him  a  source  of 
sound  personal  counsel  as  well.  A  deep 
debt  of  gratitude  is  due  Norman  Nelson 
and  we  are  truly  fortunate  that  he  will 
continue  to  serve  the  museum  as  con- 
sultant and  as  a  volunteer. 


Egypt  Honors  Museum  President 

E.  Leland  Webber,  president  and  direc- 
tor of  Field  Museum,  was  decorated 
recently  by  Egyptian  President  Anwar 
Sadat  with  Egypt's  prestigious  Order  of 
the  Republic.  The  official  notification  to 
Webber  of  his  award  read  in  part:  "As 
the  King  Tbt  exhibition  is  nearing  the 
end  of  its  tour  ...  it  gives  me  great 
pleasure  to  inform  you  that  President 
Sadat  has  decorated  you  with  the  Order 
of  the  Republic  in  appreciation  of  your 
contribution  to  the  beautiful  presenta- 


Norman  W.  Nelson 

tion  of  King  Tut  in  this  country.  Your  ef- 
forts have  resulted  in  a  warm  and  en- 
thusiastic reception  for  these  treasures 
far  greater  than  we  had  imagined.  We 
feel  that  this  has  contributed  immensely 
to  a  better  understanding  of  ancient 
Egypt  and  a  whetting  of  the  appetite  for 
modern  Egypt.  " 

Egypt's  Order  of  the  Repubhc  was 
bestowed  on  Webber  at  a  reception  in 
the  Egyptian  Embassy,  Washington, 
D.C.,  on  October  25  last.  Also  awarded 
the  decoration  were  the  directors  of  the 
six  other  United  States  museums  that 
hosted  the  exhibition. 


Field  Museum  President  and  Director  E.  Leland  Webber  (left);  Ashraf  Ghorbal  (center), 
Egypt's  ambassador  to  the  United  States:  and  William  G.  Swartchild.  Jr..  chairman  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  Field  Museum,  shown  at  recent  ceremonies  at  the  Egyptian  Embassy  in 
Washington,  DC.  Webber  was  presented  with  Egypt's  Order  of  the  Republic  (which  he  is 
shown  wearing)  for  his  leadership  role  in  Field  Museum's  outstanding  presentation  of  the 
Treasures  of  Tutankhamun  exhibition  in  1977. 


FIELD  MUSEUM  TOURS 

l^^SO  lour  Packages  Exclusively  for  Members 

Tiv  China,  H>;\'pt,  Grand  Can\nn,  l-.n^Iami  t^  Wales 


/ 


»-:M     ^ 


f^r^ 


Archaroloqif  al  Tour  of  F  qvpt 
ullh  Nllr  HiviT  C  rills.- 

I   ■■  •.■mains  to  register  for  the  popular  Egypt  tour  with  Nile 

K  •    Th«  new  and  improved  program  offers  an  1 1-day  Nile 

cniiM  oo  our  own  chartered,  modern  Nile  steamer  In  addition,  we 
wiD  vijit  Cairo.  Memphis.  Sakkara.  Aswan  Abu  Simbcl.  Edfu.  Esna. 
Kom  Ombo.  Luxor.  Thebes.  Valley  of  the  Kings  and  Queens. 
Dendereh.  Abydos.  Amarna.  Middle  Kingdom  Tombs  at  BenI 
Hasan.  Pyramid  at  Medum,  and  more 

'  '        ■   led  by  Mrs  Del  Nord.  a  doc- 

ttmitt .  '  .  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Lyvpt    Price  of  $.3,595  (based  on 

^  r  transportation,  meals.  Nile  cruise, 

visa  fees,  admissions,  baggage  handling. 

,  ■  ce  also  includes  a  $500  contribution  to 

f  -n   A  S50O  per  person  deposit  is  required  for  reservation 

'■^.-  ^,^.jp  a  limited  to  30  persons  Single  supplement 

"    '  ■'.  Nile  cruise  and  land 


People's  Ki-pulillc  of  China 
May  10  31 

The  singular  experience  o(  a  trip  to  the  People's  Republic  of  China 
can  be  yours'  For  its  members.  Field  Museum  again  offers  an  oppor- 
luiiity  to  visit  China's  ma)or  attractions  in  the  company  of  a  well 
qualified  lecturer  The  group,  limited  to  25  persons,  will  leave 
Chicigi)  May  10  and  return  May  31 

Alter  overnight  in  Vancouver  and  a  visit  in  Tokyo,  you  will 
continue  to  Peking.  China's  cenlurlesold  capital  Relics  of  the  Im- 
perial past,  now  national  monuments.  Include  the  magnificent  Im- 
perial palace,  museums,  temples  and  shrines,  and  the  vast  park-like 
Summer  Palace  on  the  shores  of  nearby  Kunnriing  Lake  A  trip  will  be 
made  to  the  Great  Wall  The  next  destination,  Nanking,  situated  on 
the  Yangtse  River,  is  a  source  of  pride  for  the  People's  Republic  as  a 
I  enter  of  mtxlern  development  as  well  as  lor  its  scenic  and  historic  at- 
tractions Of  special  interest  is  the  visit  to  the  charming  city  of 
Kweilin  The  awesome  surrounding  landscape  of  jutting  peaks  and 
rocky  caves  brings  scenes  of  Chinese  painting  to  life  Kwangchow 
(Canton)  is  China's  most  Important  southern  city,  reflecting  events  in 
the  history  of  the  republic  as  well  as  former  times  when  it  was  China's 
only  port  open  to  foreign  trade. 

For  additional  information  on  this  exciting  tour,  contact  the 
Tours  Office  and  ask  for  the  China  brochure 


Geology  Tour  of  England  and  Wales 
June  14  — July  3 

Highlights  of  this  20-day  tour,  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Bertram 
Woodland,  Field  Museum's  curator  of  petrology  (and  a  native  of 
Wales),  will  be  visits  to  classical  areas  of  British  geology  where  many 
fundamental  aspects  of  geology  were  first  discovered.  The  geological 
history  and  scenic  development  of  these  areas  will  be  emphasized. 
Included  in  the  tour  are  visits  to  the  South  Coast.  West  Country 
Cotswolds,  Welsh  Borderlands,  North  Wales,  Lake  District, 
Yorkshire  Dales,  and  the  Peak  District.  The  group  is  limited  to  25 
persons. 

Cost  of  the  tour  —  $2,640  (which  includes  a  $300  donation 
to  Field  Museum)— is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and  includes 
round  trip  air  fare  between  Chicago  and  London  First  class  accom- 
modations will  be  used  throughout.  The  package  includes  breakfast 
and  dinner  daily,  chartered  motorcoach,  baggage  handling,  all 
transfers,  taxes  (except  airport  tax),  and  tips  (except  to  tour  guides), 
all  sightseeing  charges  and  admissions  to  special  events.  Advance 
deposit:  $250  per  person 


Exploration  of  the  Grand  Canyon 
October  3-13 

The  traveler  arriving  in  Grand  Canyon  may  be  given  enough  time  to 
stand  on  the  South  Rim  and  to  gaze  in  wonder  into  the  depth  and 
silence  of  the  chasm  before  being  hurried  away  in  his  charter  bus  to 
somewhere  else  If  he  is  lucky  and  has  more  leisure  he  may  be 
allowed  to  hike  part  of  the  way  down  to  the  Colorado  River  along  a 
trail  as  busy  as  Fifth  Avenue  on  Easter  But  there  is  another  Grand 
Canyon  that  no  man  in  a  hurry  sees  The  Grand  Canyon  of  exquisite 
loveliness,  grandeur,  and  solitude 

The  trip  will  begin  in  the  late  afternoon  of  Friday,  October  3, 
with  the  flight  to  Las  Vegas  The  first  two  days  will  be  spent  In  the 
South  Rim  as  an  introduction  to  wilderness  hiking  and  camping  and 
to  the  geology  of  the  area.  The  main  part  of  the  trip  will  be  a  14-day 


river  trip.  The  trip  will  be  concerned  with  all  aspects  of  geology,  but 
will  stress  the  geological  history  of  the  area  shown  in  the  great 
sequence  of  rocks  representing  about  a  third  of  the  earth's  history, 
the  understanding  of  the  Colorado  River,  her  power,  and  the  tools 
she  uses  to  carve  this  great  canyon,  and  the  sheer  joy  and  excitement 
of  the  river  adventure. 

it  is  on  the  river  that  we  will  experience,  learn,  and  under- 
stand the  canyon,  the  river,  and  the  Great  Southwest  We  will 
"shoot"  an  unending  line  of  rapids,  some  but  a  ripple,  others  rocky 
cataracts  dropping  15  feet  At  no  time  will  we  need  to  portage,  but 
we  will  have  to  hold  fast  with  both  hands,  and  secure  the  luggage 
well    We'll  get  wet  and  tired  — but  happy  and  pleased. 

We  will  camp  out  on  sandy  beaches,  and  since  it  will  not  rain, 
the  stars  and  the  walls  of  the  canyon  will  be  our  companions  at  night. 
We  will  travel  in  four  boats,  we'll  swim  in  the  tributaries  to  the  Col- 
orado, or  dive,  jump  in,  or  just  soak  We  will  hike  to  places  of 
unusual  geologic  and  anthropologic  interest,  sometimes  through  the 
most  pleasant  and  enchanting  stream  beds  and  valleys,  at  times 
along  steep  walls  and  waterfalls. 

But  above  everything  else,  we'll  live  a  time  of  geology.  We 
will  think  earth  while  we  eat,  swim,  dream,  walk,  and  relax.  We  will 
see  and  study  more  geology  in  this  one  brief  period  than  can  be  seen 
anywhere  else  in  comparable  time. 

The  trip  will  end  in  Lake  Mead,  from  where  by  bus  we'll  travel 
to  Las  Vegas,  to  fly  home—  sad  to  leave  the  Great  River  and  a  grand 
fortnight  of  our  lives,  but  happy  and  proud  to  have  experienced  it. 

Although  the  trip  will  not  be  rigorous,  numerous  innercanyon 
hikes  are  planned.  Camping  out  on  the  river  will  be  without  tents. 
Meals  will  be  excellent  A  pre-trip  meeting  at  Field  Museum  is 
scheduled  for  Saturday,  February  9,  at  2:30  p.m.  Dr.  Nitccki  will 
lead  the  trip.  The  cost  of  $1,500  covers  all  expenses  (including  air 
fare,  boat  fare,  meals,  camping,  sleeping  bags,  etc.),  and  a  donation 
of  $250.00  to  the  Field  Museum.  The  trip  is  limited  to  19  persons. 

For  additional  information  and  reservations  for  all 
tours,  call  or  write  Dorothy  Roder,  Field  Museum 
Tours,  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake  Shore  Dr.,  Chicago, 
III.  60605.  Phone  (312)922-9410. 


I'hrec  Xandi  lion  hunters,  cast  in  bronze  in  1925  by  Cart  E.  Aketey.  This  life-size 
group,  together  with  the  pair  of  lions  shown  opposite  and  the  triumphant  hunt- 
ers on  p.  8.  are  now  on  view  in  Hall  22. 


THE  SCULPTURE 

OF 

CARL  AKELEY 


Visitors  to  the  Hall  of  Mammals  (Hall  22)  are 
greeted  these  days  by  a  special  welcoming  commit- 
tee: weapon-brandishing  Nandi  tribesmen  and  two 
crouching  lions  who  seem  ready  to  spring.  But  not 
to  worry!  This  formidable  assemblage— though 
nearly  life-size  and  realistic  in  silhouette— is  cast  in 
bronze:  their  spears  are  forever  immobile  and  the 
lions  entirely  stationary. 

The  arresting  group  of  three  castings  was 
created  in  1925  by  famed  sculptor-artist-explorer- 
taxidermist  Carl  E.  Akeley,  Field  Museum's  staff 
taxidermist  1896-1909,  and  presented  the  following 
year  to  the  Museum  by  trustee  Richard  T.  Crane.  (A 
duplicate  set  is  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History.)  In  recent  years  the  group  has  been  in  Hall 
10,  now  closed  for  renovation. 

Just  months  before  his  untimely  death  in 
1926,  Akeley  wrote  the  following  account  of  lion 
hunting  by  the  Nandi  tribesmen  of  Uganda: 

The  story  of  lion  spearing  is  the  sort  of  thing 
that  is  worthy  of  being  recorded  in  bronze.  It  is  a 
story  of  red  blood  and  courage,  of  the  efficiency  of 
primitive  men  using  primitive  weapons,  weapons 
made  by  themselves  as  they  have  been  made  from 
time  immemorial.  The  story  in  brief  is  this:  a  naked 
man,  by  twirling  a  stick  between  the  palms  of  his 
hands,   with   the  end  of  the  stick  pressed  against 


another  of  softer  wood,  produces  fire  throuf^h  fric- 
tion. Charcoal  is  then  made,  and  in  a  crude  retort  of 
clav  he  smelts  the  iron  ore.  On  a  block  of  granite 
serving  as  an  anvil,  with  a  smaller  stone  as  a  ham- 
mer, he  fashions  crude  hammers  from  the  iron.  With 
these  as  his  only  tools  he  shapes  a  spear  which  is  to 
be  sharpened  finally  on  native  stones.  Thus  he 
makes  a  beautifully  balanced  weapon,  with  which  he 
goes  forth  to  kill  the  lion  that  has  raided  his  flocks 
and  herds.  He  takes  a  great  pride  in  the  achieve- 
ment, for  he  will  make  a  headdress  from  the  mane 
which  his  exploit  entitles  him  to  wear.  This  badge  of 
distinction  will  forever  command  the  respect  of  his 
fellows. 

When  lions  are  to  be  killed,  as  they  must  if 
civilization  is  to  replace  primitive  life,  the  most 
humane  method  yet  devised,  as  well  as  the  most 
sporting,  is  that  of  spearing.  The  time  elapsing  be- 
tween the  first  spear  thrust  and  the  end  may  be 
counted  in  seconds.  There  is  small  chance  of  the 
lion's  escaping  to  die  a  lingering  death  from  his 
wound,  as  so  often  happens  when  he  is  hunted  with 
guns.  If  there  are  two  or  three  natives  together,  it  is 
reasonably  certain  that  they  will  come  out  of  it 
without  a  scratch.  Shooting  is  not  nearly  as  safe  for 
the  hunter.  Moreover,  spearing  involves  a  fair  com- 
bat between  man  and  beast. 

In  the  spring  of  1910,  after  several  strenuous 
months  on  elephant  trails  in  Uganda,  I  went  back  to 
the  Uashin  Gishu  Plateau  for  a  lion  hunt  with  Nandi 
spearmen.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  securing  one  hun- 
dred men,  for  they  were  to  be  paid  and  fed  for  play- 
ing the  game  they  loved.  In  the  twenty  days  devoted 
to  the  work  there  were  many  tense  and  thrilling 
moments.  My  band  of  sportsmen  killed  ten  lions  and 
five  leopards.  Only  two  men  were  injured.  The  first 
day  out  a  leopard  ivas  surrounded  in  a  patch  of  bush, 
and  while  I  waited  in  the  open  for  what  was  sup- 
posed to  be  a  lion— as  it  should  be  driven  out  in  front 
of  the  camera  before  being  speared — there  was  a 
great  commotion.  A  few  minutes  later  the  beaters 


brought  out  a  leopard  with  sixty  spear  holes  in  his 
skin  and  one  of  the  Nandi  with  his  scalp  hanging 
over  his  eyes.  The  leopard  had  refused  to  be  driven 
and  had  given  a  good  account  of  himself  Prompt 
surgical  attention  to  the  wounded  Nandi  resulted  in 
a  speedy  recovery. 

Two  days  later  a  single  lion  was  brought  to 
bay  in  a  strip  of  forest  and  speared  before  the  camera 
could  be  brought  up  within  view  of  the  direction  he 
unexpectedly  took.  Then  for  several  days  we  hunted 
for  lions  u'ithout  success  until  one  morning,  as  the 
white  members  of  the  party  were  riding  along  in 
front  and  were  just  entering  the  bush  that  fringed  a 
donga,  we  met  face  to  face  a  band  of  lions  that 
promptly  took  to  cover  as  the  alarm  was  given.  In 
whatever  direction  a  lion  tried  to  escape  a  spearman 
bobbed  up  in  the  grass  in  front  of  him.  The  lions 
were  forced  to  fight  it  out.  Pandemonium  reigned  as 
the  Nandi.  shouting,  and  lions,  grunting  and  growl- 
ing, ran  helter-skelter  among  the  trees  and  high 
grass  while  I  tried  desperately  to  find  a  vantage  for 
the  motion  picture  camera.  When  it  was  all  over,  and 
we  took  stock,  we  found  that  we  had  the  memory  of 
a  few  glimpses  of  tawny  skins  but  no  pictures.  There 
were,  however,  three  lions  to  be  skinned,  and  we  had 
reason  to  believe  that  two  had  escaped. 

Again  as  we  rode  beside  a  wooded  donga  a  boy 
in  front  of  me  held  up  his  hand  in  warning.  As  I 
swung  off  my  horse  a  lion  grunted  close  by,  and  as  I 
was  adjusting  the  camera  a  lioness  came  straight 
toward  me,  within  ten  feet,  swerved  and  passed, 
then  turned  and  plunged  into  the  donga— all  before 
the  camera  could  be  adjusted.  Then  I  responded  to  a 
call  from  the  left  flank  and  hurried  the  camera  to  a 
point  overlooking  the  part  of  the  donga  where  a  lion 
had  taken  cover  in  the  high  grass  at  the  bottom.  I 
had  begun  cranking  the  camera  when  the  first  spear 
was  thrown.  The  spear  hit  the  target,  other  spears 
followed  quickly,  and  the  lion  never  left  his  tracks. 
It  was  all  over  in  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  it.  The 
film  shows  not  only  the  falling  spears  but  also  the 


movements  of  the  lion  in  the  grass.  Immediately  I 
was  summoned  to  another  group  of  spearmen  who 
were  holding  another  lion  at  bay  until  I  could  have 
my  camera  brought  into  position.  Again  a  film 
record  was  made. 

As  we  were  making  camp  near  by  and  the  two 
kills  were  being  brought  in  to  be  skinned  the  Nandi 
brought  in  a  third  lion  from  down  the  donga.  We 
learned  that  one  of  the  spearmen,  a  youth  who  had 
been  loitering  behind  when  the  lions  were  located. 
had  been  charged  by  a  lioness  as  he  was  running 
past  her.  He  had  killed  her,  but  she  had  bitten  his  leg 
before  she  died.  The  boy's  wounds  were  not  serious 
and  he  was  hunting  with  the  rest  a  few  days  later. 
He  was  now  entitled  to  wear  a  lion's  skin  headdress 
since  he  had  killed  a  lioness  alone. 

It  was  perhaps  a  week  later  that  we  were 
riding  along  the  slope  of  a  hill  overlooking  a  valley 
when  I  detected  a  moving  object  in  the  grass  at  the 
bottom  of  the  vallev.  We  soon  found  that  five  lions 


were  leisurely  making  their  way  up  the  opposite  hill. 
Four  of  them  succeeded  in  reaching  the  bush  along 
the  banks  of  a  small  stream  on  the  other  side  of  the 
hill  before  being  brought  to  bay  by  the  Nandi.  One 
had  turned  back  and  was  rounded  up  in  a  small 
patch  of  high  grass  near  the  crest  of  the  hill.  This 
was  a  splendid  chance  for  a  picture,  for  the  men 
could  have  held  him  there  almost  indefinitely  as 
thev  awaited  the  camera. 

As  I  was  breathlessly  adjusting  the  awkward 
thing,  one  spearman,  more  excitable  than  the  others, 
threw  his  spear.  Of  course,  the  rest  followed  and  the 
job  was  finished  before  the  camera  was  ready.  Again 
three  of  the  five  lions  had  been  taken,  but  no  film. 
This  was  our  last  encounter.  I  was  not  pleased  with 
the  results,  as  the  film  seemed  an  inadequate  record. 
Had  I,  however,  at  this  time  planned  to  make  a 
sculptural  record  of  lion  spearing,  I  should  not  have 
regarded  the  film  as  unworthy,  for  the  pictures  and 
other  data  were  highly  valuable  for  that  purpose.     12 


A  special  exhibit  o 
materials  on  Car 
Akeley.  primaril\ 
photos  and  publica 
tions,  is  now  on  view  ir 
the  F'ield  Museun- 
Library,  open  9:00  a.m 
to  4:00  p.m..  weekda\  s 


"Chrysalis."  a  W24  bronze  hx  Carl  Akele\ 


CARL  AKELEY 


as 


Naturalist,  Taxidermist,  Inventor 

Akeleys  museum  assistant  explains  how  the  flghting  bull 
elephants  in  Stanley  Field  Hall  were  mounted  more  than 

70  years  ago 


After  Cari,  Akeleys  Death  in  1926,  C.  L.  Dewey, 
who  had  worked  as  his  assistant  from  1903  to  1908, 
wrote  the  following  tribute,  which  appeared  under 
the  title  "My  Friend  Ake,"  in  the  December,  1927, 
Nature  Magazine: 

The  number  of  boys,  girls,  men  and  women 
who  have  wanted  to  work  for  and  with  Akeley,  is 
unbelievable.  Love  of  Nature,  love  of  the  outdoors, 
and  love  of  animals  were  the  first  things  that  Akeley 
inquired  about  of  the  applicant.  Then  he  wanted  to 
know  what  you  knew  about  the  job  that  you  wanted, 
and  this  generally  led  to  downfall.  I  came  out  of  the 
tall  sticks  to  ask  Akeley  for  a  job,  and  when  I  plead- 
ed ignorance  of  any  knowledge  whatsoever  of  the 
workings  of  taxidermy  and  kindred  arts,  he  said  he 
would  give  me  the  job  if  I  was  sure  that  I  knew 
nothing  about  it.  He  had  tried  for  some  years,  he 
said,  to  break  in  a  young  man  for  the  particular  job 


Akeley  uitk  trophy  in 
1906     in     Somo'lic 
during    Briti.J-     ;■.  ~. 
AO  African     Expeii: 


that  he  thought  I  might  fill,  but  they  all  knew  so 
much  about  the  work  they  couldn't  learn  anything 
from  him. 

The  first  trip  afield  that  I  made  with  Akeley 
was  into  the  lake  region  of  northern  Illinois  to  col- 
lect material  for  the  projected  Illinois  Bird  Room  for 
the  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  then  known 
as  the  Field  Columbian  Museum  of  Chicago.  This 
plan  of  presenting  the  birds  of  Illinois  in  their 
natural  surroundings,  with  photographically  repro- 
duced colored  transparent  background  and  com- 
plete data  pertaining  to  each  species,  though  shelv- 
ed when  partly  finished,  was  the  beginning  of  the 
plan  which  has  consummated  in  the  projected 
Roosevelt  African  Hall  in  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History  in  New  York  City,  and  for  which 
Akeley  gave  his  life. 

In  the  field  Akeley  was  supreme.  He  knew 
every  species  and  sub-species  of  birds,  just  when 
and  where  they  nested,  could  tell  from  even  a  partly- 
constructed  nest  what  species  was  building.  He 
knew  the  habits,  food,  nest  sites,  songs  and,  it  seem- 
ed to  me,  even  the  thoughts  of  the  birds  and  ani- 
mals. We  were  collecting  material  from  which  to  re- 
produce the  natural  surroundings  of  bird  homes. 
This  included  making  plaster  casts  of  leaves  and 
flowers,  taking  color  notes,  and  other  detailed  work. 
Akeley  knew  just  what  colors  of  oil  paint  and  what 
proportions  to  use  to  reproduce  in  colored  wax  the 
first  light  yellow  green  leaves  of  the  early-leafing 
willow  as  a  setting  for  the  early-nesting  yellow 
warbler,  or  the  dark  green  oak  leaf  of  the  mid- 
summer nesting  cedar  waxwing.  Nothing  escaped 
him  to  the  last  detail,  nothing  was  too  difficult  if  it 
accomplished  the  desired  results 

The  papier-mache  manikin  method  developed 
by  Akeley  through  years  of  experimenting  worked 
wonders  with  mammals  such  as  deer  and  antelope 
groups,  but  was  not  practical  for  the  immense  size 
of  a  bull  elephant.  Many  years  ago  Akeley  had 
mounted,  or  stuffed,  as  it  was  termed.  Jumbo,  the 
circus  elephant  that  tried  to  butt  off  the  track  a  full 
sized  locomotive  and  gave  up  his  elephantine  ghost 
in  the  attempt.  Since  then  Akeley  had  developed  in 
his  mind  a  complete  method  of  mounting  one  of 


these  huge  beasts  and  the  two  enormous  skins  and 
skulls  which  he  brought  back  from  Africa  in  1906 
gave  him  ample  opportunity  to  execute  his  plan.  He 
first  modeled  in  clay  accurate  replicas  in  miniature 
exactly  one-twelfth  size  of  the  original  animals, 
working  to  measurements  and  photos  taken  in 
Africa  immediately  after  the  elephants  were  shot. 
These  were  modeled  as  two  fighting  bulls,  one 
single-tusker  attacking  the  slightly  larger  bull, 
standing  on  three  feet,  one  foot  raised  sUghtly  off 
the  ground,  with  tusks  and  trunk  raised  in  the  air 
nearly  seventeen  feet  high.  Working  to  this  model 
we  laid  out  with  crayons  full  size  on  the  studio  floor, 
the  outUne  of  one  of  pachyderms,  and  inside  this 
outline  a  back  bone,  neck  and  legs  of  structural 
steel,  much  as  if  we  had  intended  to  build  a  steel 
bridge.  The  back  bone  and  corresponding  members 
in  the  elephant  s  "tummy"  were  made  of  two  four- 
inch  steel  channels,  back  to  back,  separated  by 
means  of  two  inch  by  four  inch  lumber,  about  thirty 
inches  long,  spaced  about  two  feet  apart  and  stand- 
ing vertically  like  spines  in  some  pre-historic 
dinosaur.  Heavy  bolts  passing  through  both  chan- 
nels between  each  pair  of  uprights  clamped  the 
uprights  securely,  and  permitted  adjustments  for 
working  out  details  in  contour.  The  ribs  were  work- 
ed out  with  curved  steel  angles  of  suitable  weight. 
Akeley  modeled  the  head  full  size  in  clay  over 
the  immense  skull  with  the  huge  tusks  in  position.  A 
plaster  cast  in  four  sections  was  then  made  of  the 
completed  model.  This  cast,  when  hardened  and 
removed,  served  as  a  mold  or  form  into  which  was 
fabricated  a  Light  steel  frame-work  following  out  in 
detail  the  plaster  mold.  This  steel-head-skeleton  was 
then  added  to  the  body  structure  and  in  this  manner 
the  complete  steel  skeleton  was  constructed.  The 
body  or  shell  was  formed  of  one  inch  square  wire 
loosely  woven  so  that  it  was  capable  of  warping 
without  buckling.  The  ears  were  made  of  lighter 
wire  mesh  over  a  light  steel  frame,  as  was  the  trunk, 
two  small  steel  pipes  running  the  fuU  length  of  the 
trunk,  raised  high  in  the  air.  Over  this  entire  steel 


and  mesh  frame  was  plastered  by  hand  a  mixture  of 
plaster  of  Paris  and  tow,  this  being  like  unwoven 
rope,  to  a  thickness  of  about  one  inch. 

When  this  was  completed,  there  stood  an 
elephant  minus  his  hide,  twelve  times  the  size  of  the 
working  model  and  exactly  his  counterpart  as  he 
roamed  the  slopes  of  Kenya  for  probably  more  than 
a  century. 

It  is  a  problem  successfully  to  bring  out  of 
Africa  the  skin  of  an  elephant  in  condition  fit  to 
mount.  These  huge  hides  are  from  an  inch  to  two 
inches  in  thickness  when  removed  from  the  carcass. 
They  are  cut  in  five  or  six  pieces  and  immediately 
work  must  be  started  in  the  dense  wet  bamboo 
forests  to  pare  the  skin  down  by  hand  to  a  thickness 
of  about  one  half  inch.  These  are  then  heavily  salted 
and  loosely  rolled  together,  bound  securely  in  native 
cloth,  and  made  ready  for  transportation  many 
miles  to  the  nearest  point  where  oxen  could  be 
secured.  Each  section  would  weigh  several  hundred 
pounds  and  be  carried  by  eight  or  ten  native  porters 
for  the  magnificent  sum  of  thirty  cents  per  month 
—  and  grub. 

To  mount  "green"  skins  is  not  practical,  so 
Akeley  developed  a  special  method  of  tanning  never 
before  used.  As  a  result  the  elephant  skins  were 
turned  into  a  high  grade  leather  hide  presenting  the 
same  exterior  as  worn  by  "Tembo"  in  his  native 
haunts  — sparse,  stiff  hairs,  wrinkles,  warts,  tick- 
holes  and  all.  The  big  sections  of  skin  were  first  laid 
in  their  proper  position  on  the  finished  manikin  and 
by  means  of  huge  syringes  somewhat  like  the  pres- 
ent day  auto  grease  gun,  a  mixture  of  hydrated  plas- 
ter of  Paris  and  glue  was  shot  in  under  the  skin 
through  small  slits  easily  closed,  and  then  the  skin 


Akeley's  fighting 
bull  elephants, 
secured  in  Africa  in 
1906  and  now  on 
view  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall. 


Lower  left:  Akeley 
relaxes  at  day's  end. 


11 


(o  tmfrgt  thf  I  If  for 

in  htf  Ifm  match 

iritA  th*  Ift^pani 

WmponUtt.  h* 

tubdufd  (ht  SO-pound 

h.:  •<  iHroat 

V  it  tilth 

tht  otktr. 


12 


wi'k-d  into  shafX'  \*ilh  numtTous  wrinkk's  as  in  ac- 
tual life,  the  plaster  of  Pari<i  and  glue  hardening  and 
holding  the  skin  in  exact  position  Akeley  did  prac- 
tically all  of  this  modeling  with  his  own  hands.  The 
edges  of  each  section  were  then  sewed  together  with 
hidden  stitches  and  filled  with  colored  beeswax  so 
that  when  finished  even  the  most  critical  eye  could 
not  detect  the  seams  As  a  rural  visitor  once  said. 
■  That  old  bull  looks  just  like  he  growed  into  his 
hide". 

There  have  been  many  stories  told  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  cement-g^Ji-  the  invention  for  which 
Akeley  -eceived  the  Scott  Medal  issued  by  the 
Franklin  Institute  of  Philadelphia.  The  generally  ac- 


i-pted  story  IS  that  .^keley  developt>d  this  for  use  in 
constructing  plustt-r  manikins  for  huge  mammals 
•.uch  us  flt'phunls  and  rhinos,  but  this  is  not  true.  At 
n«i  tinif  did  .-Xkclfy  st-riously  consider  this,  but  it 
made  an  acceptable  story  so  he  lei  it  go  at  that 

The  Field  Columbian  Museum  of  Chicago  in 
litOT  iHCupicd  the  old  .Art  Building  built  in  1892  for 
ihf  Chicago  World  s  Fair,  consirucit'd  of  brick  with 
plastiTwl  fXlerior,  the  planter  of  Paris  or  staff  col- 
li inns  and  trim  It  present«Hl  a  sorry  spectacle  in 
1907  One  day  F.  J.  V.  Skiff,  the  Director  of  the 
Mu.seum.  was  in  .Akeley  s  studio  where  we  were 
mounting  the  pair  of  .African  elephants,  now  the 
ci-nter  of  all  exhibits  in  the  new  Field  .Museum.  I 
was  at  the  time  using  an  enlarged  handmade  atom- 
izer operated  by  compressed  air.  to  paint  some 
imitation  rocks  for  another  group  under  construc- 
tion, using  a  combination  of  thin  colored  plaster  of 
I'uns  Mr  Skiff,  who  generally  brought  all  of  his 
troubles  to  .Akeley.  was  Uulking  about  the  complaint 
t  hat  he  received  from  the  South  Park  Board  regard- 
ing the  condition  of  the  exterior  of  the  Museum.  He 
said  that  no  painting  or  plastering  contractor  could 
lie  found  who  would  take  the  chance  on  the  job.  and 
while  t.alking  he  suddenly  said.  "Ake.  why  can  t  you 
and  Dewey  make  a  big  machine  like  that  squirt-gun 
that  Dewey  is  using,  and  paint  this  old  shack  with 
plaster  of  Pans?"  It  never  look  much  of  a  hint  to 
slarl  .Akeley  off  on  a  new  idea,  so  at  once  we  started 
to  develop  a  big  "squirt-gun."  These  walls  consisted 
of  plaster,  brick,  concrete,  wood,  tin,  iron,  coppier, 
tar  paper  and  about  everything  that  could  be 
assembled  together  on  one  building,  and  as  this 
structure  covered  several  acres  there  was  ample 
■-pace  for  a  generous  assortment. 

The  method  of  mixing  plaster  and  water  in  a 
container  under  pressure  and  then  spraying  out  in  a 
hydrated  stale,  worked  fairly  well  when  only  a  few 
feet  of  hose  was  used,  but  when  this  was  attempted 
with  the  machine  on  the  ground  and  the  nozzle  oper- 
ator fifty  or  seventy-five  feet  up  on  a  swinging  scaf- 
fold, the  plaster  began  to  set  in  the  hose  after  a  few 
minutes'  operation  and  soon  the  hose  plugged  tight. 
We  then  worked  out  a  method  of  shooting  hydrated 
plaster  through  the  hose  for  a  few  minutes  and  then 
by  means  of  a  three-way  valve  we  shot  through 
water  to  clean  out  the  hose,  and  then  back  to  the 
hydrated  plaster  again.  This,  however,  was  a  very 
messy  operation  and  was  abandoned.  Then  one 
morning  .Ake  came  in  and  said.  "We  re  on  the  wTong 
track  What  we  want  to  do  is  build  a  machine  to  han- 
dle dry  plaster  Shoot  it  through  a  hose  to  a  nozzle 
where  it  will  mix  with  water  coming  to  the  nozzle 
through  a  separate  hose,  the  volume  of  water  to  be 
controlled  at  the  nozzle  with  water  pressure  greater 
than  the  air  pressure  carrying  the  plaster,  and  have 
them  mix  partly  in  the  nozzle  and  finish  up  in  the  air 
and  on  the  wall.  I  have  an  idea  for  a  nozzle,  and  it's 
up  to  you  to  build  a  machine  to  feed  plaster  evenly." 
In  less  than  two  weeks  or.  to  be  exact,  on  June  24th, 
1907.  the  "cement-gun  "  was  put  in  operation  and 
worked  about  an  hour  before  it  broke  down,  but  this 
was  long  enough  to  prove  that  the  theory  of 
hydrating  plastic  material  in  transit  was  practical, 
and  resulting  from  this  were  basic  patents  which 
have  never  been  successfully  contested  . .  . 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Star  Burst  May  Have 
Wiped  out  Dinosaurs 

A  star  exploding  65  million  years  ago 
may  have  sounded  the  death  knell  for 
dinosaurs,  according  to  researchers  at 
the  University  of  California.  Limestone 
samples  from  a  thousand-foot-high  road 
cut  in  Italy  indicate  that  the  extinction 
of  the  huge  reptiles  coincides  with  a 
twenty-fold  increase  in  the  amount  of 
iridium.  Iridium  is  an  extremely  rare 
metal  on  Earth,  but  is  believed  to  be 
about  three  thousand  times  more  com- 
mon in  the  rest  of  the  solar  system.  The 
high  concentrations  discovered,  there- 
fore, are  thought  to  have  come  from  an 
outside  source  such  as  an  exploding  star, 
which  would  also  produce  deadly 
amounts  of  cosmic  radiation.  Dinosaurs, 
with  their  slow  reproductive  rate,  would 
have  been  especially  harmed,  making 
room  for  their  more  adaptable  competi- 
tors, the  early  mammals,  to  evolve. 


Atlantis  Revisited? 

Underwater  photographers  from  the 
Soviet  Union,  reports  Conservation 
News,  think  they  may  have  discovered 
the  lost,  mysterious  continent  of  Atlan- 
tis described  by  Plato  more  than  2.000 
years  ago.  Russian  oceanographers,  in- 
cluding a  scientist  specializing  in  unex- 
plained maritime  phenomena,  have  been 
interpreting  eight  underwater  photo- 
graphs taken  from  a  diving  bell  near  the 
island  of  Madeira,  southwest  of  Por- 
tugal. They  have  found  ruined,  flattened 
remnants  of  stonewalls  or  bridges  and 
stairways  at  the  exact  spot  indicated  by 
Plato  in  his  writings.  The  scientists 
believe  that  a  chain  of  flat-topped  moun- 
tains now  100-200  meters  below  the  sur- 
face are  geological  evidence  that  Atlan- 
tis may  have  been  more  than  a  myth  — 
that  it  actually  did  sink  into  the  sea  due 
to  upheavals  along  the  ocean  floor. 


Salmon  Returned  to  Thames 

The  first  run  of  salmon  into  the  Thames 
River  for  140  years  is  the  aim  of  a  proj- 
ect currently  under  way  in  Britain.  Late 
last  month  some  50.000  one-year-old  sal- 
mon were  released  into  the  Thames,  and 
fisheries  authorities  hope  that  after  a  so- 
journ at  sea  these  fish  will  return  to  the 
river  as  adults  to  spawn. 

The  Thames  was  once  famous  for  its 
salmon  fishing.  But  the  Industrial  revo- 
lution put  an  end  to  that.  Now  tests  on 
the  quality  of  the  river's  water  indicate 
that  the  clean-up  campaign  of  recent 
years  has  reduced  pollution  levels  to  a 
point  where  salmon  may  once  again  be 
able  to  live,  and  breed,  in  the  Thames. 


Lasers  and  Computers  Used  in 
Bird-Power  Line  Collision  Study 

Using  a  laser  beam  and  a  compact  com- 
puter, the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service 
IFWS)  has  begun  a  project  that  will  at- 
tempt to  simulate  the  effects  a  high- 
voltage  power  line  might  have  on  birds. 
Each  year,  it  is  estimated,  thousands  of 
birds  die  or  are  injured  when  they  strike 
power  lines.  Until  now,  wildlife 
biologists  could  merely  speculate  about 
the  magnitude  of  this  problem,  but  by 
employing  space-age  technology  new  in- 
formation is  close  at  hand. 

A  power  transmission  line  located  in 
an  area  with  a  diversity  of  wildlife  and 
across  a  major  migratory  route  can 
prove  to  be  a  major  obstacle.  A  variety 
of  birds  have  been  injured  or  killed  from 
striking  fixed  objects  such  as  power 
lines.  Such  occurrences  have  been 
documented  at  several  locations  and  are 
not  merely  isolated  situations. 

"Bird  strikes  with  fixed  objects 
such  as  power  lines  are  quite  common," 
according  to  Carl  Korschgen.  FW.s 
biologist  and  coordinator  for  the  project. 


"No  bird  species  seems  immune  to  colli- 
sion with  power  lines.  Songbirds,  eagles, 
ducks,  and  geese;  all  sorts  of  birds  have 
been  known  to  strike  power  lines." 

Korschgen  gave  the  grisly  details 
about  bird  strikes:  "The  effects  on  birds 
can  be  davastating;  what  we  are  talking 
about  is  decapitation,  broken  wings, 
broken  necks,  and  other  violent  after- 
effects. These  birds  are  traveling  40  to 
70  miles  per  hour  and  any  contact  with  a 
fixed  object  is  going  to  kill  or  maim." 

The  laser  beam  will  project  a  two- 
inch  diameter  beam  of  light  across  a 
3/4-mile  stretch  of  the  Mississippi  River 
where  bird  movement  during  migration 
can  be  quite  heavy.  The  beam  is  coupled 
to  a  computer  that  will  record  the  total 
elapsed  time  the  beam  is  interrupted 
when  a  bird  or  other  object  passes.  This 
will  provide  researchers  evidence  regard- 
ing the  size  and  type  of  bird  passing  by. 
The  computer  will  provide  a  readout 
every  10  minutes  as  well  as  a  total 
readout  since  the  project  began. 

The  interruption  of  the  laser  beam 
also  triggers  the  shutter  of  a  camera 
with  a  1 200  mm  lens  focused  to  record  on 
black  and  white  film  any  object  passing 
through  the  beam.  The  unit  is  quite  sen- 
sitive and  could  be  triggered  by  falling 
leaves  and  other  objects,  but  the  film 
record  will  help  to  clarify  this  possibility. 
The  laser  beam  projection  is  positioned 
45  feet  above  the  water  surface.  The  unit 
is  manned  part-time,  but  is  capable  of 
remote  operation  for  periods  up  to  seven 
days.  The  laser  beam  poses  no  known 
threat  to  birds  as  they  pass  through  the 
beam.  It  is  a  low-powered  laser  system 
similar  to  devices  used  in  commercial 
telecommunications  systems. 

Invisible  to  the  human  eye.  the  beam 
will  simulate  the  effects  of  a  power  line 
under  the  "worst  of  conditions."  such  as 
dense  fog.  which  makes  birds  highly 
vulnerable  to  striking  fixed  objects. 
"Weather  does  play  an  important  part; 
under  certain  conditions  and  migration 


~"~^. 


13 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 

patterns,  birds  will  fly  lower  and  collide 
more  often,"  Korschgen  said.  Korschgen 
pointed  out  that  birds  can  and  will  strike 
power  lines  under  ideal  weather  condi- 
tions. 

Open  water  crossings  in  important 
flyways  are  of  particular  concern  to 
biologists,  but  the  data  from  the  project 
will  be  applied  to  all  flyway  corridors 
and  critical  areas  where  power  lines  may 
be  constructed.  According  to  Fws  of- 
ficials, the  technology'  and  techniques 
learned  from  this  project  will  allow 
biologists  to  get  in  on  the  ground  floor  of 
powerline  project  planning  to  alleviate 
possible  problems  before  they  occur. 
Biologists  are  hopeful  that  they  can 
monitor  bird  activity  before,  during,  and 
after  construction  and  learn  a  great  deal 
about  the  sensory  perception  of  birds. 
The  four-year  study  will  be  a  joint  effort 
by  the  FWs.  the  National  Aeronautics 
and  Space  Administration  (N.^S-M  and 
Northern  States  Power  Company. 


Chemical  By-Product  of  PCBs  Found 
in  U.S.  Fish  for  First  Time 

Little-known  contaminants  called  poly- 
chlorinated  dibenzofurans  (PCDFsl  have 
been  detected  in  fish  from  U.S.  waters 
for  the  first  time,  an  international  team 
of  scientists  recently  reported. 

PCDFs  are  chemical  by-products  of 
widespread,  toxic  industrial  chemicals 
known  as  polychlorinated  biphenyls 
(i'CBsl.  They  were  detected  by  David 
Stalling  of  the  U.S.  Fish  and"  Wildlife 
Service's  National  Fisheries  Research 
Laboratory  in  Columbia,  Missouri,  and 
Ralph  Dougherty  of  Florida  State 
University,  Tallahassee.  Christopher 
Rappe  of  Sweden  and  Douglas  Kuehl  of 
the  Environmental  Protection  Agency 
iKF.At  are  also  collaborating  in  the  in- 
vestigation. 


Although  the  occurrence  of  PCDFs  in 
the  aquatic  environment  in  the  United 
States  has  been  suspected  previously, 
this  is  the  first  time  it  has  been  con- 
firmed. PCDFs  were  detected  in  carp, 
catfish,  lake  trout,  and  coho  salmon  col- 
lected in  areas  of  the  North  Central  and 
Northeastern  United  States  where  PCB 
pollution  historically  has  been  a  problem. 
The  detection  was  possible  now  only 
through  the  scientists'  use  of  sophisti- 
cated new  techniques  of  negative-ion 
high  resolution  mass  spectrometry. 

Stalling  and  Rappe  emphasized  that 
they  are  not  yet  certain  whether  the  con- 
taminants in  their  samples  are  hazardous 
to  fish  or  other  aquatic  organisms.  Some 
PCDF  compounds  are  considered  far 
more  toxic  than  the  parent  PCI)  —  a  few 
up  to  500  times  more  toxic  than  the  most 
potent  PCBs.  Studies  at  the  National 
Institute  of  Environmental  Health  Sci- 
ences and  several  universities  have 
shown  certain  PCDFs  to  be  highly  toxic 
to  guinea  pigs  and  rats. 

"There  are  135  PCDF  compounds,  " 
Stalling  said,  "We  have  not  yet  identi- 
fied the  individual  chemical  structures  of 
the  PCDFs  in  our  samples,  so  we  cannot 
be  sure  which  of  the  135  are  present  or 
whether  they  might  have  toxic  effects." 
The  extent  of  PCDFs  presence  in  the 
environment  is  not  known.  It  is  known, 
however,  that  the  parent  PCB  compounds 
have  been  used  in  a  wide  variety  of  in- 
dustrial equipment  and  products  over 
the  past  50  years.  Use  of  PCBs  is  now 
tightly  controlled  by  the  EP.ii  through 
the  Toxic  Substances  Control  Act  of 
1976.  PCDFs  are  known  to  be  produced  by 
oxidation  of  PCBs  and  thus  can  be  formed 
when  materials  containing  PCBs  are 
burned,  especially  at  low  temperatures. 
"We  know  that  very  high  tempera- 
ture burning,  if  done  for  long  enough, 
will  completely  destroy  PCBs,"  Stalling 
said.  "However,  Rappe  has  demonstrat- 
ed that  low  temperature  combustion  in 


14 


the  400°-to-600°  C-range  can  convert  25 
percent  of  PCBs  to  PCDFs. 

Stalling  and  Rappe  are  currently 
working  to  identify  the  chemical  struc- 
tures of  the  PCDFs  in  their  samples. 
"Once  specific  PCDFs  in  fish  are  iden- 
tified," Stalling  said,  "laboratory  scien- 
tists will  have  a  better  idea  how  they  are 
formed  and  which  structures  should  be 
tested  for  possible  toxic  effects  in  fish 
and  other  aquatic  organisms." 


God's  Dog  Moves  East 

The  Navajo  call  him  "God's  Dog." 
echoed  in  his  scientific  name,  Canis 
latrans  ("barking  dog").  However,  his 
more  romantic  common  name  derives 
from  Coyotl,  sacred  god  of  the  Aztecs. 
He  is  the  coyote,  that  indispensable  part 
of  a  Western  desert  night.  However,  this 
adaptable  creature  has  now  made  his 
home  in  the  East. 

Since  the  turn  of  the  century,  the 
coyote  has  pushed  eastward  from  the 
Great  Lakes  region  to  reach  the  Atlan- 
tic. Moving  southeastward  from  On- 
tario, it  has  become  firmly  established  in 
northern  New  England,  and  been 
sighted  in  every  state  northeast  of 
Virginia.  Filling  in  part  the  predatory 
role  of  the  extinct  eastern  timber  wolf, 
its  expansion  of  range  parallels  the 
return  of  forests  to  more  than  80  percent 
of  Northern  New  England. 

Eastern  coyotes  were  first  taken  in 
New  York  in  1925,  New  Hampshire  in 
1944,  Connecticut  in  1956,  and  New 
Jersey  in  1958.  In  northern  New 
England,  it  is  now  a  relatively  common 
animal,  with  over  300  killed  by  hunters, 
trappers,  and  autos  in  Maine  alone  dur- 
ing 1977.  Although  more  rare  in 
southern  New  England  and  the  mid- 
Atlantic  states,  it  has  become  a  breeding 
resident  in  forested,  less  populous  areas. 

What  exactly  is  this  new  creature 
prowling  the  Northeastern  woods?  In- 
formation on  its  ancestry  has  come  from 
cranial  studies  and  observations  of 
growth  and  behaviorial  development 
patterns.  Notions  of  werewolves  aside,  it 
first  was  proposed  that  the  eastern 
coyote  was  a  "coy-dog,  "  a  fertile  hybrid 
resulting  from  the  mating  of  a  coyote 
and  a  domestic  dog.  However,  not  show- 
ing the  extreme  variability  exhibited  by 
coyote-dog  hybrids,  these  wild  canids 
breed  true,  their  offspring  uniform  in 
looks  resembling  the  parents.  Eastern 
coyotes  and  coy-dogs  also  have  distinct- 
ly different  behaviors.  Behavioral  and 
physical  differences  between  western 
coyotes  and  the  eastern  variety  have 
also  discounted  the  theory  that  eastern 
ones  are  simply  oversized  western  ones. 

Eventually,  its  larger  size  and  howl- 
ing pattern  led  biologists  to  suspect  that 
this  wild  canid  might  have  acquired  wolf 
antecedents  during  its  relatively  slow 
eastward  movement  through  marginal 


wolf  range  in  northern  Minnesota  and 
southern  Canada.  In  1971,  biologists  at 
Harvard  University  verified  the  wolf's 
genetic  influence  through  skull  and 
tooth  structure  analysis.  "This  animal 
combines  the  crafty  cunning,  prolificacy, 
and  adaptation  of  his  western  cousins 
with  extra  size  and  strength  contributed 
by  the  wolf  genes  that  course  through 
his  blood,  "  writes  Jerome  Robinson, 
Sports  Afield  editor. 

Behavioral  and  physical  data  from  a 
1960s  study  by  New  Hampshire  bio- 
logists Walter  and  Helenette  Silver  also 
favored  acceptance  of  a  predominantly 
western  coyote  ancestry  for  New  Eng- 
land's wild  canid,  with  acquisition  of 
some  dog  or  wolf  genes.  The  Silvers' 
conclusion:  "Despite  evidence  of 
hybridization  at  some  distant  time,  it  is 
now  established  as  a  true  breeding 
form."  They  suggested  it  be  considered 
a  form  of  coyote,  be  designated  Canis 
latrans  van,  and  be  called  eastern 
coyote. 

The  eastern  coyote's  size  falls  be- 
tween the  western  coyote  and  the  wolf. 
Overall,  it  more  closely  resembles  the 
coyote,  but  the  wolf  portion  surfaces  in 
its  rounder,  more  ungainly  paws, 
broader  muzzle  and  nosepad,  greater 
height  and  weight,  and  darker  coat. 
Males  average  31  pounds  and  females  28 
pounds  — 50  and  70  percent  larger 
respectively  than  their  western  rela- 
tives. 

The  Silvers  found  that  coyote-like 
behavior  predominated,  including  such 
factors  as  early  establishment  of  a 
dominance  hierarchy,  aggressiveness, 
spring  whelping,  and  male  care  of 
young.  Eastern  coyotes  shake,  scratch, 
and  groom  less  than  dogs,  wave  instead 
of  wag  their  tails,  and  are  attracted  to 
perfume  (as  are  wolves,  but  not 
dogs!). They  begin  howling  in  unison  at 
age  two  months,  mainly  after  sunset  and 
less  often  during  the  winter,  in  a  voice 
pitched  between  that  of  wolves  and 
coyotes. 

Eastern  coyotes  breed  once  a  year, 
during  February,  with  their  63-day 
gestation  period  ensuring  that  pups  are 
born  during  warmer  weather.  Litter  size 
ranges  from  four  to  ten,  with  six  or 
seven  average.  Females  make  only  rudi- 
mentary dens,  often  scraping  a  hole  in 
the  snow  under  a  fallen  log.  Males  share 
in  raising  the  litter,  which  is  weaned  in 
July,  with  families  breaking  up  in  the 
fall.  Coy-dog  hybrids,  meanwhile,  show  a 
three-month  shift  in  their  breeding 
cycle.  Because  hybrid  males  do  not  help 
raise  young  born  in  a  hostile  January 
environment,  the  pups  have  little  chance 
of  survival. 

In  response  to  hunter  concern  that 
coyotes  could  adversely  affect  deer 
herds,  studies  have  emphasized  food 
habits.  Stomach  content  analyses  have 
shown  the  animals  to  be  adaptable,  op- 
portunistic feeders  that  eat  whatever  is 
seasonably  abundant.  Because  they  seek 


the  most  available  food  source,  coyotes 
serve  as  both  predators  and  scavengers. 

Many  studies  show  bias  because 
samples  were  collected  in  the  fall  when 
hunter-killed  deer  are  readily  available. 
"Stomach  contents  show  only  what  an 
animal  has  eaten,  not  necessarily  what  it 
killed,  "  warns  New  Hampshire  biologist 
Joseph  Wiley.  The  presence  of  maggots 
and  carrion  beetles  in  much  of  the  deer 
consumed  indicates  that  it  was  in  car- 
rion form.  Here's  what  eastern  coyotes 
have  been  found  to  eat:  snowshoe  hare, 
squirrel,  raccoon,  opposum,  woodchuck, 
skunk,  beaver,  porcupine,  mouse,  mole, 
vole,  birds,  deer,  cat,  rabbit,  insects, 
grass,  hay,  leaves,  pine  needles  and 
cones,  apples,  raspberries,  blueberries, 
grapes,  corn,  wood  chips,  garbage,  plas- 
tic bags,  paper,  and  sand!  Approximate- 
ly one-fourth  of  the  stomachs  in  each 
study  were  empty. 

Deer  is  a  major  staple  after  the 
hunting  season,  when  carrion  and 
hunters'  cripples  are  easy  pickings. 
"None  of  the  information  gathered  from 
the  Maine  deer  harvest  shows  that 
predation  is  the  limiting  factor  control- 
ling deer  numbers  throughout  any 
management  unit  in  the  state,  "  reports 
the  Maine  Department  of  Inland 
Fisheries  and  Wildlife.  The  New  Hamp- 
shire Fish  and  Game  Department  con- 
curs, stating  that  this  new  predator  is 
not  a  serious  threat  to  state  game  popu- 
lations, with  reported  annual  deer  kill  by 
coyotes  less  than  one  percent  of  the  non- 
hunting  kill  (vs.  14  percent  by  domestic 
dogs  and  67  percent  by  cars). 

In  fact,  it's  actually  the  other  way 
around:  coyotes  are  themselves  Umited 
by  the  amount  of  vulnerable  prey.  Ac- 
cording to  Robinson,  their  expansion 
throughout  the  Northeast  indicates  an 
excess  of  prey  not  being  taken  by  man  or 
other  predators  exists  for  coyotes 
to  exploit. 

This  is  not  to  say  coyotes  never  kill 
deer.  Packs  can  bring  down  deer  on  ice, 
downslopes,  or  on  open  ground.  Accord- 
ing to  Maine  biologist  Henry  Hilton, 
main  effects  on  deer  occur  between 
January  and  March,  when  deer  are 
weakest  and  most  vulnerable,  and  nutri- 
tional needs  of  pregnant  coyotes 
greatest.  Single  coyotes  often  unsuc- 
cessfully chase  deer,  but  during  the 
breeding  season  when  they  form  small 
packs,  they  are  more  successful.  Winter- 
starved  deer  restricted  to  yarding  areas 
by  deep  snow  are  often  the  most  vul- 
nerable and  available  food  in  March. 

State  game  managers  monitoring 
effects  of  coyotes  on  other  wildlife  are 
not  too  concerned.  In  fact,  "Many 
knowledgeable  people  think  the  New 
England  deer  herd  could  only  be 
benefited  by  the  return  of  an  effective 
wild  predator... who  would  eliminate  the 
weak,  diseased,  and  genetically  abnor- 
mal, "  writes  Hope  Ryden  in  (Sod's  Dog. 
"By  weeding  out  the  'culls'  of  the  animal 
world  and  leaving  the  best  of  their  prey 


.;„^ 


,^^,E\*M-:-:^lJ 
/rVJ^  Mi  w-^^^ ■■■  ,< 


species  to  reproduce,  coyotes  help  mam- 
tain  healthy  wildlife  populations," 
writes  Wiley,  who  continues:  "Evidence 
is  heavily  against  the  coyote  being  a 
significant  predator,  especially  on  deer, 
and  in  favor  of  its  being  of  considerable 
ecological  value  in  controlling  vermin 
and  insects." 

Local  response  to  this  new  resident 
has  varied,  reflected  in  the  legal  status 
accorded  the  eastern  coyote.  The  animal 
is  fully  protected  in  Massachusetts  and 
New  Jersey,  but  in  New  Hampshire,  Ver- 
mont, and  Maine,  it's  open  season  year- 
round  —  coyotes  may  be  taken  by  any 
legal  means  at  any  time  in  any  number. 

When  the  first  specimen  was  shot  in 
Maine  in  1972,  "People  came  from  miles 
around  to  revile  and  spit  on  its 
remains,  "  reports  Ryden.  While  a  bill  to 
introduce  a  bounty  was  defeated,  "This 
victory  merely  prevented  a  money 
reward  from  becoming  an  added  incen- 
tive for  those  who  wished  to  destroy  the 
animal."  In  1961,  the  New  Hampshire 
legislature,  lacking  a  better  definition  of 
the  species,  passed  a  $10  bounty  on 
"timber  and  prairie  wolves."  The  law 
was  amended  four  years  later  after 
"People  began  to  shoot  their  neighbors' 
dogs  and  present  the  bodies  for  money," 
Ryden  adds.  Because  its  f.elage  ranges 
from  dark  gray  to  red  brown,  the  eastern 
coyote  is  not  especially  sought  after 
as  a  fur. 

An  old  Indian  legend  states  that  the 
adaptable  coyote  will  be  the  last  animal 
on  Earth.  Hopefully,  some  living 
arrangement  can  be  reached  between 
Northeastern  residents  and  the  eastern 
coyote  so  this  prediction  will  not  be 
proved  false.  — Su.sa«  M.  O'Connell, 
National  Wildlife  Federation  15 


South  Pacific  Islands 

such  as  these,  clearlv 

hostile  to  human 

habitation,  are 

difficult  to  reconcile 

with  the  idea  of 

paradise. 


National  Endowment 

for  the  Humanities  (NEH) 

Learning  Museum  Program  Continues  with 

SOUTH  SEAS  ISLANDS:  PARADISE  AND  PERDITION 


by    Anthon\;  Pfeiffer 
project  coordinator 


v^^^-V 


16 


The  South  Sea  Islands,  to  many  of  us,  are 
paradise  on  earth:  romantic  islands  characterized 
by  harmony,  peace,  innocence  and  situated  in 
balmy  tropical  splendor.  As  James  A.  Michener 
wrote,  ".  Polynesia's  influence  on  world  thought 
is  far  greater  than  its  size  would  warrant.  Musical 
names  like  Tahiti,  Rarotonga,  Bora  Bora  carry  an 
emotional  freight  to  all  cold  countries  of  the 
world.  ..." 

Beginning  February  8  you  have  a  chance  to 
forget  the  snow.  rain,  and  cold  winds  of  Chicago's 
winter  without  having  to  journey  to  the  South  Seas. 
To  establish  the  mood,  "Paradise  Explored:  Films 
of  the  South  Pacific."  is  offered  in  Field  Museum's 
latest  Learning  Museum  Program  This  festival  of 
film  begins  with  a  Friday  night  screening  of  the 
1958  film  adaptation  of  "South  Pacific,"  Rodgers' 
and  Hammerstein's  Broadway  musical.  The  songs 
and  the  events  depicted  call  forth  our  popular 
stereotypes  of  the  Pacific-as-Paradise- notions 
which  are  revealed  as  one-sided,  as  the  film  festival 
goes  :nto  its  second  day.  Six  subsequent  hours  of 
film  the  early  exploration  of  the  Pacific, 


island  life  as  it  once  was.  and  the  complex  impact  of 
the  modern  world  on  native  lands.  We  see  that,  like 
anywhere  else  in  the  world,  the  best  and  the  worst 
in  human  nature  is  to  be  found  in  the  Pacific.  Along 
with  the  pristine  grandeur  of  palm-shaded  beaches 
and  seductively  appealing  life  styles,  there  is  also 
cannibalism,  isolation,  disease,  and  famine.  We 
recognize  perdition  as  much  as  paradise. 

Michener   puts   the    paradise-and-perdition 
contrast  with  reference  to  a  particular  island  group: 
If  paradise  consists  soleli^  of  beauty,  then  these 
islands  were  the  fairest  paradise  that  man  ever 
invaded        But  if  the  concept  of  paradise  in- 
cludes also  the  ability'  to  sustain  life,  then  these 
islands       were  far  from  heavenly.  .Of  all  the 
things  that  grew  on  their  magnificent  hillsides, 
nothing  could  be  relied  upon  to  sustain  life 
adequatel[^. 
Elsewhere  Michener  comments.  "You  would  have 
to  call  it  paradise  even  though  most  of  you  may 
never  want  to  see  it  again." 

The    festival    of   film    leads   into   a    lecture 
course  taught  by  Joyce  Hammond,   whose  field 


work  in  Oceania  has  included  French  Polynesia, 
the  Marshall  Islands  in  Micronesia,  and  a  ten-month 
stay  among  the  Maori  of  New  Zealand.  Ms. 
Hammond  begins  the  course  by  considering  the 
European  exploration  of  the  South  Sea  Islands. 
The  course  examines  who  the  explorers  were, 
where  they  went,  why  they  stopped  at  some  places 
and  not  at  others,  as  well  as  what  discoveries  and 
tales  of  adventure  they  brought  to  the  world. 
Thousands  of  islands  are  almost  lost  in  the  incred- 
ible desolation  of  65  million  square  miles  of  sea. 
The  Pacific  Ocean  covers  one-third  of  the  earth's 
surface  Its  peaceful  name  is  a  glaring  misnomer. 
Darwin  depicted  it  as  "all-powerful  and  never 
tiring"  and  as  "a  tedious  waste,  a  desert  of  water." 

A  rich  cultural  heritage  of  art  and  literature 
has  nurtured  our  myths  of  paradise.  The  Bounti; 
Trilogy,  The  Swiss  Famil\;  Robinson,  and  Mobx; 
Dick,  to  mention  a  few  classic  books,  lead  us  to 
associate  the  Pacific  with  high  adventure,  nobility, 
and  romance.  And  yet  Lord  of  the  Flies.  William 
Golding's  novel  of  ever-so-civilized  English 
schoolboys  gone  savage,  is  also  set  in  the  Pacific. 
The  class  probes  contrasting  views  of  the  South 
Seas  and  follows  Michener's  suggestion  that  study- 
ing Gauguin's  vivid  imagery  and  use  of  color  is  an 
incomparable  preparation  for  Polynesia. 

Guest  lecturer  John  Terrell,  associate 
curator  of  Oceanic  archeology  and  ethnology  at 
Field  Museum,  speaks  about  the  true  discoverers  of 
the  Pacific,  the  islanders.  Thousands  of  years 
before  Europeans  explored  the  oceans,  the 
forbears  of  these  islanders  pioneered  the  settlement 
of  the  Pacific.  We  learn  the  prehistory  of  paradise: 
what  scholars  know  of  its  first  founders  and  the 


Curator  John  Terrell  has  spent  two  years  preparing  the 
"Patterns  of  Paradise"  exhibit,  opening  March  6. 

The  Pacific  islanders  were  a  bold,  seafaring  people  who 
depended  on  navigational  skills  for  fishing  and  trade  as 
well  as  for  long,  risky  voyages  to  colonize  unknown  areas. 


The  eyes  and  demeanor  of  this  lovely  maiden  suggest  in- 
nocence and  perhaps  even  free  sexuality— images  consonant 
with  conventional  views  of  Pacific-as-Paradise  and  common- 
place in  art  and  literature. 

The  sordid  side  of  the  Pacific  is  brought  to  mind  by  this 
trophy  head  from  New  Zealand  (cat.  2739441  with  horridly 
bared  teeth.  But  because  it  conflicts  with  dreams  of  romance 
and  paradise  it  is  a  type  of  image  that  we  tend  to  neglect. 


NEH  Learning  Museum  at  Field  Museum 

The  NEH  Learning  Museum  program  is  a 
three-year  sequence  of  learning  opportunities 
focused  on  the  Museum's  outstanding  ex- 
hibits and  collections  and  designed  to  give 
participants  an  opportunity  to  explore  a  sub- 
ject in  depth.  Each  unit  of  study  consists  of 
one  or  more  special  events,  a  lecture  course, 
and  a  seminar  of  advanced  work.  Special 
events  are  lectures  by  renowned  authorities  or 
interpretive  performances  and  demonstra- 
tions. Course  members  receive  an  annotated 
bibilography,  a  specially  developed  guide  to 
pertinent  museum  exhibits,  study  notes  for 
related  special  events,  and  access  to  select 
materials  from  Field  Museum's  excellent 
research  library.  In-depth,  small  group 
seminars  allow  more  direct  contact  with  facul- 
ty and  Museum  collections. 


kinds  of  hardships  they  faced.  As  science  writer 
John  Pfeiffer  has  described  their  journeys:  "People 
moved  from  island  to  island  as  their  landlubbing 
ancestors  on  the  continents  had  moved  from  valley 
to  valley  in  a  process  born  of  adventure,  necessity, 
and,  sometimes,  desperation." 

In  addition  to  his  research.  Dr.  Terrell  for  the 
past  two  years  has  been  planning  and  organizing  a 
major  exhibit,  "Patterns  of  Paradise,"  which  opens 
at  Field  Museum  on  March  6.  The  exhibit  is  about 
the  peoples  of  paradise,  told  through  the  medium 
of  their  surviving  handicrafts  — most  notably  tapa. 
or   bark   cloth.    Dr.    Terrell   and   co-worker   Anne 


18 


Leonard,  Field  Museum  researcher  in  anthro- 
pology, have  assisted  in  integrating  portions  of 
"Patterns  of  Paradise"  with  the  course  and  in  sug- 
gesting course  resources. 

"South  Sea  Islands:  Paradise  and  Perdition" 
goes  on  to  look  at  the  diversity  of  Pacific  en- 
vironments and  the  correspondingly  diverse  human 
ways  of  living.  Some  islands  are  huge,  others  are 
small  and  exist  in  chains  of  coral-capped  volcanic 
outcroppings.  still  others  are  tiny  specks  of  land. 
Some  islands  hosted  important  chiefs  whose  wealth 
was  flaunted  in  impressive  mounds  of  yams  and 
whose  subjects  were  expected  to  prostrate 
themselves  in  the  royal  presence.  Other  islands 
were  poor  in  crops  and  their  inhabitants  depended 
almost  totally  on  trade  to  eat. 

Finally,  the  course  deals  with  a 
phenomenon  experienced  world-wide  in  the  six- 
teenth, seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies—the collision  of  European-style  civilization 
with  the  "backwards,"  "out-of-the-way,"  and 
"backwater"  places  of  the  earth.  Such  "contact" 
was  perhaps  particularly  dramatic  in  the  Pacific.  In 
many  instances,  especially  on  the  smaller  islands, 
native  populations  had  nowhere  to  escape  the 
intrusive  European  presence.  Some  were  removed 
wholesale  from  their  lands,  others  were  decimated 
by  disease,  and  all  were  profoundly  —  usually 
negatively —  affected.  Missionaries,  explorers, 
opportunists,  criminals,  and.  most  recently,  war- 
riors of  the  industrial  age  — all  left  their  mark. 

Museum  collections  are  all  that  remain  of 
many  Pacific  cultures;  no  longer  do  the  young 
desire  to  learn  the  ways  of  their  ancestors.  The  lec- 


ture course  includes  a  guide  to  Field  Museum 
Pacific  collections.  Field  Museum  organized  and 
funded  the  Joseph  N.  Field  South  Pacific  Expedi- 
tion of  1909-13.  Field  Museum  curator  A.  B.  Lewis 
led  the  expedition  and,  after  five  strenuous  years, 
returned  with  nearly  300  cases  containing  about 
12,000  ethnological  specimens  — everything  from 
shell  beads  to  full-sized  canoes.  In  1958,  the  collec- 
tion of  the  late  Capt  A.  W.  F.  Fuller  was  pur- 
chased Although  Capt.  Fuller  never  saw  the 
Pacific,  he  had  amassed  over  a  period  of  60  years  a 
collection  of  more  than  6,500  specimens  represent- 
ing Pacific  cultures.  And,  finally.  Dr.  Terrell  arrived 
at  Field  Museum  in  the  Fall  of  1971  with  seven  tons 
of  artifacts  from  Bougainville  Island,  in  the  South 
Pacific.  Taken  together.  Field  Museum  collections 
of  Pacific  materials  are  among  the  very  best  in 
the  world. 

Students  in  "South  Sea  Islands:  Paradise 
and  Perdition"  have  the  opportunity  to  enroll  in  a 
March  29-30  seminar  devoted  to  the  "Patterns  of 
Paradise"  exhibit.  The  seminar  will  feature  an 
immersion  in  the  art,  craft,  and  life  of  the  Pacific. 
Activities  include  a  workshop  in  tapa  making,  films 
showing  tapa  and  the  peoples  of  paradise,  lectures 
covering  the  ritual,  utilitarian,  and  economic 
significance  of  tapa  and  a  tour  guided  by  Dr.  Terrell 
of  the  "Patterns  of  Paradise"  exhibit. 

The  Courses  for  Adults  brochure  features 
"South  Sea  Islands:  Paradise  and  Perdition." 
February's  Calendar  of  Events  highlights  the 
"Paradise  Explored:  Films  of  the  South  Pacific" 
festival.  For  further  Learning  Museum  information, 
please  phone  922-0733. 


Palms  and  simple 
frond-roofed  huts 
exemplify  tropical  life 
in  parts  of  the  South 
Seas. 


^Irl./, 


0 


}9 


Fig.  1.  A  portion  of 

the  excavations  at 

Quseir  al-Qadim. 

Egypt.  Photo  hy  Don 

W'hitcomh. 


ROMAN  BOTTLE  CAPS 


by  Donald  Whitcomb 


20 


Our  First  Impression  of  Quseir  al-Qadim  was  hot 
and  desolate.  The  gentle  sound  of  the  Red  Sea 
waves,  combined  with  the  bright  reds  and  browns  of 
the  mountains  and  the  empty  crystalline  blue  of  the 
sky  gave  the  ruins  a  stark  beauty.  Add  a  strong,  dry 
north  wind  and  the  place  had  a  distinctly  parching 
effect  on  the  casual  visitor. 

A  similar  response  to  this  natural  setting 
must  have  affected  the  Roman  sailors  and  traders 
involved  in  the  spice  trade  with  India  who  settled 
here  in  the  first  and  second  centuries  of  the  modern 
era.  Leukos  Limen,  as  this  small  port  was  then 
known,  was  just  a  short  trip  from  the  cities  and 
towns  of  the  Nile  Valley  (notably  the  gardens  and 
temples  of  Luxor  and  Thebes).  The  most  serious  dis- 
advantage was  the  scarcity  of  drinking  water  (the 
little  water  available  was  somewhat  salty)— a  mixed 
curse  since  the  circumstance  offered  an  excuse  to 
import  and  drink  frequently  the  fine  Egyptian  wines 
of  Upper  Egypt. 

Thus,  when  we  began  excavating  Quseir  al- 
Qadim  two  years  ago,  we  were  hardly  astonished  by 
the  great  piles  of  sherds  from  Roman  amphorae. 
Amphorae  are  24-liter  (6.3  gals.)  jars  used  in  ancient 
times  to  transport  and  store  liquids  and  specially 
designed  to  fit  together  securely  when  stacked  in  a 
skip's  hold.  At  first  we  assumed  that  these  am- 
phorae were  simply  being  used  for  the  transship- 
ment of  wine  as  part  of  the  international  trade  of  the 


Red  Sea  and  Indian  Ocean,  but  the  numbers  of 
"discarded  bottles"  in  the  trash  heaps  was  too  great 
—and  then  we  began  to  find  the  "corks." 

The  typical  Roman  "cork,"  or  "bottle  cap," 
was  a  plaster  plug  with  strings  which  passed  under 
the  bottom  and  up  the  sides.  The  strings  were  used 
to  pull  the  plug  from  the  bottle,  somewhat  like  the 
ring  on  a  pop-top  can.  The  top  of  the  plug,  impressed 
when  wet  with  a  circular  seal,  was  covered  with  red 
paint.  This  stamp  impression  in  the  wet  plaster  clos- 
ing the  amphora  could  have  been  used  to  indicate  a 
number  of  things,  such  as  ownership,  vineyard  of 
origin,  or  even  vintage.  The  seal  impression  shown 
in  figure  2  depicts  in  the  center  the  uraeus.  or 
Agathodaemon.  an  Egyptian  symbol  of  good  for- 
tune. Around  the  perimeter  is  a  Greek  inscription 
which  has  been  read  by  Roger  Bagnall  of  Columbia 
University  as  a  name:  "Kereonios.  Freedman  of  the 
Emperor."  It  would  appear  that  this  man  was  in 
charge  of  a  wine-producing  establishment  which 
shipped  to  our  port  of  Leukos  Limen.  From  other 
evidence,  especially  tax  receipts,  we  know  that 
large-scale  wine  production  was  an  important  indus- 
try in  Egypt,  including  the  Thebaid  of  Upper  Egypt, 
during  this  period. 

Donald  Whitcomb  is  assistant  curator  of  Middle  Eastern 
archeology  and  ethnology.  He  is  currently  in  Egypt  look- 
ing for  additional  "bottle  caps"  (and  other  artifacts)  at 
Quseir  al-Qadim. 


The  bottle  caps  from  Quseir  always  have 
Egyptian  symbols  in  the  center.  Similar  plaster  or 
mud  seals  found  in  the  excavations  of  Coptic  monas- 
teries and  towns  invariably  feature  the  cross  or 
some  other  Christian  symbol  in  the  center.  All  such 
examples  are  later  than  the  first-  and  second-century 
seals  we  have  found,  confirming  our  impression  that 
the  Quseir  seals  are  some  of  the  earliest  ever  found 
in  Egypt. 

But  where  did  the  idea  come  from?  The  over- 


common  type  with  a  dog  or  wolf  in  the  center  and 
the  legend:  opiusi  doliiare)  ex  fliglinis)  Dumitdanus) 
Maioriibus)  "pottery  product  from  the  workshops  of 
Domitian  major."  The  stamp  is  part  of  a  collection 
of  antiquities  from  Alexandria,  described  in  a  1907 
study  by  Edgar  J.  Goodspeed,  and  dated  to  A.D. 
161-193.  This  stamp,  however,  has  several  curious 
features;  The  brick  has  been  carefully  trimmed, 
leaving  only  the  stamped  section  on  top,  and  the 
bottom  and  sides  have  been  covered  with  plaster  (as 


Fig.  2.  Drauing  of  plaster  amphor 
from  Quseir  al-Qadim. 


"bottle  cap"  (top  and  side  view) 


all  similarity  of  these  seals  to  contemporary  Roman 
coinage— bearing  a  center  symbol  and  a  legend 
around  the  perimeter— is  readily  apparent.  More- 
over, it  had  been  the  common  practice  throughout 
the  Mediterranean  world  in  Greek  times  for  potters 
to  place  a  small  stamp  on  amphorae  and  other 
vessels.  The  Roman  potters  continued  this  practice 
by  stamping  mass-produced  products  such  as  am- 
phorae, bricks,  and  tiles. 

Recently  I  found  such  a  brick  stamp  (/i/f.  3)  in 
a  Field  Museum  storeroom.  As  a  brick  stamp  it  is  a 


can  be  seen  in  the  photograph).  The  plaster  on  the 
bottom  is  shaped  as  if  once  positioned  within  a  con- 
stricting bottleneck,  suggesting  that  this  stamped 
brick  fragment  was  secondarily  used  as  a  cap  for  an 
amphora.  Since  the  stamp  was  not  contemporary 
with  the  reuse  of  the  brick  as  a  "cork,"  it  could  not, 
presumably,  give  the  same  identification  or  guaran- 
tees as  the  Quseir-type  bottle-cap.  The  latter  could 
become  a  symbol  of  ownership,  of  origin,  of  pristine 
contents,  and  of  quahty  control  associated  with  the 
authority  of  a  responsible  symbol;  in  short,  the  bot- 


21 


Fig.  3.  Above:  stamped  Homnn  brick  in  the  Field  Museum 
collection.  Diam.  13  cm  (5.1  in. I,  thickness  4  cm  11.6  in.). 
Cat.  26768. 

Fig.  4.  Right:  cap  from  present-day  Egyptian  beer  bottle 
Fig.  5.  Below:  archeological  student  at  Quseir  al-Qadim 
amid  thousands  of  amphora  fragments  recovered  from 
site.  Photo  by  Don  Whitcomb. 


tie  cap  could  become  a  trademark.  But  the  Field 
Museum  piece  would  seem  to  imitate  the  form  with- 
out understanding  the  full  purpose  of  the  true  bottle 
cap.  Rather,  it  was  a  misconception  of  this  new 
Roman  commercial  tool  for  standardization  and  sys- 
temization  in  mass  marketing.  Thus,  there  are,  in 
the  amphorae  and  their  stoppers  found  at  Quseir, 
the  roots  for  today's  highly  disposable,  two-liter 
plastic  cola  bottles. 

The  days  of  excavation  at  the  ancient  port  of 
Quseir  were  hot  and  the  task  of  recording  the  arti- 
facts lasted  well  into  the  night.  These  evenings 
often  ended  with  a  round  of  very  good  Egyptian 
beer— which  came  in  bottles  with  very  interesting 
bottle  caps.  CH 


r^MwK^^ 


72 


Index  to  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin,  Volume  50  (1979) 


Articles 

Adult  Group  Programs,  by  Linton  Pitluga:  March  10 
Archaeology  at  the  Top  of  the  World,  by  AUan  L.  Kolata:  Oct.  16 
BordenField  Museum  1927  Alaska  Arctic  Expedition.   The,   Part  II, 

by  Ted  Karamanski:  Jan.  4 
Butterflies,  by  Vladimir  Nabokov:  April  10 
Chance  Encounter  of  a  Good  Kind,  by  Alan  Solem:  Jan.  10 
China.  A  Photographic  Portfolio,  photos  by  Stanton  R.  Cook:  March  12 
Conflicts  between  Darwin  and  Paleontology,  by  David  Raup:  Jan.  22 
El  Nino:  The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of  Coastal  Peru,  by  Fred  L.  Nials, 

Eric  E.  Deeds,  Michael  E.  Moseley,  Shelia  G.  Pozorski,  Thomas  G. 

Pozorski,  and  Robert  A.  Feldman,  Part  1:  J/A  4:  Part  II:  Sept.  4 
Feather  Arts,  by  Phyllis  Rabineau:  Feb.  7 
Glimpse  of  the  Porcupine  Mountains.  A.   by  John  and  Janet  Kolar: 

Feb.  13 
Image  and  Life:  50.000  Years  of  Japanese  Prehistory:  Nov.  4 
Inro  as  Art,  by  Carolyn  Moore,  Bennet  Bronson,  Mary  Barrett,  and 

Diane  Zorich:  May  12 
Jungle  Islands:  The  "Illvria"  in  the  South  Seas,  by  Sidney  N.  Shurcliff, 

Part  I:  J/A  16;  Part  II:  Sept.  16 
Kimberley  Snail  Hunt— Round  V.  by  Alan  Solem:  April  4 
Legacy  of  Malvina  Hoffman.  The:  Oct.  12 

Metals  and  Man  in  the  Prehistoric  Midwest,  by  Thomas  J.  Riley:  Feb.  4 
Meteor^wrongs.  by  Edward  Olsen:  April  18 
Natural  History  Museum,  The:  An  Historical  Sketch,  by  Cecile  Mar- 

gulies:  Nov.  8 
Observations  on  the  Mutability  of  Time,  by  Alan  E.  Rubin:  April  29 
Of  Automobiles  and  Meteorites,  by  Edward  Olsen:  Oct.  10 
Of  Land  Bridges,  Ice-Free  Corridors,  and  Earlv  Man  in  the  Americas, 

by  Glen  Cole,  Part  I:  Jan.  14;  Part  II:  March  20 
Red  Square  and  Beyond,  by  Rev.  Maurice  J.  Meyers:  April  9 
Remarkable  Manatee,  The,  by  Thor  Janson:  May  8 
Ross's  Rosy  Gull  by  Janette  Neal:  April  24 
Second  Annual  Festival  of  Anthropology  on  Film:  Nov.  18 
Solar  Eclipse  of  February  26,  The.  by  Edward  Olsen:  Feb.  20 
Taylor  Camp,  Hawaii,  by  Thomas  J.  Riley:  June  18 
Timeless  Images:  Museum  Photography,  by  Patricia  Williams:  Oct.  6 
Tsavo  Man-Eaters,  The,  by  Lawrence  Kolczak:  June  14 
War  and  Peace— Pigeon  Style,  by  Patricia  Williams:  March  6 
What  Is  a  Curator^,  by  John  Terrell:  April  16 
What's  in  a  (Rock)  Namef.  by  Edward  Olsen:  May  20 
Who  Were  the  Lusignans?.  by  Donald  Whitcomb;  June  4 


Authors 

Barrett,  Mary  (co-author):  Inro  as  Art.  May  12 

Bronson,  Bennet  (co-author):  Inro  as  Art,  May  12 

Cole,  Glen:  Of  Land  Bridges,  Ice-Free  Corridors,  and  Early  Man  in  the 

Americas.  Part  I;  Jan.  14;  Part  II:  March  20 
Cook,  Stanton  R.:  China:  A  Photographic  Portfolio,  March  12 
Deeds,   Eric   E.   (co-author):  El  Nino:   The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru,  Part  I:  J/A  4;  Part  II:  Sept.  4 
Feldman,  Robert  A.  (co-author):  El  Nino:  The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru.  Part  I:  J/A  4;  Part  II:  Sept.  4 
Janson,  Thor:  The  Remarkable  Manatee,  May  8 
Karamanski,    Ted:    The    Borden-Field   Museum    1927  Alaska    Arctic 

Expedition,  Part  II,  Jan.  4 
Kolar,    Janet   (co-author):   A    Glimpse   of  the   Porcupine   Mountains, 

Feb.  13 
Kolar,    John    (co-author):   A    Glimpse   of  the   Porcupine   Mountains. 

Veh.  13 
Kolata,  Alan  L.:  Archaeology  at  the  Top  of  the  World,  Oct.  16 
Kolczak,  Lawrence:  The  Tsavo  Man-Eaters,  June  14 
Margulies,  Cecile:  The  Natural  History  Museum:  An  Historical  Sketch, 

Nov.  8 
Meyers,  Rev.  Maurice  J.:  Red  Square  and  Beyond.  April  9 
Moore,  Carolyn  (co-author):  Inro  as  Art.  May  12 
Moseley,  Michael  E.  (co-author):  El  Nino:  The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru.  Part  I:  J/A  4;  Part  II,  Sept.  4 
Nabokov,  Vladimir:  Butterflies,  April  10 
Neal,  Janette;  Ross's  Rosy  Gull,  April  24 


Nials,   Fred   L.  (co-author):  El  Nino:   The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru,  Part  I:  J/A  4;  Part  II,  Sept.  4 
Olsen,  Edward:  Meteoi^wrongs,  April  18 

:  Of  Automobiles  and  Meteorites,  Oct.  10 

:  The  Solar  Eclipse  Of  February  26.  Feb.  20 

:  What's  in  a  (Rock)  Name^,  May  20 

Pitluga.  Linton:  Adult  Group  Programs,  March  10 

Pozorski,  Shelia  G.  (co-author):  El  Nino:  The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru,  Part  I:  J/A  4;  Part  II,  Sept.  4 
Pozorski,  Michael  G.  (co-author):  El  Nino:  The  Catastrophic  Flooding  of 

Coastal  Peru,  Part  1:  J/A  4;  Part  II,  Sept.  4 
Rabineau,  Phyllis:  Feather  Arts,  Feb.  7 

Raup,   Daivd:   Conflicts   between  Darwin  and  Paleontology.    Jan.   22 
Riley,  Thomas  J.:  Metals  and  Man  in  the  Prehistoric  Midwest,  Feb.  4 

:  Taylor  Camp,  Hawaii,  June  18 

Rubin,   Alen   E.:   Observations  on   the  Mutability  of  Time,    April  29 
Shurcliff,  Sidney  N.:  Jungle  Islands:  The  "Illvria"  in  the  South  Seas, 

Part  I:  J/A  16;  Part  II:  Sept.  16 
Solem,  Alan:  Chance  Encounters  of  a  Good  Kind,  Jan.  10 

:  Kimberley  Snail  Hunt— Round  V,  April  4 

Terrell,  John:  What  Is  a  Curator^,  April  16 

Whitcomb,  Donald:  Who  Were  the  Lusignans^,  June  4 

Williams,  Patricia:  Timeless  Images:  Museum  Photography,   Oct.  6 

:  War  and  Peace— Pigeon  Style,  March  6 

Zorich,  Diane  (co-author):  Inro  as  Art,  May  12 


Subjects 

Abendroth,  Herman:  Oct.  8 

Abrams,  Clifford:  Feb.  12,  Sept.  3 

acid  rain:  Nov.  22 

Adams.  Foster:  April  3 

Adams.  Mrs.  Foster  (Mrs.  John  Borden):  Jan.  7,  April  3 

Agricola,  Georgius:  Nov.  8 

Akapana  mound  (BoHvia):  Oct.  16 

Alasia  (Enkomi),  Cyprus:  June  10 

Aldan  River:  March  26 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History:  Nov.  16 

American  Quaternary  Association  (AMQUA):  Jan.  15.  March  20 

Ames,  Frances  (Mrs.  Douglas  Wolseley):  Jan.  8 

Anangula  Island:  March  25 

Ancient  Native  Americans:  Jan.  19,  March  24 

Andersen,  Kenneth  K.:  Nov.  24 

Andree,  S.A.:  April  26 

Andrews,  Bruce:  Jan.  4,  April  3 

Andrews,  Joan  B.:  March  4 

antitoxin  for  snakebite:  March  32 

aphid,  green  peach:  Jan.  10 

Aphrodite:  June  7 

Archeological  Survey  of  Canada:  Jan.  19 

arctic  haze:  June  25 

arctic  lupin:  Oct.  5 

Ashmole,  Elias:  Nov.  11 

Ashmolean  Museum:  Nov.  11 

Athabasca  Glacier:  Jan.  14,  21 

atlatl:  March  22 

Audubon,  John  J.:  April  25 

azurite:  May  24 

Bacoyanis,  Sharon:  April  6 

Baird,  Gordon  C:  May  4 

Baker,  Margaret:  April  7 

Barber,  C.  M.:  May  9 

Barnum.  Phineas  T:  Nov.  16 

Barrett,  Mary:  May  12 

Barrett,  O.  W.:  May  9 

Bayalis,  John:  Oct.  8 

beluga  (white  whale):  June  25 

Benid,  111.:  Oct.  10 

Berengaria:  June  7 

Bering  Land  Bridge,  the:  March  27 

Beringia:  Jan.  18,  March  23  23 


•M 


«.-..    \i , 


* 


f 


Galapagos  Islands:  J 'A  21 

Gallon,  F.:  Jan.  27 

gamelan  master  class:  March  4 

gamma  radiation:  June  24 

Garbage  Project:  June  18 

Gaston.  Duke  of  Orleans:  Nov.  10 

Gateway  of  the  Sun:  Oct.  17 

George  "iV  (Englandl:  Feb.  12 

glaciers:  Jan.  15 

"Gold  of  el  Dorado":  Dec.  3 

Goodspeed,  Mrs.  Charles  B.  (Mrs.  Gilbert  W.  Chapman):  Jan.  29 

graywacke:  April  20 

"Great  Bronze  Age  of  China":  Dec.  3 

Great  Okeefenokee  Swamp:  April  19 

guano:  J/A  6 

Gurewitz,  Solomon:  April  22 

gypsum  crystals:  May  21 

Hacienda  Santo  Domingo:  Sept.  6 

Haight.  Mrs.  John  M.:  J  A  3 

hair  as  deer  repellent:  Oct.  5 

Hales.  Fleur:  Oct.  6 

Hamilton.  T.  D.:  Jan.  19 

Harris.  John:  May  4 

Haynes.  Vance;  March  21 

Herald  Island:  Jan.  4 

herbicide  2.4.,5-T:  June  23 

Hermes  (asteroid):  Oct.  26 

Herre.  Albert  W.:  J'A  17.  Sept.  20 

Hershkovitz.  Philip:  Nov.  3 

HP:W:  Nov.  3 

Hine.  Ashley:  Jan.  5 

Hines.  Nathaneal:  Oct.  11 

Hippie  community:  June  18 

Ho.  Pingti:  Sept." 27 

Hodges.  Mrs.  E.  Huhtt:  Oct.  26 

Hoffman.  Malvina:  Oct.  12 

Holton.  Felicia  A.:  Sept.  29 

Hopewell  Interaction  Sphere:  Feb.  5 

Hopewell  Site:  Feb.  5 

Hopkins.  David  M.:  March  27 

Huaca  de  la  Luna:  J/A  7 

Huaca  del  Sol:  J/A  7 

Huanchaco.  Peru;  J/A  7 

Huaqui.  Bolivia:  Oct.  23 

Huari,  Bohvia:  Oct.  18 

Huari-Tiahuanaco  style:  Oct.  2 

Hubbs.  Carl  L.:  Sept.  3 

Huichol  Indian  art:  May  4 

Humboldt  (Peru)  Current:  J/A  4 

humpback  whale;  Sept.  34 

Hungyen.  Hu;  Sept.  28 

Ibsen-Riley.  Karma;  June  18 

Ilhnois  Arts  Council;  Nov.  3 

"lUyria"  (ship):  J/A  16.  Sept.  16 

"Image  and  Life."  Japanese  prehistory  exhibit;  Nov.  4 

Imperato.  Ferrante:  Nov.  11 

INAR;  Oct.  18 

Indiana  Dunes  (cover  photo);  Jan.  2 

inro:  May  12 

Instituto  Nacional  de  Arqueologia:  Oct.  18 

Instituto  Nacional  de  Pesquisas  de  Amazonia;  Oct.  6 

Interagency  Primate  Steering  Committee:  May  34 

International  Crane  Foundation:  Nov.  24 

International  Harvester  Co.;  May  3 

intoxication  in  birds:  Feb.  22 

Isle  Royale,  Mich.:  Feb.  5 

isopod:  Feb.  22 

I.  U.C.N.  Red  Data  Book:  May  8 

Jackson.  Wm.  Henry;  Oct.  6 
Janson,  Thor:  May  8 
"Jeanette"  (ship):  April  25 
Jennings.  J.D.:  Jan.  19 
Jomon  art  (Japan):  Nov.  4 

Kalasasaya;  Oct.  23 
Kamehameha.  King;  Feb.  12 
Kaplan.  Carol  SmaU:  AprU  18.  Oct.  8 


Karall,  Dorothy:  April  6 

Kerr.  R.  P.;  April  31 

Kessel.  Jan  van;  Nov.  8.  12 

Keweenaw  Peninsula:  Feb.  5 

Khirokitia.  Cyprus;  June  9 

Kimberley,  Australia:  April  4 

Klein.  R.;"  March  26 

Kofun  period  (Japan):  Nov.  6 

Kolar.  Janet:  Feb.  13 

Kolar.  John;  Feb.  13 

Kolata.  Alan;  Oct.  17 

Kolczak.  Lawrence  S.:  June  14 

komondor:  Feb.  22 

Kono,  T.;  Jan.  12 

Koster:  Americans  in  Search  of  Their  Prehistoric  Past:  Sept.  29 

Koster  Site;  Sept.  12 

Kourion  (Curium).  Cyprus;  June  8 

kudzu:  May  32 

lacquerware.  Japanese:  May  8 

"Lady  Kindersleys  '  (ship):  Jan.  7 

Lake  Izabal  (Guatemala);  May  9 

Lake  of  the  Clouds  (Mich.);  Feb.  17 

land  snails;  April  4 

Laufer.  Berthold;  Jan.  8.  Sept,  25 

Learning  Museum  Program:  Sept.  25 

Lechtman,  Heather;  Feb.  24 

lecturing  by  curators;  April  17 

Leeper.  Jeanette;  March  4 

Leftridge.  Jarmaine:  April  7 

Legge,  Christopher:  March  3 

Legge.  James;  March  3 

Leonard,  Anne;  Dec.  3 

Leone.  Mark:  June  18 

Leslie.  John  W.;  May  2.  12 

Levi-Setti.  Riccardo;  Jan.  24 

Lewis.  Phillip  H.;  Nov.  3 

Liebman,  Elizabeth:  April  6 

Life  in  Ancient  Egypt;  March  11 

Limet,  Jean:  Oct.  13 

Lindsey.  Kate:  Nov.  24 

lions,  man-eating;  June  1£ 

Little  Diomede  Island;  Jan.  5 

Llano  Culture  (Clovis  Culture);  Jan.  18 

Llano  Estacado;  Jan.  18.  March  20 

Longo.  Donna;  Oct.  7 

Louisville.  Ky.:  Oct.  11 

Lower  Presque  Isle  River  (Mich.):  Feb.  13 

lung  cancer:  June  24 

Lusignans;  June  4 

Lyons.  Walt;  Sept.  32 

MacGiUivray.  William;  April  25 

malachite:  May  24 

mallard  populations;  June  23 

Malthus.  Thomas  R.:  Jan.  27 

manatees:  May  8.  Sept.  33 

manganese;  April  21 

Manistee  National  Forest:  Sept.  2 

MarguUes.  Cecile:  Nov.  8 

marijuana;  June  20 

Mark  Antony:  June  7 

Marquesas  Islands;  J/A  24 

Marshall.  Larry  G.;  Feb.  3 

mastodon:  Feb.  22 

Mate,  Bruce  R.:  Oct.  5 

Mathews.  W.  H.:  Jan.  20 

Mazon  Creek  Fossils:  May  4 

McAninch,  Jay:  Oct.  5 

McBride.  J.  Francis:  Oct.  16 

McCain.  Ed;  Oct.  10 

McCain.  Mrs.  Ed;  Oct.  10 

McCleUand.  Kenneth;  Jan.  4.  April  3 

McDowell.  Remick:  Nov.  3 

McNeil,  Karen:  March  4 

Meadowcroft  (Pa.)  Rockshelter;  Jan.  18,  March  21 

Members'  Nights:  May  6 

membership,  new  plan:  J/A  3 

Mente,  Alexandra:  Feb.  3 

metals;  Feb.  4 

metalworking,  prehistoric:  Feb.  4 


r 


25 


meteorite;  May  3.  Oct.  10 

meteorites,  false:  April  18 

MiUspaugh,  Charles  F.:  Oct.  8 

Moche  River  {Perul:  J  A  4,  Sept.  4 

Monk's  Mound:  Sept.  15 

Montaigne:  Nov.  8 

Moore.  Carolyn:  May  12 

Morito  meteorite:  Oct.  26 

Morlan.  R.:  Jan.  19 

Moseley.  Michael  E.:  J/A  4,  Sept.  4.  Nov.  3 

Moss,  William  L.:  J  A  17,  Sept.  20 

Mueller.  Hedwig  VV.:  Oct.  9 

Mueller,  LeMoyne:  March  4 

Murdoch.  John:  April  26 

.Museo  del  Oro,  Bogota:  Dec.  3 

Museum  National  d'Histoire  Naturale;  Nov.  12 

museums,  natural  history:  Nov.  8 

Mycenaean  kingdom:  June  7 

Nabokov,  Vladimir:  .■Xpril  10 

Naco,  Ariz.:  March  26 

Nansen.  Fridtjof:  April  25 

National  Academy  of  Science:  J  A  3 

National  Geographic  Society:  Feb.  3 

natural  history  museums:  Nov.  8 

Nature  Conservancy:  Nov.  24 

Neal.  Janette:  April  24 

Necropolis  of  Ancon:  Oct.  19 

NEH:  Nov.  3 

netsuke  May  12 

New  Hebrides:  J  A  26 

New  World  monkeys:  Nov.  3 

Newcomb,  R.  L.:  April  25 

Nials.  Fred.  L.:  J  A  3,  Sept.  4 

Nichols.  Henry  W.:  Oct.  11 

Niezgoda.  Christine:  Jan.  3 

Ningbing  Ranges  (Australia):  April  7 

Nitecki,  Matthew  R.:  May  4 

Northeast  Asia  in  Prehistory:  March  27 

"Northern  Light"  (shipl:  Jan.  4 

NSK  awards:  March  3.  Nov.  3 

ojime:  May  12 

Olsen,  Edward:  Feb.  20,  April  18,  May  4.  20,  Sept.  29,  Oct.  10 
"On  the  Probability  of  the  Extinction  of  Families";  Jan.  27 
Origin  of  Species:  Jan.  23 
owls  for  rodent  control;  Nov.  24 
Oxford  University:  Nov.  11 
pachiostosis:  May  8 
Paling,  John:  Oct.  27 
Palmer.  James  L.:  Nov.  3 
Paracelsus:  Nov.  8 
Patterson,  Bryan:  June  16 
Patterson,  Claire:  Feb.  5 
Patterson.  Col.  J    H.:  June  14 
Payne,  Roger:  Sept.  34 
PCBs:  March  34 

Peale,  Charles  V\illson:  Nov.  8,  13 
Pearson,  Richard:  Nov.  4 
Peavy.  Charles  R.:  J  A  17,  Sept.  20 
Peking  Man:  Jan.  18 
Peking  opera;  Sept.  28 
Peninsula  brown  bear:  Jan.  29 
pest  management;  June  25 
pest  repellent,  electronic;  June  23 
Peterson.  Alex  V.:  May  3 
Peterson,  Lorraine:  March  4 
Peterson,  Roger  Tbry:  April  24 
Pfeiffer,  Anthony:  April  2,  Sept.  25 
Philadelphia  Museum:  Nov.  8 
Philipp  II.  Duke  of  Pomerania;  Nov.  8 
Photography,  Department  of:  Oct.  6 
Pickering.  Robert:  April  28 
Pigeon  Corps  (U.S.  Army):  March  7 
pigeons:  March  P 
piranha:  Sept.  34,  Nov.  24 
Pitluga.  Linton:  March  10 
Pliny  the  Elder:  Nov.  H 
Plowman.  Timothy  C:  Feb.  3 
(   poaching  ring:  March  33 


pollen  morphology  and  evolution:  Nov.  3 

pollution,  waterway;  March  33 

polychlorinated  biphenyls:  March  34 

Porcupine  Mts.;  Feb.  13 

Posnansky,  Arthur;  Oct.  22 

Powers,  William:  March  23 

Pozorski,  Shelia  G.:  J/A  4.  Sept.  4 

Pozorski,  Thomas  G.:  J/A  4.  Sept.  4 

prairie  lily:  J/A  2 

Preque  Isle  River:  Feb.  18 

Price,  Laurie;  April  5 

primates,  endangered;  May  33 

Programa  Riego  Antiguo:  J/A  4,  Sept.  4 

Pt.  Hope,  Alaska;   Ian.  5 

Pteranodon:  Jan.  23 

pterosaur:  Jan.  24 

Ptolemies:  June  7 

Pumapunku,  Bolivia:  Oct.  21 

pupfish,  Tecopa:  March  33 

Purcell,  Rev.  Theodore:  Jan.  4,  April  3 

pyrite:  April  18 

quartz:  May  20 
Quarternary  Period;  Jan.  15 
Quetico  canoe  trips;  April  27 

Rabineau,  Phyllis:  Feb.  7,  Mar.  4,  Sept.  3 

■■Races  of  Man  ■;  Oct.  13 

Rada,  M.E.:  March  21 

radiation,  gamma:  June  24 

radioactive  waste:  June  24 

radon:  June  24 

Ram,  Steve:  Jan.  29 

Rand,  Austin:  March  9 

Raup,  David:  Jan.  22,  May  4,  J/A  3 

Recchia,  Loran;  Oct.  7 

research;  April  16 

Resetar,  Alan:  J/A  24 

rhesus  monkey:  May  34 

Richard  the  Lion-Hearted:  June  5 

Richardson,  John:  April  25 

Richardson,  Eugene  S.:  May  4 

Riggs,  Elmer  S.:  Feb.  3 

Riley.  Thomas  J.:  Feb.  4,  June  18 

Rincus,  Mary  Ellen;  Jan.  10 

Rio  Dulce:  May  9 

Ritchie,  J.C;  Jan  20 

Robert  Woods  Bliss  Collection  of  Pre-Columbian  Art;  Oct.  2 

Rochester,  First  Earl  of;  Jan.  28 

rock  names:  May  20 

Romans  on  Cyprus:  June  7 

Roosevelt,  Theodore;  June  16 

Ross,  Sir  James  Clark;  April  25 

Ross's  rosy  gull:  April  24 

Rubin,  Alan  E.;  April  29 

Russian  olive:  Feb.  22 

Rutter,  N.W.:  Jan.  20 

Salamis,  Cyprus:  June  4 

Salwen,  Bert:  June  18 

San  Juan  Capistrano,  Cal.;  Oct.  10 

scanning  electron  microscope:  Jan.  10,  Nov.  3 

Scanning  Electron  Microscope  Adult  Education  course:  Jan.  3 

Schmidt,  Karl  P.:  J  A  3,  17 

Schuppert,  Sylvia:  March  4 

sea  cow:  May  28 

Sea  Scouts;  Jan.  4 

Second  Annual  Festival  of  Anthropology  on  Film;  Nov.  18 

SEM:  Jan.  10 

Sergius  Paulus;  June  7 

sex  change  in  fish:  June  25 

Shelton,  Jay;  March  32 

Schurcliff,  Sidney  N.:  J/A  16.  Sept.  16 

silicon,  metallic:  April  21 

Simmons,  Mrs.  John  L.;  J;A  3 

Simpson,  Mrs.  George  L.;  Jan.  5 

Sirenia:  May  8 

shunk  scent:  Oct.  5.  Nov.  24 

slag,  steel  mill;  April  19 

Slaughter,  Mrs.  R.B.:  Jan.  5 


January  &  February  at  Field  Museum 


(January  15  through  February  15) 


New  Exhibit 

"Image  and  Life:  50,000  Years  of  Japanese  Preliistory."  More 
than  100  artifacts,  including  ceramics,  stone  tools,  weapons, 
and  ornaments  represent  the  Paleolithic.  Jomon.  Yayoi,  and 
Kofun  periods  of  Japanese  prehistory.  Mever  before  shown  out- 
side of  Japan,  these  artifacts  range  in  age  from  more  than 
50.000  BC  to  the  6th  century  ad   In  Hall  27  until  January  31. 

Continuing  Exhibits 

"Art  Lacquer  of  Japan."  The  Museum's  newest  permanent  ex- 
hibit features  more  than  400  objects  of  exquisite  lacquer  art 
from  18th-  and  19th-century  Japan.  The  objects  on  display  in- 
clude finely  carved  and  decorated  inro  (small  sectional  lacquer 
cases    used    to    carry    medicine),    ojime    beads,    and    nelsuke 


(miniature  carved  pendants  hung  from  silk  cords).  These  ob- 
jects were  worn  by  Japanese  men  as  symbols  of  wealth  and 
status.  Hall  32.  second  floor. 

American  Indian  Halls  trace  the  anthropological  history  and 
cultural  development  of  the  original  Americans,  from  the  time 
of  their  arrival  on  the  Morth  American  continent  (before  20.000 
B  C  )  to  the  present.  Hall  5  contains  a  traditionally  made  Pawnee 
earth  lodge  —  the  home  and  ceremonial  center  of  Pawnee 
Indians  as  it  existed  in  the  mid-lSOOs.  Halls  4  through  10.  main 
floor  east. 

The  Hall  of  Chinese  Jades  contains  beautiful  jade  art  spanning 
over  6.000  years  of  Chinese  history.  An  exhibit  in  the  center  of 
the  hall  illustrates  ancient  jade  carving  techniques.  Hall  30. 
second  floor. 

(Continued  on  back  cover) 


Sloane.  Hans:  Nov.  10 

Smith.  Farwell:  J  A  3 

Smith.  Hermon  Dunlap:  J  A  3 

Smithson.  James:  Nov.  16 

Smithsonian  Institution:  Nov.  8,  12,  16 

smog:  June  2b.  Sept.  32 

snails,  land:  April  4 

snake  bite:  March  32 

Snow.  Dale:  Oct.  5 

Snyder's  point:  Sept.  15 

Socorro  isopod:  Feb.  22 

Soiltest,  Inc.:  Oct.  23 

solar  eclipse:  Feb.  20 

Solem.  .Alan:  Jan.  3.  .April  4 

specimen  preservation:  April  15 

Spence.  Jonathan  D.:  Sept.  27 

sperm  whale  stranding:  Oct.  4 

Spicehandler.  A.  MacS.:  Jan.  21 

Stanford.  Dennis:  March  21 

Stefansson.  H.:  Jan.  6 

Steller's  sea  cow:  May  8 

Stewart.  Donald  J.:  Sept.  3 

Stewart.  Mrs.  David  W.:  Oct.  9 

stibnite:  May  22 

Stob.  Susan:  April  13 

Streuver.  Stuart:  Sept.  29 

SwarlUng.  Sven  Olof:  Sept.  29 

systematic  collection  of  insects:  Nov.  3 

systematics  symposium:  May  4 

tapa  cloth:  March  4.  Dec.  3 

Taylor.  Howard:  June  19 

teaching  at  museum:  April  17 

Tecopa  pupfish:  March  33 

Terrell.  John:  April  16,  Dec.  3 

Testa.  Ron:  Feb.  3.  7.  Oct.  6 

textile  conservation:  Nov.  3 

Thomas.  Greg:  Sept.  14 

Tiahuanaco.  Bolivia:  Oct.  16 

Tiahuanaco:  Art  and  Empire  in  the  Andes:  Nov.  3 

Tirol.  Archduke  Ferdinand  of:  Nov.  8 

Titicaca,  Lake:  Oct.  16 

Tiwanaku.  Bolivia:  Oct.  17 

Toxic  Substance  Control  Act  of  1977:  March  34 

Tradescant.  John:  Nov.  10 

Tradescant's  Ark:  Nov.  11 

Treasures  of  Cyprus  exhibit:  June  5 

trilobite  vision:  Jan.  24 

Trujillo  (Peru):  J/A  7.  Sept.  5 


Feb.  12,  Sept.  10 


Tsavo  man-eating  lions:  June  14 
Turnbull.  William  D.:  Feb.  3,  Nov.  3 
Turner,  Christy:  March  24 

umiak:  Jan.  4 
Umnak  Island:  March  25 
Union  River:  Feb.  17 
uranium  residue:  June  24 

■Valentini:  Nov.  10 

Van  Zelst.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Theodore  W. 
VandenBosch.  Susan  E.:  Feb.  3 
volunteers  honored:  April  22 
'Vroman.  Adam  Clarke:  Oct.  6 


Waering.  Erik  K.:  Sept.  3 

Walters.  Gordon:  May  3 

waste  recovery,  grants  for:  June  23 

Waterfall  Glen,  111.:  April  2 

waterway  pollution:  March  33 

Watson.  H.W.:  Jan  27 

Weaver's  Walk:  March  1 1 

Weber.  Walter  A.:  J/A  17.  Sept.  20 

Wenzel.  Rupert  L.:  Nov.  3 

West  Chicago  Prairie:  Nov.  24 

Whitcomb.  Donald  S.:  May  3.  June  4 

White.  John:  Sept.  13 

white  whale  (beluga):  June  25 

Widule.  William:  Sept.  29 

Williams,  Patricia:  March  6,  Sept.  3.  Oct.  6 

Wingendorp.  G.:  Nov.  10 

Wisconsin  Age:  Jan.  17 

Witek.  John;  May  3 

Wolf  Road  Prairie:  J/A  2 

Wolseley.  Mrs.  Douglas  (Frances  Ames):  Jan.  8 

Wonder,  Frank  C:  J/A  17,  Sept.  19 

wood  as  fuel:  March  32 

Woodturner's  Encyclopedia:  March  32 

W'oodland,  Bertram  G.:  May  4 

Woods.  Loren:  Jan.  3,  J/A  3 

Worm,  Olof:  Nov.  10 

Wrangel  Island:  Jan.  4 

Yayoi  period  (Japanese  prehistory):  Nov.  6 
yellow  cake  (high  grade  uranium):  June  24 

Zana.  Peru:  JA  4 
Zangerl.  Rainer:  May  4 
Zorich.  Diane:  May  12 


27 


ILLINOIS    NATURAL    HISTORY 
SURVEY    LIfl     RM    196 
NATURAL   RESOURCES    BUILDING 
URl3A^A     ILL    61801 


January  &  February  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cover) 


Continuing  Exhibits 

"The  Place  for  Wonder."  This  gallery  provides  a  place  to  feel, 
try  on.  handle,  sort,  and  compare  anthropological  and  natural 
history  specimens.  Items  from  the  People's  Republic  of  China, 
and  "Earthquake  Charlie. "  the  Museum's  enormous  polar  bear, 
are  some  of  the  newest  touchable  items.  Weekdays,  1  p.m.  to  3 
p.m.;  weekends.  10  a.m.  to  noon  and  1  to  3  p.m.  Ground  floor, 
near  central  elevator. 

New  Programs 

"Paradise  Explored:  Films  of  the  South  Pacific."  Planned  in 
conjunction  with  the  second  Learning  Museum  course,  this  film 
festival  examines  the  cliches,  myths,  and  realities  of  the  South 
Sea  island  culture.  Rodgers'  and  Hammersteins  South  Pacific  is 
among  the  films  screened  at  7;00  p.m..  Friday.  Feb.  8.  in  James 
Simpson  Theatre.  The  festival  continues  all  day  Saturday.  Feb. 
9.  For  further  information,  call  922-3136. 

The  NEH  Learning  Museum  Program  is  a  three-year  sequence  of 
learning  opportunities  for  which  the  Museum's  outstanding 
exhibits  and  collections  are  focal  points.  Each  course  of  study 
consists  of  special  events,  lectures,  and  seminars.  The  entire 
program  is  funded  by  the  National  Endowment  for  the 
Humanities.  The  next  Learning  Museum  course,  "South  Sea 
Islands:  Paradise  and  Perdition,"  described  on  pages  16-19, 
begins  Feb.  14. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Free  guided  tours,  demonstra- 
tions, and  films.  Weekend  sheet  available  at  North  Information 
Booth  lists  additional  programs  and  locations: 

"Endangered  Animals."  Animals  in  danger  of  extinction 
are  the  focus  of  this  30-minute  tour.  Saturday,  Jan.  19,  noon. 

"The  Great  Whales."  A  revealing  55-minute  film  that 
studies  the  whale's  anatomy,  speech,  and  migration  patterns. 
Saturday.  Jan.  19.  1:00  p.m. 

"The  Gods  of  Mexico. "  This  tour  investigates  the  religion 
and  cultures  that  ruled  pre-Columbian  Mexico.  Sunday,  Jan.  20 
1:00  p.m. 

'"Whales.  Dolphins,  and  Men."  This  51-minute  documen- 
tary considers  the  remarkable  intelligence  of  dolphins  and 
whales  and  also  examines  the  whaling  industry.  Saturday,  Jan 
26.  1:00  p.m. 

"Indians  of  North  America. "  The  daily  life  of  six  tribes,  from 
the  Iroquois  in  the  north  to  the  Hopi  in  the  southwest,  is  the 
topic  of  this  tour.  Saturday.  Jan.  26.  2:30  p.m. 

"Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt.""  This  45-minute 
tour  and  movie  focuses  on  the  Egyptian  artifact  collection  and 
includes  a  description  of  the  mummification  process.  Sunday 
Jan.  27.  12:30  p.m. 


"Birds'  Paradise:  the  Waddensea."  Waddensea,  a  natural 
bird  refuge  in  the  Netherlands  for  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
shore  birds,  is  the  focus  of  this  25-minute  film.  Saturday.  Feb.  2. 
1:00  p.m. 

"Indian  Fishermen  of  the  Northwest  Coast."  This  45-minute 
tour  illustrates  the  importance  of  the  fish  in  story  and  art  tradi- 
tions, and  examines  Northwest  Coast  fishing  techniques.  Sun- 
day, Feb.  3,  2:00  p.m. 

"American  Indian  Dress."'  This  half-hour  tour  explores  the 
construction,  craft,  style,  and  symbolism  of  Indian  dress  from 
six  regions  of  North  America,  from  the  northern  Woodlands  to 
the  Southwest.  Saturday.  Feb.  9,  1 1:30  a.m. 

"Museum  Highlight  Tour."  Popular  exhibits  of  the  Museum 
are  highlighted  in  this  30-minute  tour.  Saturday.  Feb.  9,  12:30 
p.m. 

"Audubon.  "  This  film  traces  the  travels  of  John  James 
Audubon,  who  painted  birds  of  North  America  and  Europe  in 
their  native  habitats.  Includes  Audubons  paintings  from  his 
most  famous  book.  Birds  of  America.  Saturday.  Feb.  9.  1:00 
p.m. 

"Healers  and  Conjurers  of  the  Northwest  Coast."  The  ways 
that  native  healing  men  treat  illness  and  disease  are  in- 
vestigated in  this  tour.  Sunday,  Feb.  10,  2:00  p.m. 

Continuing  Programs 

"The  Ancient  Art  of  Weaving."  Learn  about  age-old  weaving 
techniques  and  textile  development  during  these  free 
demonstrations.  Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Friday  from  10:00 
a.m.  to  noon.  South  Lounge,  second  floor. 

Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  here  is  to 
determine  which  one  of  a  pair  of  apparently  similar  specimens  is 
harmful  and  which  is  not.  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire 
bat.  a  headhunter"s  axe.  a  poisonous  mineral,  or  a  deadly 
mushroom  from  its  benign  look-alike.  Ground  floor,  no  closing 
date. 

On  Your  Own  at  Field  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets, 
adult-  and  family-oriented,  are  available  for  25C  each  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  scientific  interests 
and  backgrounds  are  needed  to  work  in  the  various  depart- 
ments. For  more  information  call  Volunteer  Coordinator, 
922-9410,  ext.  360. 

January  and  February  Hours.  The  Museum  is  open  9  a.m.  to  4 
p.m..  Monday  through  Thursday;  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m.,  Saturday  and 
Sunday;  and  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m..  Friday. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Obtain 
a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor. 


Museum  Telephone:  (312)922-9410 


ary 


FIELD  MGSEGiVl  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BULLETIN 


MMURAIWSTBWSHWO 

f  EB  1  5  ^980 
UBRftW 


Field  Museum 

of  Natural  History 

Bulletin 

February  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  2 


Editor/ Designer:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President  and  Director:  E.  Leland  Webber 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chairman 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Harr>'  O.  Bercher 
Bowen  Blair 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr. 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
William  H.  Mitchell 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.  Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Mrs.  Edward  F.  Swift 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly, 
except  combined  July/August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II.  60605.  Subscriptions:  $6.00 
annually.  S3. 00  for  schools.  Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription. 
Opinions  e.xpressed  by  authors  are  their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the 
policy  oi  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manuscripts  are  welcome.  Museum  phone: 
(3121  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579  to  Field  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  11.  60605.  ISSN: 
0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  U. 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Briefs 

4  Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 

to  China,  England  and  Wales,  and  the  Grand  Canyon 

6  Physiognomy  in  Chinese  Figure  Painting 

(n/  Alt  Pontiiiicn 

10  The  Mysterious  Sarcophagus  in  Hall  J 

12  Bryan  Patterson,  1909-1979 

by  William  D.  TurnbuU,  curator  of  fossil  mammals 

14  Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series 

March  and  April  schedule 

16  American  Indian  Cradle  Boards 

h\f  Caroline  /.  Anderson 

22  Our  Environment 

Concerning  the  whooping  crane,  the  Siberian  crane, 
public  attitudes  on  wildlife,  rabid  bats  in  Texas,  wild 
pets  and  rabies 

26  Honor  Roll  of  Donors 

27  February  and  March  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


COVER 

Rhaedr  Ogwen  Waterfall,  in  Snowdonia  National  Park,  North  Wales, 
one  of  many  sites  of  geologic  and  historic  interest  to  be  visited  by  Field 
Museum's  England  and  Wales  Tour,  departing  ]une  14.  For  additional 
information  see  pages  4-5.  Photo  by  Bertram  G.  Woodland,  curator  of 
petrology,  zvho  zvill  lead  the  tour. 


Gold  of  El  Dorado 
Group  Tours 

Special  tours  of  the  major  forthcoming  exhibit 
"Gold  of  El  Dorado,"  opening  April  25  and  clos- 
ing July  6,  may  now  be  arranged  for  groups  as 
small  as  30  persons.  During  public  hours,  daily 
except  Friday,  special  groups  of  30  to  100  persons 
can  be  accommodated.  On  Tuesday  and  Thurs- 
day evenings  (after  the  Museum  is  closed  to  the 
general  public)  groups  of  50  or  more  can  be 
accommodated. 

Supplemental  lectures  by  Museum  staff  for 
such  groups,  as  well  as  private  dining 
arrangements,  are  also  available.  For  rates  and 
other  information  call  786-9570. 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


Detective  Work  at  Field  Museum 

b\/  William  C.  Burner 
chairman.  Department  of  Botany 

ecently  the  Botany  Department  received 
request  from  a  local  scientific  laboratory 
)  try  to  identify  some  tiny  seedlike  ob- 
!Cts.  All  the  information  the  lab  had  on 
le  objects  (which  turned  out  to  be  nearly 
licroscopic)  was  that  they  might  have 
?me  from  Puerto  Rico.  Offering  no  as- 
urances,  we  did  invite  the  lab  to  send 
lem  in,  but  since  more  than  250,000 
pecies  of  seed  plants  are  known  to  sci- 
nce  we  were  not  about  to  get  their  hopes 

P- 

Upon   examining   the   mysterious 

pecimens  we  found  they  were  cylindri- 

al,  had  rounded  ends,  and  were  about 

ne  millimeter  (1  25  inch)  long.  The  sur- 

ice  was  smooth  and  slightly  lustrous, 

ut  there  seemed  to  be  no  outer  epider- 

lis,  or  skin.  In  cross-section  they  were 

lightly   hexagonal,   but   there  was  no 

Ttemal  structure  of  any  kind. 

Some  of  us  in  the  department  sus- 
ected  they  were  immature  seeds,  others 
uggested  insect  eggs.  Stymied,  we  did 
/hat  we  always  do  under  such  circum- 
tances:  we  took  them  to  Dr.  Pat. 

Patricio  Ponce  de  Leon  (no  need  to 
xplain  why  everyone  at  the  Museum 
alls  him  "Dr.  Pat")  is  our  mycologist — 
omeone  who  studies  fungi.  He  has  a 
lattery  of  chemical  tests  for  distinguish- 
ng  different  kinds  of  fungi,  and 
ften — on  the  basis  of  very  little 
vidence — he  can  also  tell  us  whether 
omething  is  animal,  vegetable,  or  min- 
ral. 

After  Dr.  Pat's  initial  examination 
lis  only  conclusion  was  that  our  little 
seeds"  might  be  insect  droppings.  This 
lossibility  hadn't  occurred  to  any  of  us 
vho  looked  at  the  "seeds"  simply  be- 
ause  they  were  so  precise  in  form,  so 
ompact  in  structure,  and  had  such  a 
mooth  surface.  A  subsequent  chemical 
est — reinforcing  Dr.  Pat's  suspicions — 
evealed  that  the  objects  were  composed 
ilmost  entirely  of  lignin,  a  component  of 
vood  that  is  very  resistant  to  digestion. 

Taking  them  to  the  far  side  of  the 
hird  floor,  where  the  entomologists 
vork,  he  showed  them  to  Dr.  Eric  Smith, 
ustodian  of  the  insect  collection.  To- 
;ether  they  consulted  a  volume  on  the 
dentification  of  termites.  One  of  the 
riteria  used  by  this  book  in  identifying 
ermites  is  the  type  of  excrement  pro- 
luced.  In  short  order  the  mycologist- 
mtomologist  team  was  able  to  establish 
hat  the  nearly  microscopic  objects  were, 
n  fact,  what  Dr.  Pat  suspected:  termite 
iroppings — specifically  from  termites  of 


the  genus  Rcticulitcrmcs.  This  group,  it  so 
happens,  does  occur  in  Puerto  Rico! 

This  bit  of  detective  work  had  a  suc- 
cessful conclusion.  I  should  add,  how- 
ever, that  sometimes  we  are  stumped  in 
trying  to  identify  mysterious  specimens 
that  are  sent  to  us,  so  it's  a  special  plea- 
sure when  we  do  succeed. 

Bronson  and  Lewis  Appointed 
Anthropology  Department  Cochairmen 

Bennet  Bronson,  associate  curator  of 
Asian  archeology  and  ethnology;  and 
Philip  Lewis,  curator  of  primitive  art  and 
Melanesian  ethnology,  have  been  named 
cochairmen  of  the  Department  of  An- 
thropology. The  arrangement  became 
effective  January  1.  Bronson,  who  joined 
the  Anthropology  staff  in  1971,  will  serve 
as  department  head  April  through  Sep- 
tember, 1980.  Lewis,  who  came  to  Field 
Museum  in  1955,  will  head  the  depart- 
ment January  through  March  and  Octo- 
ber through  December. 


Volunteers  Sought  for 
"The  Gold  of  El  Dorado" 

Vicki  Grigelaitis,  Field  Museum's  vol- 
unteer coordinator,  has  announced  that 
special  volunteers  will  be  needed  in 
conjunction  with  the  major  exhibit  "The 


Gold  of  El  Dorado,"  on  view  April  25 
through  July  5.  The  responsibility  of 
these  volunteers  will  be  to  assist  visitors. 
Additicmal  information  may  be  obtained 
by  calling  Ms.  Grigelaitis  at  922-9410,  ext. 
360. 


Robert  R.  McCormick  Charitable 
Trust  Grants 

Two  large  grants  have  recently  been  made 
to  Field  Museum  by  the  Robert  R.  McCor- 
mick Charitable  Trust.  A  $250,000  grant 
has  been  made  in  support  of  a  new  major 
permanent  exhibit  to  be  installed  in  Hall  10 
(formerly  known  as  "Northwest  Coast  In- 
dians and  Eskimos"):  "Marine  Hunters  and 
Fishers."  A  $65,000  grant  has  been  made  in 
support  of  the  temporary  exhibit  "The  Gold 
of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia," 
opening  at  Field  Museum  on  April  25. 

"Marine  Hunters  and  Fishers," 
scheduled  for  completion  in  1982,  will  be 
based  upon  some  2,500  artifacts  from  the 
Museum's  collection  of  18,000  materials  — 
one  of  the  world's  most  outstanding 
assemblages  of  Northwest  Coast,  northern 
California,  and  Eskimo  materials.  "The 
Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colom- 
bia, "  which  closes  July  5,  will  feature  hun- 
dreds of  objects  drawn  primarily  from  the 
Museo  del  Oro,  Bogota,  Colombia. 


Brimham  Rocks,  a  sandstone  formation  near  Ripley,  Yorkshire,  one  of  the  sites  to  be  visited 
during  Field  Museum's  tour  of  England  and  Wales,  June  14-jul\/  3.  For  tour  description  see 
page  4. 


Field  Museum  Tours 

1980  Tour  Packages  Exclusively  for  Members 

To  China,  England  and  Wales,  and  the  Grand  Canyon 


People's  Republic  of  China 
May  10-31 

The  singular  experience  of  a  trip  to  the  People's  Republic  of  China 
can  be  yours!  For  its  members,  Field  Museum  again  offers  an  op- 
portunity to  visit  China's  major  attractions  in  the  company  of  a  well 
qualified  lecturer.  The  group,  limited  to  25  persons,  will  leave 
Chicago  May  1 0  and  return  May  3 1 . 

After  overnight  in  Vancouver  and  a  visit  to  Tokyo,  you  will 
continue  to  Peking,  China's  centuries-old  capital.  Relics  of  the  im- 
perial past,  now  national  monuments,  include  the  magnificent  im- 
perial palace,  museums,  temples  and  shrines,  and  the  vast  park-like 
Summer  Palace  on  the  shores  of  nearby  Kunming  Lake.  A  trip  will  be 
made  to  the  Great  Wall.  The  next  destination,  Nanking,  situated  on 
the  Yangtse  River,  is  a  source  of  pride  for  the  People's  Republic  as  a 
center  of  modern  development  as  well  as  for  its  scenic  and  historic 
attrac  tions.  Of  special  interest  is  the  visit  to  the  charming  city  of 
Kweilin.  The  awesome  surrounding  landscape  of  jutting  peaks  and 
rocky  caves  brings  scenes  of  Chinese  painting  to  life.  Kwangchow 


(Canton)  is  China's  most  important  southern  city,  reflecting  events 
in  the  histor\  of  the  republic  as  well  as  former  times  when  it  was 
China's  only  port  open  to  foreign  trade. 

For  additional  information  on  this  exciting  tour,  contact  the 
Tours  Office  and  ask  for  the  China  brochure. 


Geology  Tour  of  England  and  Wales 
June  14-|uly  3 

Highlights  of  this  20-day  tour,  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Bertram 
Woodland,  Field  Museum's  curator  of  petrology  (and  a  native  of 
Wales),  will  be  visits  to  classical  areas  of  British  geology  where 
many  fundamental  aspects  of  geology  were  first  discovered.  The 
geological  history  and  scenic  development  of  these  areas  will  be 
emphasized.  Included  in  the  tour  are  visits  to  the  South  Coast,  West 
Country  Cotswolds,  Welsh  Borderlands,  North  Wales,  Lake  District, 
Yorkshire  Dales,  and  the  Peak  District.  The  group  is  limited  to  25 
persons. 


Chinese  mother  and  child 


>&mM ' 


Hlp).M*iS*M 


n 


Grand  Canyon 

Cost  of  the  tour — $2,640  (which  includes  a  $300  donation 
to  Field  Museum) — is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and  includes 
round  trip  air  fare  between  Chicago  and  London.  First  class  ac- 
commodations will  be  used  throughout.  The  package  includes 
breakfast  and  dinner  daily,  chartered  motorcoach,  baggage  han- 
dling, all  transfers,  taxes  (exceptairport  tax),  and  tips  (except  to  tour 
guides),  all  sightseeing  charges  and  admissions  to  special  events. 
Advance  deposit;  $250  per  person. 


cataracts  dropping  1  5  feet.  At  no  time  will  we  need  to  portage,  but 
we  will  have  to  hold  fast  with  both  hands,  and  secure  the  luggage 
well.  We'll  get  wet  and  tired — but  happy  and  pleased. 

We  will  camp  out  on  sandy  beaches,  and  since  it  will  not 
rain,  the  stars  and  the  walls  of  the  canyon  will  be  our  companions  at 
night.  We  will  travel  in  four  boats,  we'll  swim  in  the  tributaries  to 
the  Colorado,  or  dive,  jump  in,  or  just  soak.  We  will  hike  to  places 
of  unusual  geologic  and  anthropologic  interest,  sometimes  through 
the  most  pleasant  and  enchanting  stream  beds  and  valleys,  at  times 
along  steep  walls  and  waterfalls. 

But  above  everything  else,  we'll  live  a  time  of  geology.  We 
will  think  earth  while  we  eat,  swim,  dream,  walk,  and  relax.  We 
will  see  and  study  more  geology  in  this  one  brief  period  than  can  be 
seen  anywhere  else  in  comparable  time. 

The  trip  will  end  in  Lake  Mead.  From  there  we'll  go  by  bus  to 
Las  Vegas,  then  fly  home — sad  to  leave  the  Great  River  and  a  grand 
fortnight  of  our  lives,  but  happy  and  proud  to  have  experienced  it. 

Although  the  trip  will  not  be  rigorous,  numerous  in- 
nercanyon  hikes  are  planned.  Camping  out  on  the  river  will  be 
without  tents.  Meals  will  be  excellent.  A  pre-trip  meeting  at  Field 
Museum  is  scheduled  for  Saturday,  February  9,  at  2;30  p.m.  Dr. 
Matthew  Nitecki,  curator  of  fossil  invertebrates,  will  lead  the  trip. 
The  cost  of  $1,500  covers  all  expenses  (including  air  fare,  boat  fare, 
meals,  camping,  sleeping  bags,  etc.),  and  a  donation  of  $250.00  to 
the  Field  Museum.  The  trip  is  limited  to  19  persons. 

For  additional  information  and  reservations 
for  all  tours,  call  or  write  Dorothy  Roder, 
Field  Museum  Tours,  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake 
Shore  Dr.,  Chicago,  III.  60605.  Phone  (312) 
922-9410. 


England's  Lake  District,  immortaltzed  by  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Southey. 


Exploration  of  the  Grand  Canyon 
October  3-19 

The  traveler  arriving  in  Grand  Canyon  may  be  given  enough  time  to 
stand  on  the  South  Rim  and  to  gaze  in  wonder  into  the  depth  and 
silence  of  the  chasms  before  being  hurried  away  in  his  charter  bus 
to  somewhere  else.  If  he  is  lucky  and  has  more  leisure  he  may  be 
allowed  to  hike  part  of  the  way  down  to  the  Colorado  River  along  a 
trail  as  busy  as  Fifth  Avenue  on  Easter.  But  there  is  another  Grand 
Canyon  that  is  not  accessible  to  anyone  in  a  hurry:  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  exquisite  loveliness,  grandeur,  and  solitude. 

The  trip  will  begin  in  the  late  afternoon  of  Friday,  October  i. 
with  the  flight  to  Las  Vegas.  The  first  two  days  will  be  spent  in  the 
South  Rim  as  an  introduction  to  wilderness  hiking  and  camping  and 
to  the  geology  of  the  area.  The  main  part  of  the  trip  will  be  a  14-day 
river  trip.  The  trip  will  be  concerned  with  all  aspects  of  geology,  but 
will  stress  the  geological  history  of  the  area  shown  in  the  great 
sequence  of  rocks  representing  about  a  third  of  the  earth's  history, 
the  understanding  of  the  Colorado  River,  her  power,  and  the  tools 
she  uses  to  carve  this  great  canyon,  and  the  sheer  joy  and  excite- 
ment of  the  river  adventure. 

It  is  on  the  river  that  we  will  experience,  learn,  and  under- 
stand the  canyon,  the  river,  and  the  Great  Southwest.  We  will 
"shoot"  an  unending  line  of  rapids,  some  but  a  ripple,  others  rocky 


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A  Ming  di/nasty  handscroU  (Cat.  125947),  attributed  to  Chou  Ch'en.  Now  mounted  fully  extended  in  a  frame,  the 
scroll  shows  a  series  of  25  adult  figures,  15  of  whom  are  reproduced  here  and  on  the  following  pages. 


PHYSIOGNOMY  IN  CHINESE 
FIGURE  PAINTING: 
A  Case  Study 


By  Art  Pontynen 

A  Chinese  Handscroll  in  the  Field  Museum 
collection  is  a  rare  example  of  Chinese  figure 
painting  in  which  persons  of  various  social 
status  are  realistically  presented.  The  painting 
was  acquired  by  Berthold  Laufer,  then  curator 
of  anthropology,  during  his  1923  expedition  to 
China. 

He  purchased  it  from  the  collection  of  T. 
R.  Abbott,  Laufer's  host  in  Peking,  who  pro- 
vided him  with  invaluable  assistance  in  locat- 
ing and  acquiring  art  works.  The  painting  is 
similar  in  subject  and  treatment  to  pictures 
comprising  an  album  painted  by  the  sixteenth- 
century  artist  Chou  Ch'en.  Now  entitled  "Dis- 
placed Persons  Pictures,"  Chou  Ch'en's  album 
exists  in  the  form  of  two  separate  handscrolls, 
one  in  the  Honolulu  Academy  of  Art,  the  other 
in  the  Cleveland  Museum  of  Art. 


The  Field  Museum  handscroll  (324cm  x 
26cm,  or  12'9"  x  IOV4")  is  rendered  in  tones  of 
grey  and  black  ink  on  silk.  The  figural  portion, 
depicting  25  adults,  three  infants,  and  several 
animals,  is  followed  by  two  hand-written 
notices,  or  colophons,  now  separated  from  the 
body  of  the  painting.  The  first  colophon  is 
dated  to  the  twenty-seventh  year  of  the  Tao- 
kuang  reign  period  (1847),  and  written  by  a 
certain  Ch'en  Ch'uan  at  the  request  of  the 
owner.  The  latter,  a  nineteenth-century  collec- 
tor by  the  name  of  Chuang  Chin-tu,  had  asked 
Ch'en  Ch'uan  to  attribute  the  unsigned  paint- 
ing to  a  known  artist.   Accordingly,   Ch'en 


Art  Pontynen  is  a  doctoral  candidate  in  Chinese  and 
Japanese  art  history  at  the  University  of  Iowa. 


Ch'uan  attributed  it  to  Chou  Ch'en,  artist  of  the 
Honolulu-Cleveland  handscrolls. 

Chuang's  seals,  identifying  him  as  the 
collector,  are  on  the  silk,  figural  portion  of  the 
Field  Museum  painting  and  on  the  paper  of  the 
colophon  portion.  There  are  also  two  im- 
pressions of  an  unidentified  seal  and  three 
others  that  bear  the  name  of  Hsiang  Yiian-pien, 
a  distinguished  collector  who  lived  during  the 
Ming  dynasty  (1368-1644).  If  genuine,  these 
seals  indicate  that  Field  Museum's  scroll  also 
dates  to  the  sixteenth  century. 

In  comparing  the  style  of  Field  Museum's 
scroll  with  that  of  the  Honolulu-Cfeveland 
album,  it  seems  certain  that  Field  Museum's  is  a 
copy  of  that  original  work.  The  practice  of 
making  copies  of  admired  paintings  is  a  long- 
standing tradition  in  China;  and  there  are  many 
famous  Chinese  artists  whose  work  is  known 
solely  through  such  copies.  For  an  aspiring 
Chinese  artist,  copying  was  a  means  of  learning 
the  techniques  and  styles  of  past  masters  as  well 
as  an  act  of  reverence  toward  them.  While  in  the 
West  copies  are  often  instruments  of  deception 
meant  to  be  falsely  represented  as  originals,  in 
China  they  are  traditionally  intended  to  instruct 
the  viewer  in  the  achievements  of  great  artists 
of  the  past. 

The  first  figures,  from  right  to  left,  on 
Field  Museum's  scroll  are  a  monk  and  a 
fortune-teller,  followed  by  characters  of  varying 
social  status  and  fortune.   The  figural  section 


ends  with  a  group  of  three  women. 
Significantly,  there  are  differences  between 
Field  Museum's  scroll  and  the  Chou  Ch'en 
original.  Although  most  of  the  figures  in  the 
original  do  appear  in  the  Field  Museum  copy, 
some  are  omitted;  and  some  to  be  seen  in  the 
copy  do  not  appear  in  the  original. 

The  placement  order  of  the  figures  in  the 
Field  Museum  scroll  might  suggest  that  at  the 
time  this  copy  was  made,  the  Honolulu- 
Cleveland  album  had  not  yet  been  mounted  in 
handscroll  format,  or  at  least  that  the  order  of 
figures  in  the  original  did  not  prevail  at  the  time 
of  copying. 

The  figures  not  to  be  seen  in  the  original 
but  present  in  the  Field  Museum  scroll  are:  a 
group  consisting  of  a  man  and  woman,  each 
holding  an  infant,  a  stooped-back  man,  a  one- 
eyed  man  holding  a  chipped  bowl,  and  three 
more  women.  These  figures  may  well  be  copies 
of  original  figures  by  Chou  Ch'en  that  are  now 
lost. 

Chou  Chen's  decision  to  paint  a  series  of 
figures  ranging  in  status  from  the  affluent  to  the 
destitute  is  in  part  explained  by  the  colophon 
on  the  Cleveland  portion  of  the  original: 

In  the  autumn  of  the  Ping-tzu  year  of 
Cheng-te  (1516),  in  the  seventh  month,  I  was 
idling  under  the  window,  and  suddenly  there 
came  to  my  mind  all  the  appearances  and 
manner  of  the  beggars  and  other  street 


^ 


characters  whom  I  often  saw  in  the  streets  and 
markets.  With  brush  and  ink  ready  on  hand,  I 
put  them  into  pictures  in  an  impromptu  way. 
It  may  not  be  worthy  of  serious  enjoyment  but 
it  certainly  can  be  considered  as  a  warning  and 
admonition  to  the  world.  Recorded  by  Tung- 
ts'un,  Chou  Ch'en.* 

So  the  artist  himself  explains  that  the 
painting  was  intended  to  serve  a  didactic  func- 
tion: to  stimulate  the  viewer  to  contemplate  the 
vagaries  of  life  and  fortune. 

Why  did  Chou  Ch'en  produce  such  an 
unusual  work  in  the  context  of  Ming  figure 
painting?  Figure  painting  in  China  often  had  a 
didactic  function,  and  highly  respected  per- 
sons, both  historic  and  (then)  contemporary, 
were  painted  for  adulation  and  emulation.  Two 
commentators  on  art— Hsieh  Ho  in  the  sixth 
century  and  Chang  Yen-yuan  in  the  ninth- 
emphasize  that  painting  perfects  the  civilizing 
teachings  of  the  sages  and  helps  to  maintain 
social  relationships.  A  twelfth-century  writer, 
Han  Cho,  comments  however  that  "whenever 
painting  figures,  one  should  not  use  coarse, 
vulgar  types,  but  venerate  those  that  are  pure 
and  elegant.  .  .  ." 


•Lee,  Sherman.  "Literati  and  Professionals:  Four  Ming 
Painters,"  Bulletin  of  the  Cleveland  Museum  of  Art,  January 
1966,  p.  10. 


Although  Chou  Ch'en  had  to  have 
known  of  the  didactic  function  of  painting,  he 
was  obviously  not  in  agreement  with  Han  Cho. 
So  we  must  look  for  an  alternative  explanation 
or  tradition  to  understand  his  approach.  One 
such  alternative  may  be  seen  in  an  eleventh- 
century  text  on  painting  by  Kuo  Jo-hsii: 

Those  who  paint  secular  figure  subjects  must 
distinguish  between  the  look  of  rich  and  poor, 
and  the  robes  and  head-gear  of  the  [different] 
dynasties.  In  the  case  of  Buddhist  monks  the 
faces  [should  tell  of]  good  works  and  practical 
expedients  ....  Peasants  will  naturally  pos- 
sess the  very  essence  of  unsophistication  and 
country  simplicity,  plus  such  other  [special 
characteristics]  as  respectfulness  or  obstinacy, 
joy,  or  sorrow. 

Although  Kuo  Jo-hsii  was  receptive  to 
the  idea  of  painting  "vulgar  types"  and  pro- 
vided a  formula  for  doing  so,  his  advice  falls 
short  of  endorsing  the  harshly  realistic  subject 
matter  we  see  in  Chou  Ch'en's  work.  Another 
possible  sanction  for  Chou  Ch'en's  approach 
was  enunciated  by  the  great  eleventh-century 
poet  Su  Tung-p'o: 

Portrait  painting  and  physiognomy  are  the 
same  art.  .  .  .  There  is  some  part  in  every  man 
where  his  particular  disposition  resides.  Some 
have  it  in  the  eyebrows,  some  in  the  nose  or 
the  mouth. 


IPX 


ecu , 


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l^^^ 
^^^     J 


W^^'] 


It  was  widely  believed  that  a  person's 
character  as  well  as  his  fate  could  be  "read"  in 
one's  face  or  in  some  other  physical  feature.  The 
prevalence  of  this  theory  can  be  judged  by  the 
opposition  to  it  by  Hsiin  Tze  (320-235  b.c),  a 
prominent  Confucianist.  In  his  essay  "Against 
Physiognomy"  Hsun  Tze  cites  numerous 
examples  of  famous  persons  whose  physiog- 
nomy was  far  from  promising.  He  notes  that 
"To  physiognomize  a  person's  appearance  is 
not  as  good  as  to  consider  his  heart;  consider- 
ing his  heart  is  not  as  good  as  to  select  his  prin- 
ciples." 

Although  the  harsh  realism  of  the  Field 
Museum  scroll  is  exceedingly  rare  in  Chinese 
figure  painting,  it  is  apparent  that  the  ren- 
derings of  the  figures  still  follow  certain  specific 
traditions.  The  theory  that  a  person's  physiog- 
nomy reflects  one's  character  and  destiny — 
though  dating  from  an  assumedly  pre-Buddhist 
period — nevertheless  is  congenial  to  the 
Buddhist  concept  of  karmic  retribution  and  re- 
birth. The  belief  that  one  can  benefit  from  a 
visual  contemplation  of  venerated  figures  of  the 
past  goes  hand-in-hand  with  the  concept  that  a 
person's  appearance  reflects  his  character.  This 
attitude  persisted  through  the  centuries,  and  it 
was  poet-artist  Su  Tung-p'o  who  stated  that 
portrait  painting  and  divining  character  by 
means  of  the  "science"  of  physiognomy  are 
essentially  the  same. 


There  are  two  conclusions  that  might  be 
drawn  concerning  the  Field  Museum  scroll  and 
its  relationship  to  the  Honolulu  original:  The 
figures  found  only  in  Field  Museum's  may  rep- 
resent figures  originally  painted  by  Chou  Ch'en 
but  no  longer  extant  or  available;  the  Field 
Museum  painting  could  thus  be  a  more  com- 
plete visual  documentation  of  sixteenth-century 
Chinese  life  than  the  original.  The  sequence  of 
figures  in  the  Field  Museum  scroll  may  also 
reflect  the  intended  order  of  the  original  album 
leaves  painted  by  Chou  Ch'en. 

We  also  see  in  the  Field  Museum  paint- 
ing some  of  the  primary  motivations  and  prin- 
ciples of  Chinese  figure  painting.  Chou  Ch'en 
depicted  human  flgures  in  accordance  with 
three  time-honored  traditions: 

First,  in  his  rendering  of  physical  fea- 
tures, he  sought  to  reflect  the  subject's  character 
and/or  destiny.  Secondly,  he  differentiated 
between  social  and  professional  classes  by  con- 
trasting a  Buddhist  monk,  a  fortune  teller,  and 
refined  ladies  with  the  less  fortunate.  He  thus 
ignored  prevailing  strictures  against  depicting 
the  infirm  or  the  otherwise  disadvantaged. 
Chou  Ch'en's  penetrating  yet  seemingly  sym- 
pathetic vision  provides  us  with  a  rare  candid 
account  of  life  in  sixteenth-century  China. 

Finally,  Chou  Ch'en  observed  a  primary 
rule  of  Chinese  figure  painting  by  providing 
the  viewer  with  a  lesson:  physiognomy  not- 
withstanding, the  vagaries  of  life  are  many. 


The  Mysterious 
Sarcophagus  in  Hall  J 


"The  marble  Greco-Roman  sarcophagus  on 
display  along  the  west  wall  of  the  Museum's 
Egyptian  Hall,"  wrote  Christopher  Lcgge  in  the 
January,  1969,  Bulletin,  "probably  draws  only 
casual  glances  from  most  visitors,  yet  on  the  eve 
of  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  in  1893, 
this  same  artifact  caused  a  brief  minor  furor." 

Today  the  sarcophagus  occupies  a  central 
position  in  Hall  j,  and  is  the  constant  object  of 
curious  scrutiny,  particularly  by  visitors  who  had 
heard — incorrectly — that  it  was  the  burial  vault  of 
Queen  Cleopatra! 

Legge's  article,  reproduced  here  for  the 
benefit  of  the  great  many  readers  who  did  not  see  it 
originally,  dispels  that  myth  and  sheds  additional 
light  on  the  curious  history  of  artifact  #31842:* 

During  the  1890s,  popular  interest  in 
things  Egyptian  was  rising  in  intensity.  It  was 
natural,  then,  that  this  interest  would  be  re- 
flected in  some  of  the  Exposition  exhibits. 
Among  the  attractions  there  were  a  "Temple  of 
Luxor"  and  the  "Streets  of  Cairo,"  where  a 
dancer  called  "Little  Egypt"  caused  both  sensa- 
tion and  scandal.  The  sarcophagus,  too,  was  to 
have  been  a  prominent  part  of  this  tum-of-the- 
century  extravaganza  and  although  this  never 
came  to  pass,  the  artifact's  checkered  history  is 
an  interesting  one. 

It  was  discovered  in  1888  by  workmen 
digging  a  well  near  Alexandria.  Unfortunately, 


the  discovery  was  unattended  by  any  scientific 
investigation,  a  lack  which  has  defeated  later 
attempts  to  place  it  historically.  In  unearthing 
the  sarcophagus,  the  funerary  chamber  was  de- 
stroyed and  the  debris  scattered.  However,  it 
was  soon  put  on  display  with  this  astonishing 
notation: 

"Sarcophagus  of  Queen  Cleopatra,  dis- 
covered at  Ramleh,  near  Alexandria.  This  sar- 
cophagus was  found  at  a  depth  of  30  feet,  but 
for  the  convenience  of  visitors,  it  has  been  lifted 
to  its  present  position." 

A  second  label  read,  "For  particulars 
apply  to  Mr.  G.  N.  Frangouli,  Tobacconist, 
Alexandria." 

Despite  this  shaky  documentation,  Halli- 
gan's  Illustrated  World's  Fair,  which  described 
itself  as  a  "Pictorial  and  Literary  History  of  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition,"  wrote  in  its 
issue  of  September,  1891,  "the  recent  discovery 
...  of  Queen  Cleopatra,  is  by  far  the  most  valu- 
able find  yet  made  in  curio-fraught  Egypt.  The 
proposition  to  bring  this  interesting  historical 
relic  to  the  World's  Fair  at  Chicago  makes  a  con- 
sideration of  the  discovery  particularly  oppor- 
tune. The  principle  bas-relief  is  the  central  one, 
which  represents  the  head  of  a  woman.  This  is  a 
magnificent  specimen  of  the  sculptor's  art:  the 
woman  has  an  asp  on  each  temple  and  agony  is 
depicted  in  the  expression  of  the  face,  which  is 


The  sarcophagus 

being  excavated  in 

1888  at  Ramleh,  near 

Alexandria,  Egypt. 

When  first  displayed 

in  Egypt  it  was  touted 

as  being  that  of 

Cleopatra,  a  claim 

10     later  discredited. 


"'yf 


::r'}.:  y;:   . .- ^ 

-fiu  .^  :;^.  ■•'   -^T 


The  sarcoplhi\;ii>  as  it  may  he  seen  today  in  Hall  ] 


a  remarkable  one.  The  well-shaped  nose,  with 
its  full  nostrils,  the  determined  jaw  indicate  the 
masterly  spirit  of  a  woman  accustomed  to 
command.  The  forehead  is  rather  low  but  there 
is  evidently  a  massive  head  behind  that  and 
when  one  compares  this  bust  with  that  on  one 
of  the  coins  struck  in  Cleopatra's  reign,  the 
likeness  is  at  once  perceptible.  Among  the  re- 
mains found  in  the  sarcophagus  was  a  skull  of 
unusual  size  with  a  low  forehead  and  a  great 
development  at  the  back  of  the  head — 
undoubtedly  that  of  the  voluptuous  queen." 

Col.  Samuel  Lawrence  James,  an  ex- 
Confederate  army  veteran  and  prominent  citi- 
zen of  New  Orleans,  was  travelling  in  Egypt 
about  the  time  the  article  appeared  and  bought 
the  sarcophagus  from  the  Egyptian  govern- 
ment, paying  $4,000. 

A  Chicago  newspaper  clipping  of  un- 
known date,  but  probably  shortly  before  Col. 
James  died  in  1894,  gives  the  information  that 
owing  to  a  number  of  complications,  he  de- 
cided not  to  exhibit  it  on  the  Fair  grounds.  It 
would,  however,  together  with  the  remains  of 
Cleopatra  and  a  number  of  mummies,  be  soon 
exhibited  at  a  store  at  335  Wabash  Avenue, 
which  had  been  converted  into  an  exact  but 
smaller  reproduction  of  the  famous  temple  at 
Denderah.  The  article  claimed  that  leading  sci- 
entists had  no  doubts  that  the  sarcophagus  was 
that  of  Cleopatra.  Details  of  this  establishment 
have  been  lost  in  obscurity  and  its  site,  now  514 
S.  Wabash,  is  occupied  by  George  Diamond's 
Steak  House. 

In  1904  and  probably  for  several  years 
before,  the  sarcophagus  lay  in  Blakelee's 
warehouse  on  S.  Western  Avenue.  In  that  year, 


S.  L.  James,  Jr.,  as  executor  of  his  father's  estate, 
gave  it  to  Field  Museum.  In  a  letter  to  the 
Museum's  director  he  said  that  although  his 
father  had  bought  it  under  the  assumption  that 
it  was  Cleopatra's,  he  could  not  vouch  for  its 
authenticity. 

The  sarcophagus,  without  a  reference  to 
its  possible  connection  with  Cleopatra,  is 
mentioned  in  the  Museum's  annual  report  as 
being  part  of  the  most  important  acquisitions 
through  gift  for  the  year.  Several  other  Egyptian 
artifacts  were  included  in  the  acquisition.  Any 
association  with  "one  of  the  most  imperious, 
wilful  and  wicked  of  the  world's  women" 
("Halligan's  Illustrated  World's  Fair")  has  be- 
come even  more  improbable  since  then. 
Present-day  archeologists  believe  that  the  cen- 
tral bas-relief  represents  Medusa  and  that  the 
sarcophagus  is  one  of  a  group  of  Alexandria 
sarcophagi  of  Proconnesian  white  marble  from 
quarries  on  the  island  of  Marmara  in  the  sea  of 
that  name  and  that  in  round  figures  they  can  be 
dated  between  150-250  a.d.,  a  period  180  to 
280  years  after  Cleopatra's  death. 

The  sarcophagus,  largely  unnoticed  in  its 
present  dignified  setting,  has  travelled  from 
Ramleh  to  Wabash  Avenue  to  Field  Museum, 
missing  its  chance  to  become  a  part  of  the  great 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  along  the  way, 
but  nonetheless  a  subject  of  astounding  claims 
and,  later,  of  academic  inquiry — all  without  re- 
vealing its  history.  To  that  extent,  its  mysteri- 
ous aura  remains. 

"Christopher  Legge's  article  first  appeared  in  the  January, 
1%9,  BulU-tm  under  the  title  "We  Don't  Know  Whose  It  Was 
But  It  Wasn't  Cleopatra's."  Legge  was  custodian  of  the  an- 
thropology collection  from  1962  to  1974. 


II 


BRYAN  PATTERSON,  1909-1979 


Bv  William  D.  Tunibull 


Brvcin  Patterson,  a  member  of  the  Department  of  Geology 
staff  from  1926  to  1955  and  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Sciences,  died  December  1  in  Boston. 
He  was  70  years  of  age.  Patterson's  Field  Museum  career 
began  at  age  17  when  he  arrived  from  Malvern,  En- 
gland. His  father.  Col.  J.  H.  Patterson  (who  shot  the 
famed  Tsavo  man-eating  lions  on  view  in  Hall  22),  asked 
Stanley  Field,  then  president  of  Field  Museum,  if  the 
Museum  could  find  some  way  to  use  the  lad.  Months  later 
young  Patterson  appeared  on  the  Museum's  doorstep. 
Thus  a  remarkable  career  was  launched. 

For  the  next  three  years  Patterson  served  as  pre- 
parator  for  the  Department  of  Geology,  following  this 
with  five  years  as  division  assistant.  For  seven  years 
he  then  served  as  assistant  curator,  and  finally  for 
fourteen  years  as  curator,  with  time  out  during  World  War 
II  for  service  in  the  U.S.  Army.  In  1955  Patterson  left  Field 
Museum  to  accept  an  Alexander  Agassiz  Professorship  at 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  Harvard,  a  chair  he 
held  until  1970.  He  continued  to  serve  Harvard  for  five 
more  years  as  professor  of  comparative  paleontology,  and 
after  that  continued  as  professor  emeritus.  Throughout  his 
Harvard  tenure,  Patterson  retained  affiliation  with  Field 
Museum  as  a  research  associate. 

At  Harvard  Patterson  continued  research  in- 
vestigations that  he  had  begun  at  Field  Museum: 
Paleocene  and  Eocene  faunas  of  the  DeBeque  Formation  of 
Western  Colorado;  Early  Creataceous  and  Eocene- 
Oligocene  faunas  of  the  Texas  Trinity  and  Vieja  Forma- 
tions; and  Mid  and  Late  Tertiary  faunas  of  South  America. 
New  endeavors  at  Harvard  included  explorations  in  East 
Africa.  In  1971  he  made  worldwide  headlines  as  leader  of 
an  expedition  to  Kenya,  where  his  crew  unearthed  the 
jawbone  of  man's  five  million-year-old  ancestor,  Au- 
stralopithecus. At  the  time  it  was  the  earliest  such  speci- 
men known.  Four  years  earlier  he  had  made  another  Au- 
stralopithecus discovery.  The  1967  fragment  pushed  back 
the  human  evolutionary  record  to  2V2  million  years  from 
the  prior  record  of  PA  million  years  set  by  Louis  and  Mary 
Leakey.  Early  in  his  Harvard  tenure  Patterson  received  his 
most  coveted  honor  when  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Sciences. 

Bryan,  or  Pat,  as  he  was  known  to  Field  Museum 
colleagues,  was  a  phenomenon.  He  had  an  insatiable 
curiosity,  a  compulsion  to  read— no,  to  devour — the  writ- 
ten word,  and  ajoie  de  vivre  that  transformed  almost  every 
occasion  into  a  once-in-a-lifetime  experience.  He  com- 
manded a  wealth  of  knowledge  within  and  beyond  his 
field  that  was  indeed  remarkable,  all  the  more  because  he 
was  largely  self-taught.  His  only  formal  graduate  training 
consisted  of  selected  courses  taken  at  the  University  of 
2  Chicago  during  his  early  years  at  the  Museum.  He  had  a 


photographic  mind,  and  as  soon  as  he  perceived  a  need  to 
know  something — say  an  embryological  detail — he  would 
pursue  the  search  tenaciously. 

The  late  James  H.  Quinn,  former  chief  preparator  of 
the  Department  of  Geology,  once  pointed  out  to  me  that 
while  Pat  was  a  preparator  his  heart  may  have  been  with 
it,  but  his  intellect  went  far  and  away  beyond.  In  Quinn's 
words,  "A  few  weeks  after  Pat's  arrival,  Elmer  S.  Riggs 
asked  him  to  go  to  the  Museum  library  to  look  up  some 
obscure  point  or  reference,  and  that  was  the  end  of  the 
preparation.  Pat  discovered  the  library,  put  his  nose  in  a 
book  and  never  got  it  out  again."  (Riggs,  then  curator  of 
fossil  vertebrates,  was  Patterson's  predecessor  in  that 
post.)  I  have  always  remembered  that  statement  for,  in 
addition  to  its  revealing  touch  of  envy,  it  shows  that  Pat's 
peers  at  the  time  recognized  his  great  gift  and  accepted  his 
scholarly  ability  long  before  the  institution  officially  did 
so. 

During  Pat's  early  years  at  the  Museum  he  financed 
his  own  field  work,  there  being  no  funds  available  for  that 
purpose  for  so  inexperienced  a  hand.  One  such  trip, 
perhaps  his  first,  was  to  the  nearby,  now  world-famous 
Mazon  Creek   Pennsylvanian  locality   (an   hour's  drive 

Bryan  Patterson 
as  he  appeared  in 
cover  photo  of 
the  April,  1968. 
Bulletin.  A  prac- 
tical joker  who 
would  carry  out 
an  elaborate 
scheme  for  the 
sheer  fun  of  it.  he 
is  shown  here 
holding  an 
alleged  "dancing 
worm"  or  "tully 
monster,"  which 
he  supposedly 
had  just  bagged  in 
the  wilds  of 
Kenya.  The  only 
known  specimens 
of  the  creature 
(Tullimonstrum 
gregarium)  are 
Coal  Age  fossils 
from  Illinois.  Not 
an  attempt  to 
hoodwink  thi 
reader,  the  photo 
supplemented  a 
humorous  article 
on  Patterson'i- 
elaborate  prank. 


southwest  of  Chicago).  Pat  spent  his  first  vacation  there  in 
1928,  collecting  plant,  invertebrate,  and  vertebrate  fossils. 
His  collection — now  dwarfed  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  specimens  collected  there  since  by  curators 
George  Langford,  Eugene  Richardson,  Gordon  Baird,  and 
a  host  of  amateurs —  constituted  the  bulk  of  the  Museum's 
early  holdings  from  this  locality. 

Several  years  later,  still  at  his  own  expense,  he 
began  the  first  of  his  long-term  serious  research  efforts. 
Accompanying  Riggs  to  western  Colorado,  Pat  began  col- 
lecting from  the  latest  Paleocene  and  Early  Eocene  deposits 
of  the  DeBeque  Formation.  The  geology  of  the  area  was  so 
poorly  known  that  not  until  he  began  study  of  the  mate- 
rials was  he  able  to  demonstrate  the  presence  of  a 
Paleocene  section  distinct  from  the  Eocene. 

These  positive  results  led  to  the  Museum's  support 
of  six  subsequent  field  seasons  of  work  there.  Considering 
the  small  number  of  personnel,  the  scarcity  of  specimens, 
and  the  difficulties  of  terrain  during  those  field  seasons,  a 
remarkable  collection  was  accumulated.  It  was  well  docu- 
mented with  good  stratigraphic  and  locality  information, 
at  a  level  quite  acceptable  today,  but  exceptional  for  the 
time.  This  effort  resulted  in  nine  publications  on  the 
Paleocene  forms.  And  there  are  a  number  of  manuscripts 
in  various  stages  of  completion,  some  of  which  must  be 
published  in  order  that  the  wealth  of  information  they 
contain  can  become  part  of  the  record. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  his  years  of  work  in  Colorado 
shaped  and  molded  Pat  to  a  high  degree.  He  became  a 
master  at  this  craft  and  was  well  started  on  the  road  to 
preeminence.  In  1947  he  and  Quinn  spent  the  summer 
field  season  in  west  Texas,  in  the  Big  Bend  area  of  the  Rio 
Grande  country  west  of  the  Pecos,  where  they  collected  the 
first  extensive  series  of  specimens  from  the  Latest 
Eocene-Earliest  Oligocene  sediments  of  largely  volcanic 
origin. 

Simultaneous  with  the  western  Colorado  work  Pat 
began  study  of  a  large  series  of  materials  already  at  hand, 
collected  by  Riggs  in  South  America  in  the  1920s  from  Mid 
and  Late  Tertiary  deposits,  mainly  in  Argentina  and 
Bolivia.  This  aspect  of  Patterson's  work  has  produced  an 
outpouring  of  publications  that  continues  even  today,  and 
which  also  opened  the  way  for  studies  and  publications  on 
fauna  as  varied  as  the  Phororhacoid  birds,  marsupials, 
edentates,  typotheres,  astrapotheres,  toxodonts, 
pyrotheres,  and  rodents.  The  most  recent  of  these  is  a 
co-authored  (with  Albert  E.  Wood)  monograph  on  South 
American  rodent  evolution.  Pat  and  Larry  G.  Marshall,  a 
Field  Museum  vertebrate  paleontologist,  have  cooperated 
to  bring  into  final  form  several  of  Pat's  South  American 
faunal  and  stratigraphic  studies. 

Patterson's  major  field  work  in  Texas  was  recover- 
ing and  studying  the  teeth  of  the  Early  Cretaceous  mam- 
mals of  the  Trinity  Formation  of  north  Texas.  En  route  to 
1949  professional  meetings  in  El  Paso,  some  of  his  Field 
Museum  colleagues  stopped  to  check  a  locality  near 
Forestberg,  Texas,  reported  to  have  fossils  of  special  inter- 
est that  were  eroding  out  of  the  earth  in  great  abundance. 
The  reports  proved  to  be  more  than  valid,  and  Pat  was 
called  to  investigate  the  site  further. 


Bryan  Patterson,  about  1955 


He  spent  several  months  the  following  season  alone 
there,  digging  out  and  wet-sieving  uncounted  tons  of 
Trinity  sand  matrix.  He  recovered  well  over  100  of  the 
small  teeth,  representing  not  just  tricodonts,  but  a  number 
of  other  fauna  as  well.  His  report  on  one  of  these — 
primitive  therians — appeared  in  Fieldiana  (Field 
Museum's  monograph  series)  in  1956,  and  has  become  a 
classic. 

Patterson's  Chicago  years  were  a  time  not  only  in 
which  he  was  molded  into  an  acknowledged  leader  in  his 
field,  but  also  in  which  he  most  definitely  helped  to  mold 
the  Museum.  In  addition  to  the  vast  and  important  collec- 
tions he  made,  his  gifts  to  the  Museum  were  many  and 
varied;  but  his  greatest  gift  was  the  intellectually 
stimulating  effect  of  his  enthusiams  and  dedication. 

Although  never  trained  to  teach,  Pat  had  a  certain 
natural  gift  for  it:  he  made  his  subject  interesting  by  the 
manner  of  his  presentation,  and  he  enjoyed  doing  it.  He 
gave  of  his  time  to  serious  students  apparently  un- 
grudgingly, whether  or  not  they  were  formally  enrolled. 

Pat  served  the  Society  of  Vertebrate  Paleontology  as 
its  president  in  1948-49.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Society 
for  the  Study  of  Evolution,  the  Geological  Society  of 
America,  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science,  and  several  other  professional  societies.  The 
end  of  the  Chicago  years  was  marked  by  the  honor  of  the 
Harvard  appointment.  Another  honor  bestowed  upon  him 
more  recently  resulted  from  his  brief  work  in  Central 
America,  undertaken  as  a  consequence  of  his  interest  in 
the  faunal  interrelationships  and  interchanges  between 
North  and  South  America.  A  museum  in  Estanzuela, 
Guatemala,  is  named  in  his  honor,  recognizing  his  work 
there. 

Pat  is  survived  by  his  wife,  Bernice  Caine  Patter- 
son, and  a  son,  Alan. 


William  D.  Tiirnbiill  is  curator  of  fossil  mammals. 


t3 


Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series 


March  and  April 

lames  Simpson  Theatre 

Saturdays.  2:30  p.m. 


The  entrance  to  Simpson  Theatre  is  conveniently  located  inside  the 
west  entrance.  This  Is  of  special  interest  to  the  handicapped,  for  the 
entrance  is  at  ground  level,  with  all  steps  eliminated.  The  west  en- 
trance also  provides  free  admission  to  the  theatre.  Access  to  other 
Museum  areas,  however,  requires  the  regular  admission  fee  (except 
on  Fridays)  or  membership  identification.  The  film/lectures  are  ap- 
proximately 90  minutes  long  and  recommended  for  adults.  Reserved 
seating  available,  until  2:25,  for  members.  Doors  open  at  1 :45  p.m. 

March  1 

"Holy  Lands"  by  Charles  Forbes  Taylor 

This  nonsectarian  film  takes  us  to  Damascus;  places  of  the  Patriarchs, 
ludges.  Kings,  and  Prophets;  the  route  of  Moses;  Bethlehem 
Shepherds'  cave;  Herod's  castle,  Galilee,  lacob's  well,  Mt.  Zion, 
lerusalem,  Pilate's  palace.  Calvary,  and  more. 


Pofd/Lij/  '  Mjrch  . 


,  Land  and  Sea  .Adventure:  Naples  piazza  (March  29) 

March  8 

"Exploring  Darwin's  Islands"  by  Quentin  Keynes 

Keynes  first  shows  us  the  volcanic  scenery,  giant  tortoises,  and  other 
unique  Galapagos  life.  Then  we  step  ashore  on  Ascension,  and  carry 
on  to  St.  Helena,  where  Napoleon  was  exiled.  In  the  Falklands  we 
travel  by  hovercraft  and  see  the  remarkable  King  penguins  and 
elephant  seals. 

March  15 

"Norway"  by  Ed  Lark 

A  country  wedding,  Laplanders,  Europe's  largest  glacier,  the  in- 
comparable fjords,  the  midnight  sun  are  highlights  of  this  film. 

March  22 

"Portugal"  by  Frank  Nichols 

Portugal  today  is  a  blend  of  old  and  new.  The  old  can  be  seen  in 
fishing  villages  where  men  dress  in  traditional  plaids  and  women 
wear  seven-petticoated  dresses.  The  new  is  reflected  in  deluxe  resorts 
of  the  Algarve. 


The  ever-winding  Rhine  lApnl  2b) 
March  29 

"Land  and  Sea  Adventure:  by  Freighter 
to  the  Adriatic"  by  William  Sylvester 

Ports  of  call  Sylvester  takes  us  to  (aboard  a  freighter)  include  New 
Orleans,  Casablanca,  Genoa,  Portofino,  Naples,  Capri,  and  the 
Yugoslavian  Riviera.  Hjwaiisn  v\  jlerfj//  (April  19i 


>^.^ 


April  5 

'Central  America"  by  Jonathan  Hagar 

Guatemala,  with  ancient  Mayan  sites;  El  Salvador,  with  coconut  har- 
vesting; Honduras,  rich  in  mahogany  forests;  Panama,  transected  by 
the  busy  canal;  Nicaragua,  with  views  of  earthquake-ravaged  Man- 
agua; and  Costa  Rica,  with  its  rich  tablelands. 

April  12 

"Bavaria:  Land  nl  the  Mountain  King" 
by  Howard  and  Lucia  Meyers 

We  see  the  Passion  Play  at  Oberammergau,  visit  the  home  of  Prince 
Constantine,  see  the  hamlet  of  Gergweis  (with  500  persons  and  5,000 
dachshunds),  and  we  are  dazzled  by  a  4,000-candle  spectacle  at  the 
Castle  of  Herrenchiemsee. 


Bavaria:  Neuschwanstein  Castle  (April  12) 
April  19 

"The  hiawaiian  Adventure"  by  Doug  )ones 

Film  highlights:  erupting  volcanoes,  waterfalls,  the  art  of  lei-making, 
the  old  leper  colony  on  Molokai,  Queen  Liliukolani's  palace,  the 
sugar  industry,  surfing. 

April  26 

"The  Majestic  Rhine"  by  )ohn  Roberts 

From  its  source  high  in  the  Alps  to  its  North  Sea  mouth,  the  Rhine  is 
one  of  the  world's  busiest  and  most  colorful  waterways — a  vital  ar- 
tery of  Switzerland,  Germany,  France,  and  the  Netherlands. 


15 


Haida  cradle  board,  back  (left)  and  front 


AMERICAN  INDIAN 
CRADLE  BOARDS 


By  Caroline  J.  Anderson 


16 


Like  Traditional  North  American  Indians, 
modem  American  parents  have  discovered  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  back  carriers  for 
baby.  The  present-day  equivalent  of  the  Indian 
cradle  board  is  an  aluminum  frame  and  fabric 
carrier  which  is  slung  over  the  parent's  shoul- 
ders. Having  carried  my  own  boys  in  these 
back  frames,  I  was  struck  by  comparisons  when 
I  happened  upon  an  article  published  in  1887 
on  "Cradles  of  the  American  Aborigines,"  by 
Otis  Mason,  then  curator  of  ethnology  at  the 
Smithsonian  Institution. 

Here  were  sketches  and  descriptions  of  a 
wide  variety  of  Indian  cradle  boards.   I  was 


amazed  to  see  design  features,  including  sun 
shades  and  play  toys,  that  would  have  made 
useful  additions  to  my  own  twentieth-century 
model.  Other  features  seemed  strange  or  cruel 
and  aroused  my  interest  in  how  the  cradle 
boards  had  been  used. 

Reading  up  on  the  subject,  I  found  that 
cradle  boards  were  used  by  most  North  Ameri- 
can Indian  tribes,  ranging  between  the  arctic 
regions  and  Mexico,  and  in  some  areas  they 
have  been  used  for  hundreds  if  not  thousands 
of  years.  In  the  far  north  where  extreme  cold 
was  a  problem,  infants  were  commonly  carried 
in  the  hood  of  a  mother's  fur  parka.  In  Mexico 


and  other  scnithern  areas,  babies  were  more 
often  held  or  supported  on  a  mother's  hip.  But 
between  these  extremes,  the  cradle  board  was 
common.  It  might  be  constructed  of  wood, 
skin,  bark,  or  basketry.  Each  tribe  seemed  to 
have  its  own  design  and  many  cradles  were 
elaborately  or  symbolically  decorated.  In  some 
cases  the  cradle  for  male  infants  was  much  more 
elaborate  than  the  one  for  females.  In  every  case 
that  I  observed,  the  cradle  was  carried  by  a 
strap  across  the  mother's  forehead  rather  than 
by  the  shoulder  strap  which  is  common  today. 
And  it  was  always  mothers — not  fathers — that 
were  carrying  the  cradles. 

Many,  but  not  all,  of  the  cradle  boards 
were  designed  to  be  used  both  vertically  and 
horizontally.  This  required  that  the  child  be 
tightly  secured.  A  sleeping  child  could  then  be 


removed  from  his  mother's  back  while  still  on 
the  cradle  board  and  laid  on  a  bed  or  placed  to 
swing  gently  from  a  tree  branch  or  hook.  The 
child  would  not  have  to  be  awakened.  The  con- 
venience of  this  system  will  be  appreciated  by 
any  parent  who  has  struggled  to  remove  a 
sleeping  child  from  a  back  frame  and  then  tried 
to  get  the  child  back  to  sleep  in  a  crib.  However, 
many  modern  parents  would  object  to  the 
"tightly  bound"  aspect  of  most  cradle  boards. 
Arms  and  legs  were  likely  to  be  immobilized, 
especially  when  the  child  was  very  young.  One 
might  expect  this  to  be  uncomfortable  if  not 
damaging  to  the  child's  development. 

One  investigator  who  was  interested  in 
this  issue  was  psychologist  Wayne  Dennis.  He 
studied  the  southwest  Indians  during  the  1930s 
and  found  no  difference  in  age  of  walking  be- 


"V 


t 


North  American  cra- 
dle boards  (ctocku'ise 
from  top  left):  Pueblo 
(Hall  7,  case  25), 
Iroquois  (Hall  5,  case 
15),  Sauk  and  Fox 
(Hall  5,  case  4), 
Yuma-Mohave  (Hall 
7,  case  44),  Apache 
(Hall  7,  case  53), 
Chippewa  (Hall,  5, 

case  16)  yy 


1 


IK?  ¥i^ 


i 


._-■'     » 


Cradle  boards  of  Crow,  Cheyenne,  and  Arapmho.  Hall  6,  case  15. 
Apache  (from  photo) 


tween  those  babies  who  were  raised  on  cradle 
boards  and  those  that  were  not.  His  writings 
provide  a  good  illustration  of  how  the  cradle 
board  was  used  by  the  Hopi  Indians  at  that 
time.  (The  cradle  board,  in  this  case,  was  de- 
scribed as  a  "heavy  board  about  one  foot  wide 
and  two  and  one-half  feet  long.  At  one  end  of 
the  board  is  fastened  a  face-  or  head-guard  of 
stiff  wire.") 


In  order  to  place  the  infant  on  the  board,  the 
child,  naked  or  wearing  a  shirt  or  diaper,  is 
put  on  a  cotton  blanket  which  lies  on  the 
board.  The  infant's  arms  are  extended  by  his 
sides  and  the  right  side  of  the  blanket  is  pulled 
tight  over  his  right  arm  and  is  put  between  the 
left  arm  and  the  left  side  and  tucked  under  the 
infant's  body.  The  left  side  of  the  blanket  is 
then  pulled  firmly  over  the  left  arm  and  tucked 


under  the  right  side  of  the  child.  The  part  of 
the  blanket  which  extends  beyond  the  feet  is 
folded  back  under  the  infant's  legs  and  but- 
tocks. The  infant,  thus  ivrapped,  is  tied  to  the 
board  by  strips  of  cloth  which  encircle  the 
baby  and  the  boards.  The  wrapping  includes 
the  legs  which  are  thus  fastened  so  that  they 
can  be  flexed  only  to  a  slight  degree.  The  in- 
fant is  so  firmly  wrapped  and  tied  that  he  can- 
not turn  his  body  and  cannot  release  his  hands 
from  the  bindings.  Only  the  head,  which  rests 
on  a  small  pillow  or  pad  of  folded  cloth,  is 
relatively  free  to  move.* 

Dennis  explains  that  the  infants  placed 
on  these  particular  cradle  boards  were  bound  to 


•Dennis,  Wayne  and  Dennis,  Marsena.  "The  Effect  of 
Cradling  Practices  upon  the  Onset  of  Walking  in  Hopi 
Children,"  journal  of  Genetic  Psychology  ■  l'^40,  .56,  77-86. 


19 


the  board  on  the  first  day  of  Hfe  and  for  the  first 
three  months  spent  nearly  all  hours  in  that  po- 
sition. "Although  he  is  taken  off  one  or  more 
times  daily,  either  for  bathing  or  for  replacing 
soiled  cloths,  these  operations  do  not  consume 
manv  minutes  and  he  is  returned  to  the  board 
when  they  are  completed.  The  infant  nurses 
while  tied  to  the  board,  the  cradle  with  child 
attached  being  held  to  the  mother's  breast.  He 
sleeps  on  the  cradle  at  night  as  well  as  day." 
After  the  first  three  months,  babies  spent  less 
time  on  the  cradle  boards  although  the  cradles 
were  still  used  for  periods  of  sleep.  The  cradle 
was  usually  discarded  between  the  sixth  and 
twelfth  months  of  age. 

The  "face-  or  head-guard"  described  by 
the  Dennises  was  a  common  feature  of  many 
cradles.  They  were  constructed  of  different 

Kutenai  and  Paviotso  cradle  boards  (Hall  6,  case  35) 


materials,  but  they  all  provided  protection  and 
a  convenient  way  to  attach  a  sun  shade  or  insect 
shields.  The  head  guards  also  provided  an  ideal 
place  from  which  to  hang  play  toys.  1  had 
thought  it  was  a  twentieth-century  idea  to  pro- 
vide mobiles  for  auditory  and  visual  stimula- 
tion, but  George  Catlin  describes  similar  fea- 
tures on  Sioux  cradles  that  he  saw  in  the  early 
1800s. 

For  us,  the  strangest  custom  involving 
cradle  boards  is  probably  the  custom  of  head 
shaping,  which  is  reported  among  Indians  of 
both  the  northwestern  and  southeastern  United 
States.  It  is  best  known  among  the  Flat  Heads  of 
the  lower  Columbia  River  region.  The  cradle 
boards  of  this  tribe  were  designed  with  a  board 
that  would  rest  tightly  upon  the  baby's 
forehead  and  could  be  drawn  more  tightly  as 


20 


Pawnee  and  Wichita  cradle  boards.  (Latter  only  on  vieii'  in  Hall  5,  case  49.) 


the  weeks  went  by.  This  produced  a  head  shape 
in  which  there  was  a  flat  surface  from  the  tip  of 
the  nose  to  the  crown  of  the  head.  The  specific 
origin  and  purpose  of  this  head  flattening  is  not 
clear.  In  the  Handbook  of  American  Indianii, 
Hodge  notes  the  custom  with  this  explanation: 
"The  motives  of  intentional  deformation  among 
Indians,  so  far  as  known,  are  the  same  as  those 
that  lead  to  similar  practices  elsewhere;  the 
custom  has  become  fixed  through  long  practice, 
hence  considered  one  of  prosperity  and  duty, 
and  the  result  is  regarded  as  a  mark  of  distinc- 
tion and  superiority."* 

In  1887  Mason  observed  that: 

By  this  remarkable  operation  the  brain  is  sin- 
gularh/  chan^^cd  from  its  natural  shape,  but  in 
all  probability  not  in  the  least  diminished  or 


injured  in  its  natural  functions.  This  belief  is 
drawn  from  the  testimony  of  many  credible 
witnesses  who  have  closely  scrutinized  them 
and  ascertained  that  those  who  have  the  head 
flattened  are  in  no  way  inferior  in  intellectual 
poivers  to  those  whose  heads  are  in  their  natu- 
ral shape.  * 

Recently  when  in  Alaska  I  saw  an 
Athapaskan  cradle  that  had  been  used  by  a 
non-Indian  family.  This  family  knew  of  an  In- 
dian lady  that  still  makes  the  cradles,  and  they 
were  asking  to  have  one  made  for  their  daugh- 
ter who  is  now  grown.  In  a  moment  of  weak- 
ness I  inquired  about  the  price  and  was  told  it 
would  cost  $50  or  $70 — an  amount  well  beyond 
my  budget;  but  I  was  delighted  to  know  that 
Indian  cradles  are  still  being  made  and  passed 
along  to  future  generations. 


'Hodge,  F.  W.  (ed.)  Handbook  of  American  Indiam,  Wash- 
ington, Government  Printing  Office,  1907. 


"Mason,  Otis.  "Cradles  of  the  American  Aborigines,"  Re- 
port of  the  National  Museum,  1887,  161-212. 


2) 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Endangered  Whooping  Crane 
Killed  by  Eagle 

A  preliminary  investigation  by  the  U.S. 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  has  indicated  a 
six-month-old  endangered  whooping 
crane  was  attacked  in  flight  and  killed  by 
an  eagle  near  Rangely,  Colorado. 

Initial  examination  of  the  bird  and 
inter\'iews  with  observers  indicated  the 
whooping  crane  died  as  a  result  of  talon 
wounds  inflicted  by  a  large  raptor. 

According  to  a  party  of  hunters,  the 
white  whooping  crano  rose  from  a  small 
pond  with  two  darker  birds — apparently 
sandhill  cranes.  When  the  birds  attained 
altitude,  the  whooper  was  struck  by  a 
large  dark  bird,  presumed  to  be  a  golden 
eagle 

The  hunting  party  recovered  the 
whooping  crane  carcass,  and  upon  not- 
ing that  it  was  banded  and  had  a  radio 
transmitter  attached,  turned  it  over  to  the 
Colorado  Division  of  Wildlife. 

A  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  spokes- 
man said  that  while  eagles  have  been 
known  on  rare  occasions  to  take  geese 
and  other  birds  in  flight,  to  his  knowl- 
edge it  was  the  first  observed  taking  of  a 
whooping  crane  by  an  eagle.  Less  than 
100  of  the  species  remain  in  the  wild. 


Superpowers  Unite 
to  Save  Siberian  Crane 

On  ]uly  2,  1977,  a  young  American  agent 
in  Moscow  waited  anxiously  for  her  Rus- 
sian contact.  Upon  his  arrival,  she  sped 
to  the  airport,  picked  up  a  sealed 
plywood  box,  and  hopped  on  the  first 
flight  to  London.  Unlike  typical  spy  ca- 
pers, this  cloak-and-dagger  scenario  was 
diligently  planned  by  scientists  and  gov- 
ernment officials  both  in  the  U.S.  and 
U.S.S.R. 

The  box  which  was  transferred  from 
the  Russian  to  the  American  contained 
four  carefully-insulated  eggs  of  the  ex- 
tremely rare  Siberian  crane  (Grus 
leucogeranus).  Quick  conveyance  of  these 
eggs  was  a  vital  step  in  this  cooperative 
venture  between  the  International  Crane 
Foundation,  the  Soviet  Union,  and  the 
U.S.  Department  of  the  Interior  to  save 
the  Siberian  crane  from  extinction. 

White  plumage  in  cranes  has  come  to 
forbode  a  shaky  future  status.  Of  the 
world's  15  crane  species,  only  three — the 
Siberian,  whooper,  and  Japanese  crane 
(also  known  as  the  red-crowned 
crane) — are  predominantly  white.  These 
three  species  each  number  less  than  400 
individuals,  being  the  rarest  members  of 
a  diminishing  family,  whose  other  en- 
dangered species  number  in  the 
22  thousands. 


Today,  the  Siberian  crane  over- 
winters in  scattered  areas  of  China  and 
India.  A  population  of  about  300  birds 
from  northeast  Yakutsk  flies  across 
tundra  and  forest  to  winter  in  China 
along  the  Yangtze  River  Basin,  and  a 
smaller  flock  of  about  50  migrates  rnore 
than  3,000  miles  from  the  Ob  River  of 
western  Siberia  across  five  countries  to 
India's  Keoladeo  (Bharatpur)  Ghana  Bird 
Sanctuary. 

Once,  the  Siberian  crane  maintained 
a  wide  winter  distribution  over  China 
and  India.  The  major  factor  contributing 
its  demise  is  considerd  to  be  the  wide- 
spread destruction  of  the  shallow  wet- 
lands on  which  the  cranes  depend  for 
food.  The  birds  feed  on  the  tubers  of 
sedges  which  grow  in  these  swampy 
areas.  During  years  with  high  water 
levels,  the  cranes  disperse  in  small 
groups  to  numerous  areas  of  available 


habitat.  However,  during  winters  of  low 
water,  they  must  congregate  in  larger 
flocks  at  the  few  remaining  ponds.  Over 
the  last  century,  this  type  of  habitat  has 
rapidly  disappeared  from  southern  Asia, 
as  humans  drain  them  during  develop- 
ment and  for  cattle  grazing  land.  Any 
further  loss  could  well  mean  extinction 
for  the  Siberian  crane. 

Politics  in  that  comer  of  the  world 
also  causes  problems.  For  example, 
Chinese  ornithologists  have  refused  to 
tell  their  Soviet  counterparts  exactly 
where  the  Yakutsk  cranes  overwinter. 
Soviet  conservationists  believe  that  un- 
regulated hunting  of  the  Ob  River  cranes 
in  Afghanistan  and  Pakistan  has  further 
contributed  to  that  population's  decline. 

Since  1974,  the  International  Crane 
Foundation  (icf)  of  Baraboo,  Wisconsin, 
has  been  studying  the  biology  of  Sibe- 
rian cranes.  Together  with  the  Russians, 


Whooping  cranes  (Grus  americana)  in  diorama  in  Hall  20.  Mottled  bird  is  immature. 


ICF  has  initiated  an  ambitious  program  to 
propagate  these  cranes  in  captivity,  so 
that  they  ultimately  mav  be  restocked  in 
the  wild.  Its  plan;  reintroduce  the  Sibe- 
rian crane  as  a  winter  migrant  to  Iran. 
Today,  Iran  has  a  comprehensive  con- 
servation program  with  the  ambitious 
goal  of  reestablishing  all  species  of  birds 
and  mammals  once  native  to  the  country. 
To  accomplish  this,  the  Iranians  have 
established  many  refuges  to  protect  re- 
maining wildlife.  Thus,  in  1975,  Iran's 
Department  of  the  Environment  agreed 
to  adopt  the  Foundation's  plan. 

ICF  believes  that  if  the  Siberian 
cranes  can  be  "tricked"  into  migrating  to 
Iran  for  the  winter,  the  bird  and  its 
habitat  will  be  adequately  protected.  The 
plan  is  to  place  eggs  of  the  Siberian  crane 
in  the  nests  of  the  common  crane,  a 
species  which  also  nests  in  Siberia.  The 
common  cranes  would  hatch  these  foster 
chicks  and  lead  them  to  their  wintering 
grounds  in  Iran.  The  Foundation's  in- 
volvement is  essential  to  the  success  of 
this  operation,  because  common  cranes 
already  have  hatched  their  chicks  by  the 
time  Siberians  are  laying  eggs.  By  artifi- 
cially altering  the  light  (day-night), 
schedule  of  the  Siberian  cranes,  icf  can 
induce  them  to  lay  their  eggs  at  the  same 
time  that  wild  common  cranes  are  nest- 
ing. Then,  these  eggs  would  be  flown  to 
Siberia  for  substitution. 

Retrieving  eggs  from  wild  Siberian 
cranes  brought  its  share  of  problems.  The 
act  was  the  culmination  of  over  two  years 
of  international  negotiations.  Importing 
the  eggs  of  this  rare  bird  involved  exten- 
sive application  and  permit  approval 
under  the  Endangered  Species  Act.  Dr. 
Vladimir  Flint,  a  Soviet  crane  expert,  was 
able  to  find  only  five  unhatched  Siberian 
eggs  on  the  1977  expedition.  These  were 
relayed  to  an  icf  agent  in  Moscow,  and 
immediately  sent  to  a  special  hatchery  at 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  in  Madison. 
Of  the  five  eggs,  two  survived.  Ron 
Sauey,  a  co-founder  of  icf,  named  one 
Vladimir  after  Flint  and  the  other  Kita,  a 
Russian  name  for  the  crane. 

In  1978,  the  operation  was  repeated. 
Four  out  of  seven  eggs  hatched  success- 
fully. In  1979,  the  Russians  hatched  four 
chicks  in  Moscow  which  they  named 
after  icf  members. 

With  six  young  cranes  and  two  adult 
ones  obtained  from  zoos,  the  Foundation 
has  a  captive  population  of  breeders 
which  will  be  artificially  inseminated  to 
produce  eggs.  Within  four  years,  the  off- 
spring of  these  rare  cranes  could  embark 
on  a  10,000-mile  journey  back  to 
Siberia — the  most  promising,  and 
perhaps  last  chance  for  their  continued 
existence. — Lynn  Ciroux,  National  Wildlife 
Federation 

American  Attitudes  about  Wildlife 

What  do  Americans  really  think  about 
saving  endangered  species,  hunting,  and 
other  issues  that  affect  wildlife?  The  first 


report  on  a  comprehensive  study  of 
American  attitudes  toward  wildlife  has 
revealed  some  interesting  answers. 

The  report  analyzes  initial  findings 
of  a  three-year  study  by  Stephen  Kellert 
of  the  Yale  School  of  Forestry  and  En- 
vironmental Studies.  Kellert  conducted 
the  study  under  a  research  grant  from  the 
Interior  Department's  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service.  The  study  is  based 
largely  on  a  questionnaire  administered 
nationally  in  interviews  with  3,107 
people  during  the  fall  of  1978.  The  ques- 
tionnaire dealt  with  specific  issues,  such 
as  the  tuna/porpoise  controversy,  as  well 
as  with  general  issues  such  as  attitudes 
toward  hunting. 

Among  the  study's  findings:  Of 
eight  selected  wildlife  issues,  the  public 
knew  the  most  about  "killing  baby  seals 
for  fur"  (43  percent  knowledgeable)  and 
"effects  of  pesticides  such  as  ddt  on 
birds"  (42  percent  knowledgeable).  The 
least  recognized  issue  was  "use  of  steel 
shot  versus  lead  shot  by  waterfowl  hun- 
ters" (14  percent  knowledgeable).  Only 
34  percent  indicated  that  they  had  some 
knowleoge  about  the  Endangered 
Species  Act,  and  only  17  percent  were 
knowledgeable  about  the  much  pub- 
licized snail  darter/Tellico  Dam  con- 
troversy. 

On  a  variety  of  questions,  a  majority 
favored  protecting  wildlife  even  at  the 
expense  of  jobs,  housing,  and  develop- 
ment projects.  Fifty-five  percent  opposed 
the  principle  of  building  an  industrial 
plant  on  a  marsh  needed  by  a  rare  bird 
species  even  if  the  plant  would  help  solve 
an  unemployment  problem.  Fifty-seven 
percent  disapproved  of  building  houses 
on  marshes  used  by  ducks  and  other 
nonendangered  wildlife.  Seventy-six 
percent  thought  cutting  trees  for  lumber 
and  paper  should  be  done  in  ways  that 
help  wildlife  even  if  it  resulted  in  higher 
lumber  prices. 

The  public's  support  for  endangered 
species  protection  when  it  would  in- 
crease costs  for  an  energy  project  de- 
pended on  the  animal  involved  and  the 
nature  of  the  project.  Americans  over- 
whelmingly supported  protecting  the 
bald  eagle,  eastern  mountain  lion, 
American  crocodile,  and  an  endangered 
butterfly.  They  opposed  protecting  an 
endangered  plant,  snake,  or  spider  if  it 
increased  costs  for  an  energy  project.  On 
a  snail  darter-type  question,  most  people 
opposed  blocking  a  hypothetical  water 
project  designed  for  essential  uses  such 
as  drinking  water,  hydroelectric  power, 
or  irrigation  to  protect  an  unknown  fish 
species.  But  nearly  60  percent  opposed 
construction  of  a  dam  for  "nonessential" 
purposes  such  as  making  a  recreational 
lake  if  it  would  endanger  a  fish.  In  gen- 
eral, support  for  protecting  endangered 
species  depended  on  such  factors  as  the 
animal's  attractiveness,  close  biological 
relationship  to  humans,  reason  for  en- 
dangerment,  economic  value,  and  im- 
portance   in    American    history. 


In  a  surprising  finding,  77  percent 
approved  killing  whales  for  a  useful 
product  if  the  species  hunted  was  not 
endangered.  But  on  another  intelligent 
sea  mammal,  the  porpoise,  69  percent 
said  they  would  rather  pay  a  higher  price 
for  tuna  fish  than  see  the  tuna  industry 
continue  killing  porpoises  in  their  nets. 
The  researchers  said  the  apparently  con- 
tradictory responses  may  be  related  to 
the  tradition  of  whaling  in  the  United 
States. 

On  the  controversial  issue  of  animal 
damage  control,  the  public  was  not 
altogether  opposed  to  controlling  coyotes 
that  prey  on  livestock,  but  strongly  pre- 
ferred nonlethal  control  methods  or 
hunting  only  individual  coyotes  known 
to  have  killed  livestock.  Most  were 
strongly  opposed  to  poisoning,  and  were 
also  opposed  to  shooting  and  trapping  as 
many  coyotes  as  possible. 

Attitudes  toward  hunting  depended 
on  the  purpose  of  the  hunt.  The  public 
overwhelmingly  supported  traditional 
native  American  subsistence  hunting 
and  also  supported  hunting  exclusively 
for  meat,  regardless  of  who  hunted. 
Sixty-four  percent  approved  of  hunting 
for  recreation  if  the  meat  was  used,  but 
about  60  percent  opposed  hunting  just 
for  sport  or  recreation.  Over  80  percent 
opposed  hunting  exclusively  for  a 
trophy. 

Although  some  observers  have 
linked  anti-hunting  sentiment  with  an 
anti-wildlife  management  attitude,  re- 
sults of  the  study  did  not  support  this. 
Sixty  percent  of  members  of  humane  or- 
ganizations and  61  percent  of  those  op- 
posed to  sport  hunting  supported  gov- 
ernment management  programs  to  "con- 
trol" populations  of  deer  and  ducks. 

When  asked  about  possible  sources 
of  funding  for  wildlife  management  pro- 
grams, the  public  indicated  stronger 
support  for  taxes  on  "consumptive"  ac- 
tivities, such  as  buying  fur,  than  on 
"nonconsumptive"  uses  such  as 
birdwatching.  Eighty-two' percent  fa- 
vored a  sales  tax  on  fur  clothing  from 
wild  animals;  75  percent  favored  en- 
trance fees  to  wildlife  refuges  and  other 
public  wildlife  areas;  and  71  percent  fa- 
vored a  sales  tax  on  off-road  vehicles. 
Fifty-seven  percent  favored  increasing 
the  amount  of  general  tax  revenues  for 
wildlife  management;  the  same  number 
favored  sales  taxes  on  backpacking  and 
camping  equipment;  and  54  percent  fa- 
vored taxes  on  birdwatching  supplies 
and  equipment. 

Most  Americans  wanted  to  preserve 
wildlife  values  on  public  lands.  Two 
thirds — including  77  percent  of 
Alaskans — were  opposed  to  hypothetical 
oil  development  in  Yellowstone  National 
Park  if  it  would  harm  the  park's  wildlife. 
Fifty-six  percent  thought  national  forest 
land  should  be  set  aside  to  protect  grizzly 
bears  even  if  it  resulted  in  some  loss  of 
jobs  and  building  materials. 

Attitudes  toward  many  issues  varied  23 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


considerably  according  to  the  re- 
spondent's age,  sex,  educational  level, 
place  of  residence,  and  other  factors.  For 
example,  support  for  protecting  en- 
dangered species  was  strongest  among 
the  highly  educated,  people  under  35, 
residents  of  areas  with  more  than  one 
million  population,  people  with  higher 
incomes,  professionals,  and  residents  of 
the  Pacific  Coast  and  Alaska.  Older  per- 
sons, those  with  less  than  an  eighth 
grade  education,  farmers,  rural  residents, 
and  Southerners  were  more  likely  to  op- 
pose protecting  endangered  species.  On 
the  animal  damage  control  issue,  resi- 
dents of  the  South — not  the  Rocky 
Mountain  states,  where  predator  damage 
is  higher — expressed  greatest  support  for 
shooting  or  trapping  as  many  coyotes  as 
possible.  Residents  of  Pacific  Coast  states 
indicated  the  most  protectionist  senti- 
ment. 

Of  all  regions,  Alaskans  were  the 
most  knowledgeable  about  and  suppor- 
tive of  wildlife.  Their  support  was  based 
on  understanding  of  wildlife  and  ecol- 
ogy, rather  than  on  emotional  or  senti- 
mental notions  about  animals.  As  a 
group,  Alaskans  ranked  third  in  level  of 
knowledge,  following  only  Ph.D.s  and 
those  with  other  graduate  education. 
They  also  expressed  greater  willingness 
to  forego  personal  benefits  such  as  recre- 
ation and  jobs  in  order  to  preserve 
wildlife  habitat  and  endangered  species. 


Rabid  Bats  in  Texas  Classrooms 

Bats  were  not  found  m  the  belfr}'  during 
a  recent  fly-in  at  the  University  of  Texas, 
but  they  were  to  be  found  in  the  com- 
munications building.  The  recent  occu- 
pation by  hundreds  of  the  animals  was 
not  taken  lightly,  for  roughly  one-third  of 
the  100-150  captured  each  week  were 
found  to  be  rabid.  During  the  day  the 
animals  were  customarily  quiet;  but  just 
one  solitary  bat  flying  about  a  crowded 
classroom  was  enough  to  create  a 
semblance  of  havoc. 

School  administrators  responded  to 
the  situation  by  calling  in  state  park  and 
wildlife  experts  on  bats;  posted  in- 
structions on  how  to  pick  up  a  rabid  bat 
without  risking  rabies  infection;  advised 
students  and  faculty  to  clear  classrooms 
upon  discovery  of  a  bat;  and  to  duck 
when  bats  swooped  too  close  for  comfort. 
There  was  no  report  of  anyone  contacting 
rabies  or  being  bitten  during  the  bats' 
takeover  of  the  building. 


Wild  Pets  and  Rabies 

In  1977  an  Oklahoma  shop  foreman  took 
home  a  baby  skunk  that  two  of  his  work- 
ers had  caught  in  the  woods.  Since  it  was 
24  still  small,  the  foreman's  wife  fed  the 


skunk  with  an  eyedropper  and  often  put 
her  fingers  into  its  mouth  to  keep  it  from 
choking.  In  moments  of  play,  the  couple 
allowed  the  animal  to  crawl  over  their 
four-month-old  son.  When  word  got  out 
that  a  skunk  was  in  the  neighborhood, 
six  children  came  over  to  play  with  it. 
The  skunk  crawled  over  all  of  them  and 
lightly  bit  one  girl  on  the  hand. 

Days  later  the  skunk  died.  The  shop 
foreman  sensed  something  wrong  and 
had  it  checked  for  rabies.  The  result  was 
positive — the  skunk  had  the  disease. 

In  an  unrelated  incident,  a  two- 
year-old,  descented,  vaccinated  pet 
skunk  bit  a  man  and  exposed  two  chil- 
dren before  it  was  killed  and  taken  to  a 
lab.  The  animal  was  also  positive  for 
rabies. 

As  a  result  of  these  exposures  to 
skunks,  the  15  persons  involved  had  to 
undergo  a  total  of  360  injections  at  a  cost 
of  $7,500,  not  to  mention  the  time  lost 
and  discomfort  involved.  Happily  all 
survived;  but  was  the  pleasure  of  owning 
a  wild  pet  worth  it? 

Wild  animals  are  just  that — wild. 
They  are  not  domesticated  and  they  do 
not  make  good  pets  in  the  same  sense 
that  dogs  and  cats  do.  Outwardly,  the 
young  are  as  cute  and  fetching  as  any 
baby  animal.  Inwardly,  though,  wild 
pets  are  still  untamed,  and  have  the  same 
wild  instincts,  urges,  and  shortcomings 
as  their  free  relatives  in  the  field. 

They  cause  a  profusion  of  problems 
depending  on  what  kind  you  happen  to 
have.  Previously  tame  deer  may  attack 
without  warning  as  they  mature.  Mon- 
keys will  bite  and  have  even  killed  small 
children.  Skunks  like  to  nip  fingers.  Rac- 
coons get  into  everything  unless  you 
chain  them.  Wild  pets  are  unpredictable, 
sometimes  biting  and  attacking  for  no 
apparent  reason.  Even  if  you  can  live 
with  their  uncertain  personalities,  the 
threat  of  rabies,  especially  with  foxes, 
skunks,  and  raccoons,  overshadows  all 
other  concerns. 

A  skunk  owner  might  argue  in- 
dignantly, "If  I  take  my  pet  to  a  veterina- 
rian for  all  the  proper  shots,  why  should 
rabies  even  be  a  consideration?"  The  an- 
swer to  this  question  is  as  simple  as  it  is 
surprising — There  is  no  licensed  rabies 
vaccine  for  midlife!  What  protects  dogs 
and  cats  does  not  necessarily  protect  wild 
animals.  Vaccines  that  immunize 
domestic  animals  may  even  prolong  or 
mask  existing  rabies  infections  in  wild 
animals.  In  fact,  live  virus  rabies  vac- 
cines, developed  and  proven  to  protect 
domestic  animals  for  as  long  as  three 
years,  have  actually  caused  rabies  in  wild 
pets — for  this  reason,  such  vaccines  must 
never  be  used  in  wildlife. 

The  progress  of  rabies  and  its  clinical 
signs  in  domestic  animals  is  fairly  pre- 
dictable. Should  a  dog  encounter  a  rabid 
fox,  the  virus  in  the  fox's  saliva  will  enter 
the  dog's  body  at  the  location  of  any  bite 
wound.  The  virus  multiplies,  penetrates 
a  nerve  cell,  and  slowly  moves  up  the 


nerve  at  no  more  than  3mm  per  hour  to 
the  spinal  cord  and  then  to  the  brain. 
From  the  brain,  the  virus  moves  to  the 
salivary  glands.  At  this  point  the  dog  be- 
comes dangerous — if  he  bites  now  he  can 
transmit  the  disease  by  his  infected 
saliva.  Normal  time  for  the  virus  to  move 
from  the  bite  wound  to  the  salivary 
glands  is  15-25  days  after  exposure.  In- 
dications of  rabies  in  the  dog  include  one 
or  more  of  the  following  behavioral  and 
physical  changes:  restlessness,  aggres- 
siveness, lethargy,  change  in  vocal  qual- 
ity, persistent  howling,  paralyzed  lower 
jaw,  convulsions,  profuse  ropy  saliva, 
and  paralysis.  Dogs  usually  die  in  ten 
days  or  less  after  the  virus  reaches  the 
salivary  glands.  That  is  the  reason  for 
watching  dogs  closely  after  they  bite 
someone.  If  the  dog  shows  no  symptoms 
and  survives  10  days  after  the  biting  in- 
cident, it  does  not  have  the  disease.  The 
10-day  waiting  period  is  very  reliable  in 
dogs  .  .  .  but  not  in  wildlife. 

Rabies  in  wild  animals  is  consid- 
erably less  predictable.  An  infected  ani- 
mal can  undergo  a  variable  incubation 
period  where  the  virus  remains  long 
dormant  in  the  wound.  Furthermore, 
when  the  animal  does  become  infective, 
it  may  not  show  any  symptoms  of  the 
disease  while  still  releasing  great 
amounts  of  virus.  No  10-day  waiting 
period  here.  By  the  time  the  animal  be- 
comes ill,  the  person  who  has  been  bitten 
could  be  beyond  help. 

Wildlife  may  show  some  or  none  of 
the  signs  of  rabies  until  the  final  stages. 
In  general,  a  wild  animal  which  shows 
aggressiveness  or  an  unusual  lack  of  fear 
is  suspect.  Raccoons  in  particular  are 
dangerous  because  they  are  less  likely  to 
display  furious  behavior — but  this  is  not 
a  consistent  finding  either.  The  only  con- 
stant among  the  signs  of  rabies  are  the 
inconsistencies.  As  in  domestic  animals 
and  man,  death  is  the  usual  end  result  of 
the  disease  in  all  wildlife  species. 

Rabies  is  a  worldwide  infection 
primarily  affecting  dogs,  cats,  and  other 
carnivores,  but  man  and  all  warm- 
blooded animals  are  susceptible. 
Canada's  three  main  reservoirs  of  rabies 
are  foxes,  skunks,  and  bats.  In  Mexico, 
where  pet  vaccination  requirements  and 
leash  laws  are  lax  or  nonexistent,  most  of 
the  reported  rabies  cases  occur  in  dogs, 
cattle,  and  cats.  From  Mexico  through 
Uruguay,  vampire  bats  comprise  a  huge 
reservoir  of  rabies.  They  infect  and  kill 
from  0.5-1  million  cattle  a  year  at  a  cost  to 
ranchers  of  $250  million  annually. 

Most  cases  of  rabies  in  man  and 
domestic  animals  in  the  United  States 
today  originate  from  contact  with  an  in- 
fected wildlife  host — mostly  skunks, 
bats,  raccoons,  and  foxes.  Fox  rabies  was 
once  a  serious  problem  in  this  country, 
but  fox  hunting  and  trapping,  as  well  as 
habitat  reduction,  have  probably  con- 
tributed to  the  appreciable  reduction  of 
fox  rabies  cases.  Rabies  seems  to  be  more 
associated  with  particular  species  in  cer- 


Hooded 
skunk 


tiiin  parts  of  the  country. 

Skunks  are  the  most  important 
ivildlife  reservoir  in  north  central  and 
south  central  United  States  and  in 
California.  Surveys  have  indicated  that 
up  to  15  percent  of  all  wild  skunks  are 
rabid. 

Raccoons  are  the  most  important 
rabies  host  in  the  southeast.  Of  the  total 
U.S.  reported  raccoon  cases  in  1977,  87 
percent  occurred  in  Georgia  and  Florida. 

Foxes  are  important  rabies  carriers  in 
south  central  U.S.  and  the  Appalachian 
region.  Rabies  is  known  in  the  majority 
of  insectivorous  bat  species.  In  1977, 
California  reported  26  percent  of  the  total 
U.S.  cases  of  rabies  in  bats. 

Species  susceptibility  to  rabies  is 
variable,  with  foxes  the  most  susceptible, 
skunks,  cats,  raccoons,  and  bats  next  in 
line,  then  cattle,  man,  horses,  and  dogs 
and  finally  oppossums,  which  are  quite 
resistant.  Because  rodents  such  as  rats, 
mice,  squirrels,  chipmunks,  hamsters, 
gerbils,  and  guinea  pigs  only  rarely  ac- 
quire rabies  under  natural  conditions, 
post-exposure  treatment  for  their  bites  is 
seldom  justified.  Of  the  more  than  13,000 
rodents  and  rabbits  checked  in  1977,  only 
one  North  Dakota  woodchuck  was  posi- 
tive. In  addition,  no  human  rabies  case 
has  ever  been  attributed  to  a  rodent  bite. 

Rabies  virus  is  most  often  transmit- 
ted when  the  virus  in  the  saliva  enters  a 
bite  wound.  The  closer  the  bite,  scratch, 
or  abrasion  is  to  the  face,  the  quicker  the 
virus  will  reach  the  brain.  Infected  foxes, 
dogs,  and  skunks  pose  a  greater  threat  for 
bite  transmssion  because  they  generally 
have  a  greater  concentration  of  virus  in 
their  saliva  than  other  species. 

Another  means  of  transmission  is  by 
inhaling  the  virus.  The  air  in  bat  caves 
can  be  as  infective  and  deadly  as  the 
rabies  aerosals  produced  in  laboratories; 
however,  the  risk  of  acquiring  the  infec- 
tion under  these  conditions  is  very  much 
lower  than  that  following  a  bite  expo- 
sure. (Ed.  Note:  "cave  air"  transmission 
has  been  proven  in  only  one  place,  Frio 
Caves,  Texas.) 

Other  unlikely,  but  possible,  modes 
of  transmission  include  an  animal  eating 
a  dead  or  dying  rabid  animal,  and  a  sick 
mother  infecting  her  entire  litter  by  her 
milk,  or  by  licking  them. 

To  reduce  the  threat  of  rabies  in  man 
at  least  four  control  measures  are  possi- 


ble. The  first  and  most  important  is  the 
vaccination  of  domestic  dogs  and  the 
control  of  stray  dogs  and  cats.  In- 
vestigators have  estimated  that  a  70  per- 
cent vaccination  rate  of  dogs  is  sufficient 
to  control  urban  rabies.  In  Laredo,  Texas, 
54  dogs  were  reported  rabid  from 
November  1977  to  March  1978.  Health 
officials  halted  the  disease  by  initiating  a 
massive  vaccination  program  (13,000 
dogs,  1,000  cats)  and  by  capturing  over 
1,700  strays.  Officials  do  not  know  what 
started  the  Laredo  epidemic,  but  they  do 
know  that  vaccination  and  roundup  of 
strays  stopped  it  before  any  human 
rabies  cases  occurred. 

A  second  control  measure  is  to  re- 
duce contact  between  infected  wildlife 
hosts  and  man  or  his  animals.  This  is 
difficult  when  recreational  activities 
bring  campers,  hikers,  hunters,  and 
other  outdoorsmen  in  to  wild  habitats, 
thereby  increasing  their  chances  for 
rabies  exposure.  Common  sense,  knowl- 
edge of  the  disease,  and  strictly  enforced 
leash  laws  to  prevent  pets  from  running 
loose  will  all  help  to  minimize  wildlife 
contacts. 

Third,  considering  the  different 
rabies  hotspots  in  the  country,  reduction 
in  movement  of  susceptible  wild  animals 
from  those  areas  is  in  the  best  interest  of 
public  health.  Also,  because  there  is 
presently  no  safe,  sure  way  to  immunize 
wildlife,  the  states  should  enact  and  en- 
force laws  to  prohibit  wild  animal  own- 
ership and  to  prevent  their  interstate 
trade. 

Fourth,  as  wild  animals  are  the 
source  of  most  cases  of  rabies  in  domestic 
animals  and  man  in  the  U.S.  today,  it 
seems  logical  to  attack  the  source  of 
infection — logical  but  not  yet  practical.  A 
number  of  states  have  tried,  most  with- 
out success,  to  reduce  infected  wild 
populations  by  shooting,  poisoning,  or 
gassing.  In  Mexico,  a  special  anti-bat 
campaign  using  anticoagulants  has 
greatly  reduced  the  cases  of  rabies  in  cat- 
tle. Many  times,  though,  an  innocent 
species  ends  up  the  loser.  The  black- 
footed  ferret,  for  example,  was  nearly 
exterminated  in  parts  of  the  United  States 
because  of  poison  bait  set  out  for  other 
animals. 

Louis  Pasteur  developed  the  first 
antirabies  vaccine  in  the  1880s.  His  re- 
gimen is  the  basis  for  our  modern  day 


treatment  of  the  disease.  Basically,  a  per- 
son bitten  by  a  rabid  animal  takes  two 
types  of  inoculations.  First  he  receives 
Rabies  Immune  Globulin  (rig) — half  in- 
filtrated around  the  wound  and  half  ad- 
ministered intramuscularly  in  the 
buttocks — in  an  attempt  to  destroy  the 
virus  directly.  Ric  is  a  passive  immuniz- 
ing agent  prepared  from  the  blood  of 
hyperimmunized  donors.  Then  the  per- 
son receives  from  14  to  21  daily  injections 
of  Duck  Embryo  Vaccine  (dev)  plus  two 
boosters  to  stimulate  his  own  bodily 
production  of  antibodies  against  the  dis- 
ease (active  immunity).  The  physician 
gives  the  vaccine  doses  subcutaneously 
in  the  abdominal  region,  lower  back,  or 
side  of  the  thighs.  The  reason  for  using 
those  locations  instead  of  the  shoulder 
area  is  to  lessen  the  impact  of  soreness, 
swelling,  and  itching,  which  often  occur. 
Other  possible  side  effects  from  dev  are 
redness,  headache,  asthma,  fever,  and 
nausea. 

A  recently  developed  vaccine,  called 
Human  Diploid  Cell  Strain  (hdcs), 
promises  to  be  a  major  advance  in  human 
rabies  treatment,  hdcs  requires  only  six 
injections  to  stimulate  a  higher  antibody 
response  with  less  adverse  side  effect 
than  DEV.  The  Food  and  Drug  Adminis- 
tration will  probably  license  the  new  vac- 
cine for  use  in  the  United  States  soon. 

Pasteur  once  figured  that  no  more 
than  16  percent  of  the  people  exposed  to  a 
known  rabid  animal  would  get  the  dis- 
ease. Twenty-seven  years  ago  in  Iran, 
however,  15  of  32  persons  (47  percent) 
bitten  by  a  rabid  wolf  died.  Either  way, 
the  odds  are  not  good.  Some  30.000 
people  in  the  United  States  each  year 
who  do  not  wish  to  chance  the  odds 
undergo  post-exposure  rabies  treatments 
at  a  cost  of  about  $500  per  person.  In 
many  of  these  cases,  however,  treatments 
follow  exposures  which  could  not  have 
resulted  in  the  disease.  The  Center  for 
Disease  Control  (coc)  in  Atlanta  has  long 
suspected  that  as  many  as  25,000  vacci- 
nations each  year  may  be  unnecessary. 
As  a  result,  years  ago  cdc  set  up  a  con- 
sultative service  for  private  physicians 
and  health  departments  regarding  rec- 
ommended post-exposure  treatment,  cdc 
suggests  that  physicians  consider  the 
following  criteria  before  prescribing 
specific  antirabies  treatments:  species  of 
biting  animal,  provoked  or  unprovoked 
bite,  severity  of  exposure,  vaccination 
status  of  the  animal,  and  presence  of 
rabies  in  the  region. 

Persons  in  high-risk  categories  such 
as  animal  handlers,  wildlife  biologists, 
veterinarians,  and  their  assistants  often 
elect  to  be  immunized  for  rabies  as  a  pre- 
caution. Three  weekly  injections  of  dev 
in  the  shoulder,  plus  a  booster  later  on, 
usually  stimulate  detectable  antibodies. 
After  a  known  rabies  exposure,  the  vac- 
cinated person  still  receives  at  least  five 
additional  shots. — David  E.  John  and 
Charles  /.  Issel,  D.V.M.,  from  Louisiana 
Conservationist.  25 


HONOR  ROLL  OF  DONORS 


Major  Contributions  in  Support  of  Field  Museum's  Programs 
of  Research,  Education,  and  Exhibition 


Since  the  November  1979  issue  of  the  Bulletin,  when 
126  donors  on  the  Honor  Roll  (gifts  of  $1,000  or  more) 
were  listed  as  contributors  to  Field  Museum  during 
1979  (through  August  31),  an  additional  158  have 
been  added  through  December  31. 

The  grand  total  of  Honor  Roll  Donors  for  1979 
stands  at  284.  This  includes  147  individuals  and  137 
corporations  and  philanthropic  foundations. 

Field  Museum  depends  in  large  measure  upon 
the  generous  gifts  of  Members,  corporations,  and 
foundations.  Because  of  unrelenting  inflation,  it  has 


become  an  annual  problem  for  all  not-for-profit  cul- 
tural institutions,  that  budgeted  expenditures  exceed 
known  sources  of  revenue — creating  the  "income 
gap."  A  projected  income  gap  in  1979  of  $1.7  million 
was  bridged — the  1979  budget  was  balanced — thanks 
to  the  generous  donations  of  more  than  450  corpora- 
tions and  foundations  and  almost  5,000  individual 
Member-contributors.  We  thank  all  of  these  persons 
and  companies,  and  recognize  the  following  donors 
of  $1,000  or  more,  September  1  through  December 
31,  1979: 


CORPORATIONS  and  FOUNDA- 
TIONS 

$5,000  and  over 

Abbott  Laboratories 

Allen-Heath  Memorial  Foundation 

Amoco  Foundation,  Inc. 

Arthur  Andersen  &  Co. 

The  Chicago  Community  Trust 

Commonwealth  Edison  Company 

The  DeSoto  Foundation 

Field  Enterprises  Charitable  Foun- 
dation 

First  National  Bank  of  Chicago 
Foundation 

International  Harvester  Foundation 

The  Joyce  Foundation 

John  D.  &  Catherine  T.  MacArthur 
Foundation 

Robert  R.  McCormick  Charitable 
Trust 

McMaster-Carr  Supply  Company 

The  Nalco  Foundation 

S  &  C  Electric  Company 

Dr.  Scholl  Foundation 

Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company 

United  Airlines  Foundation 

Arthur  Young  &  Company 


CORPORATIONS  and  FOUNDA- 
TIONS 

$l,000-$4,999 
Amsted  Industries,  Inc. 
Bank  America  Foundation 
Blum-Kovler  Foundation 
Borg-Wamer  Foundation,  Inc. 
The  Brunswick  Foundation,  Inc. 
26  C  &  NW  Transportation  Co. 


Central  Telephone  Company  of  Il- 
linois 

Chicago  Bears  Football  Club,  Inc. 

Chicago  Title  &  Trust  Company 

Chicago  Tribune  Foundation 

Combustion  Engineering  Co. 

The  Dick  Family  Foundation  (for 
A.B.  Dick  Company) 

R.  R.  Donnelley  &  Sons  Company 

First  Federal  Savings  &  Loan  Associ- 
ation of  Chicago  Foundation 

FRC  Investment  Corporation 

Geraldi-Norton  Memorial  Founda- 
tion 

Max  Goldenberg  Foundation 

Gould  Foundation 

Great  Lakes  Dredge  &  Dock  Com- 
pany 

Walter  E.  Heller  &  Company 

Household  Finance  Foundation 

IC  Industries  Inc. 

Illinois  Tool  Works  Foundation 

Intermatic  Incorporated 

Jewel  Foundation 

Kirkland  &  Ellis 

McKinsey  &  Company 

Montgomery  Ward  Foundation 

Morton-Norwich  Products,  Inc. 

New  York  Life  Insurance  Company 

Northwest  Industries,  Inc. 

J.  C.  Penney  Company,  Inc. 

Peoples  Gas  Company 

George  Pick  &  Company 

The  Proctor  &  Gamble  Fund 

The  Prudential  Foundation 

Rollins  Burdick  Hunter  Company 

Santa  Fe  Railway  Foundation,  Inc. 

Security  Pacific  Charitable  Founda- 
tion 


Shure  Brothers  Incorporated 

Signode  Foundation 

Sunbeam  Corporation 

John  S.  Swift  Co.,  Inc.  Charitable 
Trust 

Szabo  Food  Service 

Talman  Federal  Savings  &  Loan  As- 
sociation 

Texaco,  Inc. 

The  Oakleigh  L.  Thome  Foundation 

Trans  Union  Corporation 

United  Conveyor  Foundation 

Walgreen  Benefit  Fund 

Ben  O.  Warren  Foundation 

INDIVIDUALS— $5,000  and  over 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gordon  Bent 
Buchanan  Family  Foundation  (Mr. 

DeWitt  Buchanan) 
James  J.  Daly  (Estate) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  O.  Delaney 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joseph  N.  Field 
Mr.  Paul  J.  Gerstley 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  William  A.  Hark 
HBB  Foundation  (Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Theodore  Tieken) 
Chauncey  and  Marion  Deering 

McCormick  Foundation  (Mr.  C.  D. 

McCormick,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brooks 

McCormick) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  H.  Mitchell 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
The  Pritzker  Foundation  (Mr.  Robert 

A.  Pritzker) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  S.  Runnells 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  L.  Searle 
John  M.  Simpson  Foundation 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jack  C.  Staehle 


Mrs.  David  W.  Stewart 
Harold  L.  Stuart  (Estate) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  W.  Sullivan 
Chester  D.  Tripp  Trust 
Women's  Board  of  Field  Museum 

INDIVIDUALS— $l,000-$4 ,999 

Anonymous 

A.  C.  P.  Foundation  (Mr.  and  Mrs. 

A.  C.  Buehler,  Jr.) 

Laurence  H.  Armour,  Jr.  and  Margot 

B.  Armour  Family  Foundation 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
Mr.  Evan  L.  Ausman 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  R.  Baker 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robert  O.  Bass 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  R.  Beach,  Jr 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harry  O.  Bercher 
The  Bjorkman  Foundation  (Mr.  Carl 

Bjorkman) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bowen  Blair 
Mr.  William  McCormick  Blair 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leigh  B.  Block 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.  P.  Bowman 
Edwin  J.  Brach  Foundation  (Mrs. 

Bertram  Z.  Brodie) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  A.  Brown 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  L.  Cherry 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  W.  Darrow 
The  Davee  Foundation  (Mr.  Ken 

Davee) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  O.  C.  Davis 
O.  Paul  Decker  Memorial  Fund  (Mrs. 

Edwin  N.  Asmann) 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  R.  Dickinson, 

Jr. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  H.  Dittman 
Elliott  and  Ann  Donnelley  Founda- 
tion (Mrs.  Elliott  Donnelley) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gordon  Ewing 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  M.  Freeman 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nicholas  Galitzine 
Mrs.  Dorothy  S.  Gerson 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  David  Goldberg 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Ralph  C.  Greene 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alfred  Gruetzmacher 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Corwith  Hamill 
Mrs.  D.  Foster  Harland 
Mrs.  William  A.  Hewitt 
Dr.  Helen  Holt 
The  loka  Fund  (In  memory  of  Mr. 

Dexter  Cummings) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harold  James 
The  Viola  Laski  Charitable  Trust 
Mrs.  Richard  W.  Leach 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Albert  E.  M.  Louer 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Franklin  J.  Lunding 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  T.  M.  McCullough 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  C.  Meeker 
Mrs.  Helen  Mayer  Medgysey 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  A.  Meyer 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  J.  Meyer 
Lillian  Molner  Charitable  Trust 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Evan  Moore 
The  Sterling  Morton  Charitable  Trust 
(Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eugene  A.  David- 
son) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Olson 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Newell  Pottorf 

Mr.  James  H.  Ransom 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Shedd  Reed 

Mrs.  David  Rhodes 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Philip  F.  Rider 

Mrs.  Dorothy  Curtis  Rowley 

Mr.  Arthur  Rubloff 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Frederick  W.  Sass 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  W.  Schultz 

The  Seabury  Foundation  (Mr.  John 

Ward  Seabury) 
The  Sedoh  Foundation  (Mr.  Scott 

Hodes) 
Bessie  Shields  Foundation  (Dr. 

Thomas  W.  Shields) 
Edward  Byron  Smith  Charitable 

Fund  (Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edward  Byron 

Smith) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Smith 
Mrs.  David  B.  Stern,  Jr. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  G.  Swartchild, 

Jr. 
Mrs.  Frances  Buck  Taylor 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  James  L.  Taylor 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Melvin  A.  Traylor,  Jr. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Howard  J.  Trienens 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Louis  A.  Wagner 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  E.  Leland  Webber 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Philip  C.  Williams 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leo  Witz 
Mrs.  Claire  B.  Zeisler 


February  and  March  at  Field  Museum 


(February  15  through  March  15) 


New  Exhibit 


"Patterns  of  Paradise."  This  major  exhibit  of  dramatic  and  rare 
bark  cloth,  or  tnpa,  illustrates  the  people  and  history  of  exotic 
tropical  islands.  See  how  Pacific  islanders  took  the  ancient  task  of 
making  cloth  out  of  tree  bark  and  elaborated  it  into  an  art  form  of 
distinctive  and  remarkable  styles.  Exhibition  also  includes  wood 
carvings,  masks,  costume  accessories,  and  tools.  Conceived  and 
created  by  Field  Museum's  own  staff.  Most  of  the  200  artifacts  are 
from  the  Museum's  magnificent  Oceanic  collections.  Exhibit 
curator:  John  Terrell.  Designer:  Donald  Skinner.  Opens  March  6, 
Hall  26,  2nd  floor. 

Continuing  Exhibits 


lifes,  and  mythic  dragons  are  flawlessly  carved  into  these  lacquer 
ornaments,  once  worn  by  Japanese  men  as  symbols  of  wealth  and 
status.  Hall  32,  second  floor. 

"Man  in  His  Environment."  Gain  a  worldwide  perspective  of  en- 
vironmental problems  through  the  multi-media  presentation  of 
this  thought-provoking  exhibit.  The  center  of  the  hall  contains, 
encased  in  glass,  a  re-created  portion  of  a  Georgia  salt  marsh, 
permitting  a  visual  study  of  ecological  principles,  within  a  total 
marsh  environment.  Main  floor. 


"Art  Lacquer  of  Japan."  The  Museum's  newest  permanent  exhibit 
features  more  than  400  objects  of  exquisite  lacquer  art  from  18th- 
and   19th-century  Japan.   Miniature   landscapes,   dreamlike   still 

(Continued  on  back  couer) 


"The  Place  for  Wonder."  This  gallery  allows  visitors  to  handle, 
sort,  and  compare  natural  history  specimens  without  feeling 
guilty.  "The  People  Center"  now  features  touchable  clothes, 
household  goods,  and  school  supplies  from  the  People's  Republic 
of  China.  Weekdays  1  to  3  p.m.;  weekends  10  a.m.  to  noon  and  1 
to  3  p.m.  Ground  floor,  near  cafeteria. 

27 


S1801 


U'^BflWa     ILL 


February  and  March  at  Field  Museum 


(Coniinued  from  inside  back  cover) 


New  Programs 

"Patterns  of  Paradise:  Special  Lecture  and  Tour."  Field  Museum's 
associate  curator  John  Terrell,  originator  of  "Patterns  of  Paradise" 
exhibition,  will  give  an  illustrated  lecture  on  the  exhibit:  how  the 
exhibit  evolved,  who  the  peoples  of  paradise  are,  what  their  art  of 
tapa  says  about  them,  and  the  impact  of  European  civilization  on 
their  lives.  A  tour  of  the  exhibit  follows  the  lecture.  Tickets  (Mem- 
bers, S2.00;  non-members,  $3.50)  are  available  at  the  West  Door 
before  the  lecture.  A  special  wine  and  cheese  reception  for  Mem- 
bers follows  the  tour  ($3.00).  Friday,  March  14,  8:00  p.m.  in 
Simpson  Theatre. 


"The  Royal  Dancers  and  Musicians  from  the  Kingdom  of  Bhu- 
tan." Thirteen  performers  from  the  Himalayas,  in  ornate  cos- 
tumes, will  act  out  stories  from  Buddhist  legend  and  ancient 
folklore.  The  program  promises  to  be  rich  in  lively  music,  skillful 
dancing,  and  superb  comic  pantomime.  Sponsored  by  the  Asia 
Society's  Performing  Arts  Program,  Tickets  (Members,  $5,00; 
non-members,  $7.00)  may  be  purchased  at  West  Door  before  the 
program.  Friday,  Mar.  21,  at  8:00  p.m.  in  the  Simpson  Theatre.  A 
lecture  demonstration  of  this  art  precedes  the  program  at  4:00  in 
Lecture  Hall  I.  For  admission  information,  call  922-3136. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Free  guided  tours,  demonstra- 
tions, and  films.  Check  Weekend  Sheet  available  at  North  In- 
formation Booth  for  additional  programs  and  locations. 

"Ancient  Egypt."  Investigate  the  daily  life,  myths,  and 
mummies  of  ancient  Egypt  in  this  45-minute  tour.  Meet  at  North 
Information  Booth.  Saturday,  Feb.  16,  11:30  a,m. 

"Clad  in  Feathes"  Film  Features:  "A  Bird  of  Prey:  The  Red- 
Tailed  Hawk"  examines  this  bird  and  its  environment.  "The  Owl 
Who  Married  a  Goose"  depicts  an  Eskimo  legend.  Saturday,  Feb. 
16,1:00  p.m. 

"Clay  Dinosaurs."  Make  your  own  clay  dinosaurs  and  learn 
about  these  creatures'  habitats.  Hall  of  Fossil  Vertebrates  (Hall  38), 
Sunday,  Feb.  17,  11  a.m.  to  1  p.m. 

"China  Through  the  Ages."  Examine  the  inventions,  court 
life,  and  schools  of  thought  of  traditional  China  in  this  30-minute 
tour.  Saturday,  Feb.  23,  1:30  p.m. 

"Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt."  Learn  about  the 
mummification  process  and  other  aspects  of  ancient  Egypt  in  this 
45-minute  tour.  Sunday,  Feb.  24,  1:00  p.m. 

"Traditional  China"  Film  Features:  "China:  The  Making  of  a 
Civilization"  covers  the  basic  political,  social,  and  religious 
characteristics  of  the  Western  Zhou  period  through  the  5th  century 
B.C.  "China:  Hundred  Schools  to  One"  examines  the  warring  be- 
tween the  states  and  the  technological  and  agricultural  revolution 
between  475  b.c  to  221  b.c  Saturday,  March  1,  1:00  p.m. 

"Prehistoric  People  in  the  Lower  Illinois  Valley."  Learn  how 
these  people  adapted  to  their  environment  through  the  use  of  tools 
in  this  half-hour  tour.  Sunday,  March  2,  2:30  p.m. 

"Ancient  Egypt."  Saturday,  March  8,  11:30  a.m. 


"Traditional  China"  Film  Features:  "China:  The  First  Empire" 
details  the  advent  and  expansion  of  China's  Imperial  Age  (221  b.c 
to  A.D.  220).  "China:  The  Great  Cultural  Mix"  covers  the  dis- 
integration of  the  Han  Empire,  the  formations  of  new  dynasties, 
and  developments  in  religion  and  art  (a.d.  220-581).  Saturday, 
March  8,  1:00  p.m. 

"Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  This  45-minute  tour  focuses 
on  the  underwater  world  of  ancient  invertebrate  animals.  Satur- 
day, March  8,  1:30  p.m. 

"Healers  and  Conjurers  of  the  Northwest  Coast."  Investigate 
the  ways  that  native  healing  men  treat  illness  and  disease.  Sun- 
day, March  9,  2:30  p.m. 

"'China  Through  the  Ages."  Saturday,  March  15,  11:30  a.m. 

"Traditional  China"  Film  Features:  ""China:  The  Golden  Age" 
covers  the  expansion  of  reunited  China  under  the  rulers  of  the  Sui 
and  Tang  Dynasties  (a.d.  581-907).  "Chinese  Jade  Carving."  A 
jade  artisan  demonstrates  basic  techniques  of  jade  carving. 

Continuing  Programs 

Winter  Journey:  ""Whales — Mammals  of  the  Deep."  Self-guided 
tour  examines  the  world  of  whales.  Although  these  marine  giants 
live  in  all  the  oceans,  many  species  are  close  to  extinction.  Free 
lourney  pamphlets  are  available  at  the  North  Information  Booth 
and  Museum  entrances.  Watch  for  new  Sprmg  lourney  beginning 
March  1. 

"The  Ancient  Art  of  Weaving."  Learn  about  age-old  weaving 
techniques  and  textile  development  during  these  free  demonstra- 
tions. Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Friday  from.  10:00  a.m.  to  noon. 
South  Lounge,  2nd  floor. 

Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  here  is  to 
determine  which  one  of  a  pair  of  apparently  similar  specimens  is 
harmful  and  which  is  not.  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire 
bat,  a  headhunter's  axe,  a  poisonous  mineral,  or  a  deadly  mush- 
room from  its  benign  look-alike.  Ground  floor,  no  closing  date. 

On  Your  Own  at  Field  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets,  adult- 
and  family  oriented,  are  available  for  25c  each  at  the  entrance  to 
the  Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  scientific  interests  and 
backgrounds  are  needed  to  work  in  the  various  departments.  For 
more  information  call  Volunteer  Coordinator,  922-9410,  ext.  360. 

February  and  March  Hours.  During  February  the  Museum  is  open 
9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Mondays  through  Thursdays.  In  March,  Monday 
through  Thursday  hours  are  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m.  Saturday  and  Sunday 
hours  in  both  months  are  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m.  On  Fridays  the  Museum 
is  open  from  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m.  throughout  the  year. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  from  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m. 
Closed  Februar\'  18  (Presidents'  Day).  Obtain  pass  at  reception 
desk,  main  floor. 


Museum  telephone:  (312)  922-9410 


FIELD  MaSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BGLLETI 


Field  iviuseum 

of  Natural  History 

Bulletin 


March  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  3 


Editor/ Designer:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President  and  Director:  E.  Leland  Webber 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Museum  Tours 

4  Patterns  of  Paradise 

by  John  Terrell,  associnte  curator  of  Oceanic  archeology  and 
ethnology,  and  Anne  Leonard,  researcher.  Department  of 
Anfhrop'ology 

12  Colombia:  Context,  Conquest,  and  Gold 

NEH  Learning  Museum  Program 
by  Tony  Pfeiffer,  pjroject  coordinator 

15  Field  Museum  Tours 

16  The  Thome-Graves  Arctic  Expedition  of  1929 

Questions  by  Irene  Schultz,  response  by  Bruce  Thome 

11  Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series 

24  Volunteers  Honored 

27  March  and  April  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chairrt\an 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr. 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.  Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Mrs.  Edward  F.  Swift 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin  (USPS  898-940)  is  publistied  monthly, 
except  combined  July/August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
Roosevelt  Road  at  l_ake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  11.  60605.  Subscriptions:  $6.00 
annually.  $3.00  for  schools.  Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription. 
Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are  their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the 
policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manuscripts  are  welcome.  Museum  phone: 
(312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579  to  Field  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive.  Chicago,  11,  60605  ISSN: 
0015-0703,  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


COVER 

Sanioan  tapa  cloth  { #111354),  detail,  acquired  by  Charles  F.  Gunther 
and  given  to  Field  Museum  by  Stanley  Field,  Henry  j.  Patten,  and  Charles 
B.  Pike,  Painted  freehand,  the  broad  bands  with  sawtooth  edges  create 
lighter  zigzag  lines  of  negative  space:  280  x  184cm  (110  x  72  in.).  This 
specimen,  together  u'ith  some  125  other  tapa  pieces  and  75  artifacts  of 
stone,  pottery,  wood,  and  other  materials  loill  be  on  vieic  in  Hall  26 
beginning  March  6,  as  part  of  the  exhibit  "Patterns  of  Paradise."  Mem- 
bers' preview  is  March  5;  closing  date  is  June  8.  See  pages  4-11 .  Photo  by 
Ron  Testa. 


Gold  of  El  Dorado 
Group  Tours 

Special  tours  of  the  major  forthcortting  exhibit  "Gold  of 
El  Dorado,"  opening  April  25  and  closing  July  6,  may 
nozv  be  arranged  for  groups  as  small  as  30  persons. 
During  public  hours,  daily  except  Friday,  special 
groups  of  30  to  100  persons  can  be  accommodated.  On 
Tuesday  and  Thursday  nhmings  (after  the  Museum  is 
closed  to  the  general  public)  groups  of  50  or  more  can  be 
accommodated. 

Supplemental  lectures  by  Museum  staff  for 
such  groupis,  as  well  as  private  dining  arrangements, 
are  also  available.  For  rates  and  other  information  call 
Caryn  Friedman,  at  786-9570. 


FIELD  MUSEUM  TOURS 

1980  Tour  Packages  Exclusively  for  Members 


Field  Museum's  20-Dav  Tour  of  Greece 

Including  a  Cruise  to  the  Greek  Islands 

Under  the  Leadership  of  Curator  Donald  Whitcomb 

September  7-26 

For  details  on  this  tour  see  the  April  issue  of  the  Bulletin  or  contact  the 
Tour  Office  for  a  brochure. 

Geology  Tour  of  England  and  Wales 
June  14-July  3 

Highlights  of  this  20-day  tour,  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Bertram 
Woodland,  Field  Museum's  curator  of  petrology  (and  a  native  of  Wales), 
will  be  visits  to  classical  areas  of  British  geology  where  many  fundamen- 
tal aspects  of  geology  were  first  discovered.  The  geological  history  and 
scenic  development  of  these  areas  will  be  emphasized.  Included  in  the 
tour  are  visits  to  the  South  Coast,  West  Country  Cotswolds,  Welsh 
Borderlands.  North  Wales,  Lake  District,  Yorkshire  Dales,  and  the  Peak 
District.  The  group  is  limited  to  25  persons. 

Cost  of  the  tour — $2,640  (which  includes  a  $300  donation  to 
Field  Museum) — is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and  includes  round 
trip  air  fare  between  Chicago  and  London.  First  class  accommodations 
will  be  used  throughout.  The  package  includes  breakfast  and  dinner 
daily,  chartered  motorcoach,  baggage  handling,  all  transfers,  taxes 
(except  airport  tax),  and  tips  (except  to  tour  guides),  all  sightseeing 
charges  and  admissions  to  special  events.  Advance  deposit:  $250  per 
person. 

People's  Republic  of  China 
May  10-31 

The  singular  experience  of  a  trip  to  the  People's  Republic  of  China  can 
be  yours!  For  its  members.  Field  Museum  again  offers  an  opportunity  to 
visit  China's  major  attractions.  The  tour  leader  will  be  Susan  Mann 
Jones,  assistant  professor  of  Chinese  civilization,  of  the  University  of 
Chicago.  The  group,  limited  to  25  persons,  will  leave  Chicago  May  10 
and  return  May  3L 

After  overnight  in  Vancouver  and  a  visit  in  Tokyo,  you  will 
continue  to  Peking,  China's  centuries-old  capital.  Relics  of  the  imperial 
past,  now  national  monuments,  include  the  magnificent  imperial 

Looking  across  Kunming  Lake  to  the  site  of  the  Summer  Palace  of  the 
Chin  d^riast\/.  six  miles  from  Peking^  Photo  bi;  Stanton  R.  Cook, 
courtesy  Chicago  Tribune. 


JP!j^                        tt^^k  *'             ih*-               ^^^H^l^^^^^^l 

F 

1 

W*x 

"-"' 

Stonehenge.  site  to  be  visited  b\;  Field  Museum  June  14-Juli^  3  Tour  of 
England  and  Wales.  Photo  courtes];  Bertram  Woodland,  curator  of 
petrologi>.  who  will  lead  the  tour 

palace,  museums,  temples  and  shrines,  and  the  vast  park-like  Summer 
Palace  on  the  shores  of  nearby  Kunming  Lake.  A  trip  will  be  made  to  the 
Great  Wall.  The  next  destination,  Nanking,  situated  on  the  Yangtse 
River,  is  a  source  of  pride  for  the  People's  Republic  as  a  center  of 
modem  development  as  well  as  for  its  scenic  and  historic  attractions.  Of 
special  interest  is  the  visit  to  the  charming  city  of  Kweilin.  The  awesome 
surrounding  landscape  of  jutting  peaks  and  rocky  caves  brings  scenes  of 
Chinese  painting  to  life.  Kwangchow  (Canton)  is  China's  most  impor- 
tant southem  City,  reflecting  events  in  the  history  of  the  republic  as  well 
as  former  times  when  it  was  China's  only  port  open  to  foreign  trade. 

For  additional  information  on  this  exciting  tour,  contact  the 
Tours  Office  and  ask  for  the  China  brochure. 

Illinois  Archeology  Field  Trip 
July  6-11 

For  many  of  us,  the  word  "archeology"  conjures  up  visions  of  great 
architecture  in  distant  places;  Egypt's  Pyramids  and  Sphinx,  Cam- 
bodia's Angkor  Wat,  and  Mexico's  Pyramids  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  at 
Teotihuacan.  These  sites,  with  their  relics,  are  limitlessly  fascinating. 

But  right  here  in  Illinois  we  also  have  exciting  archeological  sites, 
including  the  largest  aboriginal  structure  north  of  Mexico  —  Monk's 
Mound  at  Cahokia.  One  of  the  most  broadly  based  archeological 
research  centers  in  the  country  is  the  Foundation  for  Illinois  Archeology, 
at  Kampsville;  and  one  of  the  largest  covered  excavations  with  the 
longest  continuing  research  programs  is  at  Dickson  Mounds,  near 
Lcwistown. 

For  the  second  consecutive  year  Field  Museum  is  offering  an 
archeological  field  trip  which  will  visit  Dickson  Mounds.  Kampsville,  and 
Cahokia  Mounds.  Limited  to  30  participants,  the  trip  includes  site  visits, 
lecture  and  slide  presentations,  workshops  and  discussions  led  by  staff 
archeologists  working  at  the  respective  sites.  The  field  trip  director  is 
Robert  Pickering,  a  doctoral  candidate  at  Northwestern  University. 


For  additional  information  and  reservations  for  all 
tours,  call  or  write  Dorothi;  Roder,  Field  Museum 
Tours.  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake  Shore  Dr .  Chicago,  III. 
60605.  Phone  (312)  922-9410.  3 


Patterns  of  Paradise 

By  JOHN  TERRELL  and  ANNE  LEONARD 

EXHIBIT  OPENS  MARCH  6 
Members'  Preview  March  5 


Tivo  ranking  leaders  of 

Bellona  Island, 

Solonwn  Islands, 

dressed  in  garments 

and  turbans  of  dyed 

tapa.  Photograph  by 

W.  Templeton  Crocker 

(1933).  Similar  turbans 

collected  f'l/  Crocker  are 

still  fragrant  with 

powdery  turmeric  dye. 


Lieutenant  (later,  Captain)  James  Cook,  39  years 
old,  sailed  on  His  Majesty's  Bark  Endeavour  from 
Plymouth,  England,  on  Augus.t  26, 1768,  headed 
toward  the  South  Seas.  This  was  the  first  of  his 
three  great  voyages  of  discovery  to  the  Pacific.  In 
the  Secret  Instructions  issued  him  prior  to  his 
departure.  Cook  was  ordered  by  the  British 
Admiralty  and  the  Royal  Society  to  search  for 
"a  Continent  or  Land  of  great  extent"  then 
believed  to  lie  somewhere  in  the  southern 
waters.  If  he  found  this  continent,  he  was 
to  observe  "the  Genius,  Temper,  Disposition 
and  Number  of  the  Natives,  if  there  be  any, 
and  endeavour  by  ail  proper  means  to  cultivate 
a  Friendship  and  Alliance  with  them. ..." 


James  Cook  did  not  find  Term  australis  in- 
cognita, the  great  Southern  Continent  which  had 
for  so  long  haunted  the  European  imagination. 
On  the  contran,',  he  proved  that  it  did  not  exist. 
But  his  three  voyages  to  the  Pacific  between  1768 
and  1780  nonetheless  captured  European 
thought.  They  helped  create  the  romantic  vision 
of  the  Pacific  Islands  as  Paradise-on-earth  that 
survives  even  today  in  popular  thought  and 
literature. 

For  three  months  this  year  at  Field 
Museum  of  Natural  History — starting  March 
6 — you  may  yourself  obser\'e  the  genius  of  the 
Pacific  Islanders:  including  museum  treasures 
actually  brought  back  to  Europe  by  Cook  him- 


self.  Most  of  the  rare  artistic  and  practical  trea- 
sures in  the  new  special  exhibition  "Patterns  of 
Paradise"  are  from  the  world-famous  collection 
at  Field  Museum.  Most  have  never  before  been 
seen  on  public  display. 

Although  to  Europeans  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  18th  century  the  islanders  of  the  South  Pacific 
appeared  to  live  in  Paradise,  we  today  know 
that  this  tropical  world  has  been  the  scene  of 
man\'  different,  often  challenging,  and  at  times 
cruel  patterns  of  human  experience.  Moreover, 
since  their  discovery,  the  islanders  have  also 
suffered  different,  at  times  tragic,  fates  as  a 
result  of  expanding  European  trade  and  indus- 
trial civilization. 

"Patterns  of  Paradise"  tells  the  story  of  the 
peoples  of  the  Pacific  using  the  medium  of  their 
surviving  handicrafts.  Most  notable  of  these  is  a 
little  known  and  largely  unappreciated  craft — 
which  is  also  an  outstanding  art  form;  the  ancient 
tradition  of  making  masks,  costumes,  garments, 
and  effigies  out  of  tnpa,  or  bark  cloth. 

This  traveling  exhibition — created  by  the 
staff  at  Field  Museum  and  sponsored  in  part  by 
grants  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the 
Arts  in  Washington  D.C.,  a  federal  agency — 
displays  roughly  125  dramatic  tapa  specimens 
and  some  75  artifacts  of  stone,  wood,  pottery, 
and  other  materials  from  the  Pacific  and  from 
other  tropical  regions.  "Patterns  of  Paradise"  is 
realh'  three  museum  shows  in  one: 

•  The  exhibition  introduces  you  to  the  discov- 
ery of  the  Pacific  Islands  by  European  explorers, 
and  it  introduces  you  as  well  to  the  islanders: 
their  inventiveness,  their  artistic  creativity,  their 
traditions,  and  their  disparate  history. 

•  "Patterns  of  Paradise"  is  the  first  major 
museum  exhibition  to  feature  a  neglected 
medium  of  "primitive"  art:  tapa  making  around 
the  world.  Most  of  the  artifacts  and  other  items 
have  never  before  been  exhibited  together  for 
public  showing. 

•  "Patterns  of  Paradise"  also  reveals  how  an 
ingenious  folk  craft  is  done;  this  craft  offers  a 
number  of  exciting  technical  and  design  ideas 
that  can  be  adapted  by  modern  artists  and 
craftspeople. 

When  you  enter  Hall  26  on  the  second 
floor  at  Field  Museum,  where  "Patterns  of 
Paradise"  is  being  shown,  you  will  find  that  the 
items  on  display  have  been  arranged  according 
to  four  major  themes:  "Discovery,"  "Diversit}'," 
"Shared  Traditions,"  and  "Changing  Artistry." 
Here  is  a  brief  introduction  to  what  you  will 
encounter  as  you  tour  the  exhibition: 

DISCOVERY 

In  1513  the  Spanish  adventurer  Balboa  stood  on  a 
mountain-top  in  Central  America  and  gazed 
down  on  a  sight  never  before  seen  by  European 


Masi  Itiipa  cloth). 
Pfctisc/v  ftcnciled  m 
traditional  motifs  and 
colors,  this  small  piece 
of  tapa  tvas  made  for 
commercial  sale 
through  a  marketini^ 
cooperative.  Namuka 
Island,  Fiji  Islands, 
1976;  48  X  31  cm  (19  X 
12  in.).  Collection  of 
Anne  Leonard. 


eyes:  a  vast  ocean  he  named  "the  Great  South 
Sea."  Seven  years  later  the  Portuguese  explorer 
Ferdinand  Magellan  sailed  across  this  sea  that 
covers  one-third  of  the  earth's  surface.  Finding 
its  waters  calm  and  peaceful,  Magellan  called  it 
Mare  Pacifico,  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Long  before  Balboa  and  Magellan,  how- 
ever, the  Pacific  had  been  discovered  by  those 


/()/;/(  Terrell  is  associate  curator  of  Oceanic  archeology  and 
ethnology;  Anne  Leonard  is  a  researcher.  Department  of 
Anthropology. 


SthkiiujUi  hiuniiilul  Dctc  Ixink  on  mini' 


PATTERNS  OF  PARADISE 

Anne  Leonard 

and 

John  Terrell 


76  pages 

53  4color  illusiraiions 

75  blackanclw'hiU'  phoki.s 

$9.95  ai  Ihe  Museum  Shop 

(lO*  tli.seouiii  tor  MenilxTS) 


Associate  curator  John 
Terrell  and  anthro- 
pology researcher  Anne 
Leonard  loith  con- 
tcmporary  tapa  piece 
I  rem  Moce  Island,  Fii: 
Islands,  where  tapa- 
making  is  today  a  major 
industry.  Terrell  gaiv 
this  loan  specimen  as  a 
wedding  gift  to  his 
sister  and  her  husband. 


daring  navigators  we  call  the  Pacific  Islanders. 
Tapa  making  is  one  of  the  ingenious  crafts  de- 
veloped b\-  the  islanders  and  by  people  in  other 
tropical  regions  of  the  world.  Masks,  figures, 
costumes,  blankets,  clothing,  hats,  and  other  ar- 
ticles made  of  tapa  reflect  the  many  customs  and 
patterns  of  daily  life  of  the  peoples  of  "paradise." 

What  is  Tapa?  Tapa  is  beaten  cloth  made 
from  the  inner  bark  of  a  number  of  species  of 
trees.  The  origins  of  tapa  making  are  lost  in  the 
prehistoric  past.  Suitable  trees  are  found 
throughout  tropical  areas.  The  natural  materials 
used  dictate  that  tools  and  basic  manufacturing 
techniques  will  be  much  the  same  regardless 
where  the  craft  is  practiced.  At  the  time  peoples 
outside  the  tropics  were  discovering  and  perfect- 
ing techniques  of  weaving  cloth,  tapa  makers 
were  also  developing  their  skills  into  a  human 
achievement  of  artistic  and  practical  value. 

Captain  James  Cook.  Spanish,  Portuguese, 
and  Dutch  voyagers  pioneered  the  explorahon  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean  in  the  16th  and  17th  centuries. 
The  great  age  of  Pacific  exploration,  however, 
belonged  to  the  English  and  the  French  in  the 
18th  century.  The  most  famous,  most  successful 

Jivaro  Indian  (Peru)  back  ornament  of  bark  cloth  decorated 
with  bird  bones,  monkey  teeth,  beetle  wings,  seeds,  and 
shells  ( #6159) .  Such  bird  bones  were  said  to  come  from  birds 
that  roost  in  caves  inhabited  by  fearful  spirits.  Only  a  war- 
rior who  was  himself  powerful  in  spirit  dared  wear  them. 
Collected  by  William  E.  Safford  in  Peru,  1891;  60  x  20.5  cm 
(24x8  in.). 


A  Man  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  in 
a  Masic  (Hawaiian 
Islamif,  1779). 
Engrai'iiig  after  a 
sketch  by  John  Webber, 
official  artift  oti  Cap- 
tain jamcs  Cook's  third 
voyage.  The  gourd 
hebnet  is  decorated 
ivith  streamers  of  col- 
ored tapa  and  a  crest  of 
foliage.  Rare  Book 
Room,  Field  Museum 
Library. 


navigator  of  them  all  was  Captain  James  Cook. 
He  began  his  third  and  last  voyage  to  the  South 
Sea  Islands  a  week  after  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence was  signed  at  Philadelphia  in 
July  1776.  It  was  on  the  third  voyage  that  he  dis- 
covered the  Hawaiian  Islands.  And  it  was  at 
Kealakekua  Bay  on  the  island  of  Hawaii  itself  tha  t 
he  met  his  death  at  the  hands  of  the  native  inhab- 
itants on  February  14, 1779. 


DIVERSITY 

First  settlement  by  people  on  the  small  islands 
of  the  central  and  eastern  Pacific  dates  back  only 
to  around  AD.  300.  Settlement  on  the  islands 
of  Fiji,  Tonga,  and  Samoa,  farther  west  in  the 
Pacific,  began  sometime  between  2,000  and  1,000 
B.C.  Scholars  think,  however,  that  people  were 
already  living  on  New  Guinea  and  neighboring 


An  Off''.,  before 
Captain  '  I'ok  in  the 
SanJ.N  ich  Islands 
(Hiiu-iiiiim  Islands, 
1779).  Engraving  after 
a  sketch  hi/  John 
Webber.  Cook  is  man- 
tled with  a  tapa  befit- 
Hng  a  king  or  god.  Rare 
Book  Room,  Field 
Museum  Librar\/. 


islands  near  Asia  30  to  40  thousands  years  ago,  if 
not  earlier.  Consequently,  the  farther  back  in 
time  and  the  closer  to  Asia  you  look,  the  more 
diverse  and  confusing  is  the  story  of  human  set- 
tlement and  later  prehistory.  The  diversity  of 
customs  and  ways  of  life  among  the  islanders  of 
the  southwest  Pacific  can  be  seen  in  their  re- 
markable creations  made  of  bark  cloth.  Extraor- 
dinary diversity  can  also  be  found  elsewhere  in 
the  tropics:  in  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  Americas. 

SHARED  TRADITIONS 

People  who  live  on  islands  are  never  entirely  cut 
off  from  the  outside  world.  There  are  many 
legends  and  reports  in  the  Pacific  about  voyages 
between  islands  ihat  are  hundreds — even 
thousands — of  miles  apart.  Sometimes  these 
trips  have  been  made  on  purpose.  At  other 
times,  people  have  been  driven  from  their  in- 
tended course  to  some  nearby  island  because  of 
storms  or  shifting  currents. 

The  neighboring  islanders  of  Fiji,  Samoa, 


Tonga,  and  Futuna,  all  located  in  the  area  of  the 
Pacific  called  western  Polynesia,  share  customs 
and  handicrafts  that  reveal  their  common  history 
some  3,500  years  ago  and  their  continued  voyag- 
ing between  their  island  homes  for  trade,  settle- 
ment, marriage,  ceremony,  and  occasionally 
warfare.  Tapa  and  other  artifacts  from  western 
Polynesia  reflect  the  differences  that  have  grown 
up  over  time  among  these  islanders,  as  well  as 
the  similarities  that  exist  among  them  because  of 
tradition  and  travel  among  the  islands. 

Fiji  Islands.  Discovered  by  the  Dutch 
navigator  Tasman  in  1643,  the  more  than  300 
islands  that  form  the  famous  "Cannibal  Isles"  of 
the  Fijian  archipelago  are  richly  diverse  in  their 
natural  resources  and  in  the  customs  and  ways 
of  life  of  their  inhabitants.  Hillsmen,  coast- 
dwellers,  outer-islanders,  and  Tongan  migrants 
are  all  linked  together  by  social  and  economic 
ties,  in  spite  of  their  cultural  differences  and  the 
ocean  waters  that  divide  them  from  each  other. 
Fijian  masi,  tapa  cloth,  is  not  as  varied  today  as  it 
once  was.  Yet  there  are  stQl  three  different  styles. 


Mn^i  kcsa,  decorated  with  traditional  stenciled 
designs,  is  made  for  personal  use  and  commer- 
cial sale.  Giitu  vnka  to^a,  long  sheets  of  bark  cloth 
in  "Tongan  style,"  is  made  largely  for  ceremonial 
exchange.  Gatu  vaka  vili,  "Fijian  tapa,"  combines 
stenciled  designs  with  "Tongan"  decoration  and 
is  now  made  primarily  for  wedding  ceremonies. 

Stviioaii  hlmiiif.  The  Samoan  Islanders, 
famous  for  their  love  of  politics  and  social  form, 
remain  today  irrepressibly  Samoan  in  custom 
and  tradition,  in  spite  of  decades  of  European 
influence  and  modern  economic  change.  The  leg- 
acy of  tradition  continues  to  shape  the  strong 
web  of  social  ties  that  unites  the  Samoan  people. 
Sinpo,  Samoan  tapa  cloth,  reflects  their  creativity 
and  their  sense  of  tradition. 

Toii\;a  ami  Fuiutia.  Captain  James  Cook 
named  the  Tongan  archipelago  the  "Friendly  Is- 
lands." He  found  Tongan  society  to  be  politically 
complex  and  strictly  ordered  by  rank  and  nobil- 
ity. Today  these  islands  remain  one  of  the  few- 
constitutional  monarchies  in  the  world.  While 
social  rank  is  still  an  influential  force,  daily  life  in 
the  Friendly  Islands  has  a  warm,  exuberant  style 
that  can  be  readily  seen  in  modern  Tongan  ngatu, 
or  tapa  cloth.  The  small  and  proud  island  of 
Futuna  also  keeps  its  old  traditions  strikingly 
alive.  Sheltered  from  the  outside  world,  the 
Futunans  have  preserved  their  intricate  and  dis- 
tinctive style  of  tapa  painting  in  the  face  of 
modern  social  and  economic  change. 

CHANGING  ARTISTRY 

Given  time,  we  expect  things  to  change  to  keep 
pace  with  historical  events  and  changing  condi- 
tions of  daily  life.  Today  most  scholars  believe 


Cubeo  Indian  men  of 
the  Brazil-Colombia 
border  dressed  in  bark 
clotii  maakf  for  an 
oyne  (u'eepin^),  a 
dramatie  mourning 
ceremony  for  the  recenl 
dead.  Mafked  dancers 
impersonating  familiar 
creatures  as  iivll  as 
mischiii'ous  spirits 
come,  as  theantliro- 
I'ologist  Iri'ing 
c  '.oldman  has  describri^ 
tlwm.  "to  mourv 
mainly  to  tun 
people  from  ,^rief." 
Photo  courtesy  of 
Irving  Goldman .       9 


'"!;> 


N 


.# 


iS 


Tapa  cloth  (#272722). 
A  dqiarture  from 
traditional  Polynesian 
geometric  patterns, 
this  piece  was  probably 
intended  for  commer- 
cial sale.  FijiorSamoan 
Islands;  220  x  166  cm 
(83x65  in.). 


10 


that  all  of  the  Pacific  islanders  are  historically 
related  to  the  islanders  of  southeast  Asia.  Over 
the  thousands  of  years  since  the  first  Pacific  is- 
landers left  Asia,  however,  many  changes  oc- 
curred throughout  Asia  and  the  Pacific.  As  a 
consequence,  tapa  from  Indonesia  and  the 
Philippines  is  now  often  strikingly  different 
from  that  made  on  the  islands  farther  out  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean. 

Haivaiitm  hlaiuif.  After  the  death  of  Cook 
at  Hawaii  in  1779,  the  surviving  officers  and  crew 
soon  left  the  archipelago.  They  carried  home  to 
England  the  news  of  Cook's  death  and  also  many 
examples  of  the  "curiosities"  made  by  the 
Hawaiian  islanders.  Kapa,  or  Hawaiian  tapa 
cloth,  brought  back  to  England  in  the  18th  cen- 
tury, still  can  be  found  in  museum  collections.  In 
appearance,  it  is  thick  and  heavy,  and  painted  in  • 
a  variety  of  somber  but  elegant  designs.  By  the 
19th  century,  however,  the  art  of  kapa  making 
had  changed,  partly  because  iron  obtained  from 
European  sailors  and  traders  made  it  possible  for 
the  Hawaiians  to  carve  intricately  designed 
finishing  beaters  (i'e  kuku )  and  printing  stamps  of 
bamboo.  Kapa  from  the  19th  century  is  sheer  and 
delicately  patterned.  However,  by  the  end  of  the 


last  century,  kapm  making  had  died  out.  Instead, 
Hawaiian  women  spent  part  of  the  time  once 
given  to  kapa  production- in  sewing  wonderful 
quilts  made  out  of  imported  woven  textiles. 

hlaud  Southeast  Asia.  The  islanders  of 
southeast  Asia  live  in  worlds  that  vary  from 
"Stone  Age"  simplicity  to  modern  urban  com- 
plexity. Bark  cloth  is  made  (or  was  made  until 
recently)  in  many  areas  throughout  this  part  of 
the  Pacific.  The  diversity  of  local  custom  and 
life  is  clearly  reflected  in  the  widely  varying  tech- 
nical and  artistic  sophistication  shown  by  gar- 
ments and  other  articles  made  of  bark  cloth. 

The  survival  of  tapa  making  in  the  future 
will  depend  on  whether  the  people  who  still 
know  this  ancient  craft  are  successful  in  keeping 
alive  their  own  ethnic  identity  and  how  they 
themselves  will  continue  to  value  an  expression 
of  their  heritage  that  demands  time,  learned 
skills,  and  raw  materials  that  must  be  careful- 
ly cultivated  or  somehow  preserved  in  their 
wild  state. 

In  the  few  hundred  years  during  which 
European  civilizatton  has  exported  its  technol- 
ogy and  its  system  of  values  to  peoples  in  other 
lands,  tapa  making  has  died  out  among  many 


people  for  whom  it  was  formerly  not  only  a  valu- 
able but  a  valued  craft.  The  fragile  treasures  of 
bark  cloth  held  in  museum  collections  bear  mute 
testimony  to  the  lost  glories  of  an  art  that  once 
flourished  throughout  the  tropics.  Such  beauti- 
ful things,  nonetheless,  should  be  a  source  of 


pride  and  inspiration  to  the  descendants  of 
those,  now  dead,  who  made  them.  All  of  us  can 
take  delight  in  the  artistry  and  skill  of  the  tapa 
makers  of  the  past  and  in  the  colorful  ways  in 
which  tapa,  one  of  the  oldest  creations  of  man- 
kind, is  still  enjoyed  today. 


A  j^roup  ofbalak  peop'le 
of  the  Philippines 
i('f()r/»i\;  festive  tapa 
dotlting.  Theflmeci 
leaves,  and  colored 
grasses  that  complete 
their  headdresses  were 
chosen  for  fragrance 
as  ivell  as  for  color. 
Palawan  Island, 
Philippine  Islands, 
1907-08.  Photo  hy 
anthropologist  Fay 
Cooper-Cole. 


II 


► 

ir    _ 

r 


.-^•fe 


■it?i^\^... 


m 


^  4 


12 


•^^^^H^P)-.^1 


Learning  Museum  Program 

Continues  with: 


Colombia: 
Context, 
Conquest, 
and  Gold 

By  Anthony  Pfeiffer.  project  coordinator 

Made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment 
for  the  Humanities,  a  federal  agency 


■'^ 


For  Most  of  History,  ninety-nine  percent  of 
Colombia's  people  were  concentrated  in  200,000 
square  miles  of  the  Andes.  South  of  Colombia,  the 
Andean  mountain  chain  —  the  wodd's  longest  and 
second  only  to  the  Himalayas  in  height — •  nurtured 
the  wodd's  highest  cities  with  some  of  the  greatest 
ceremonial  centers  ever  discovered.  Peruvian  cities, 
for  example,  were  so  vast,  their  locations  so  magnifi- 
cent, and  their  construction  so  monumental  and 
technologically  advanced  that  it  has  been  suggested 
they  were  the  work  of  visitors  from  space. 

The  great  civilizations  of  South  America, 
spread  along  a  4,500-mile  chain  of  mountains,  were 
human,  not  otherworldly.  They  were  made  possible 
by  a  diversity  of  habitats  that  are  not  only  astounding 
in  themselves  but  are  made  more  so  by  being  com- 
pressed into  such  a  small  area.  Within  the  distance  of 
a  mile  down  a  mountainside  there  might  be  three 
distinct  ecological  zones,  each  supporting  a  unique 
set  of  flora  and  fauna.  The  wealth  of  plants  and 
animals  translates  into  food  for  people.  When  19th- 
century  travellers  went  to  market  in  certain  parts  of 
the  Andes,  they  were  amazed  at  the  variety  of  foods 
that  could  be  offered  in  one  small  geographic  area. 

In  contrast  to  tremendous  predictability  and 
abundance  in  some  areas,  making  a  living  in  other 
locales  was  a  risky  business.  A  localized  storm  might 
wipe  out  a  laboriously  tended  garden.  People  had  to 
grow  many  gardens  at  many  levels  and  were  some- 
times away  from  their  villages  for  days  at  a  time  to 


Set  amidst  the  r)oble  grandeur  of  the  Andes,  these  prehis- 
toric Inca  ruins  have  a  preturnatural  quality  that  invites 
speculation  by  the  space-age  traveler  But  more  realisti- 
cally, the  ruins  attest  to  the  extraordinary  engineering  skills 
of  that  ancient  civilization. 


13 


work  in  the  lower  levels.  In  these  areas  people  lived 
above  their  farmlands  in  places  so  cold  that  early 
Spanish  settlers  remarked  "even  the  plants  have 
fur' ' 

Taken  as  a  whole,  there  is  nothing  quite  like 
the  Andean  way  of  life  elsewhere  in  the  worid.  It  is  a 
way  of  life  much  more  three  dimensional  than  ours. 
Considered  horizontally,  each  mountain  range,  each 
mountain  within  a  range  presented  unique  problems 
of  adaptation  as  well  as  opportunities.  Considered 
vertically,  up  and  down  a  mountain  was  yet  another 
set  of  threatening  or  promising  possibilities. 

Many  great  civilizations  flourished  in  the 
Andes  over  the  millennia.  The  fabled  Inca  of  Peru 
are  the  most  renowned  and  certainly  the  most  far- 
flung  of  these  civilizations.  At  one  time  the  Inca 
empire  incorporated  most  of  the  Andean  chain.  No 
such  vast  empires  originated  in  Colombia.  Ar- 
cheological  evidence  suggests  that  the  largest  vil- 
lages had  3,000  to  5,000  inhabitants.  These  and 
smaller  villages  were  perhaps  loosely  organized  into 
kingdoms.  In  interesting  contrast  to  Colombia's  low 
population  density  was  the  wealth  of  gold  to  be 
found  there. 

In  recent  times  gold  prices  have  fluctuated 
wildly  seemingly  reaching  for  all  time  highs.  Lust  for 
this  precious  metal  is  not  new.  Christopher  Colum- 
bus wrote: 

Gold  is  the  most  exquisite  of  all  things.  Whoever 
possesses  gold  can  acquire  all  that  he  desires  in  the 
world.  Ta//y,  for  gold  he  can  gain  entrance  for  his 
soul  into  paradise. 


NEH  Learning  Museum 
at  Field  Museum 

The  NEH  Learning  Museum  program  is  a 
three-year  sequence  of  learning  opportunities 
focused  on  the  Museum's  outstanding  exhibits 
and  collections  and  designed  to  give  partici- 
pants an  opportunity  to  explore  a  subject  in 
depth. 


14 


Pectoral  or  chest  ornament,  of  prehistoric  Colombia  (col 
lection  ofMuseo  delOro,  Bogota.  Colombia):  height:  7% 
in.  (20  cm).  The  goldwork  of  Colombian  artisans  was  the 
finest  of  all  South  America  The  prehistoric  Colombians 
had  independently  devised  every  goldsmithing  technique 
known  to  the  Europeans,  except  electroplating. 


Because  of  gold,  a  nameless  10,000-foot 
peak  in  Colombia  and  a  lonely  lake  at  its  summit 
shaped  the  course  of  world  history.  The  lake  is  not 
more  than  half  a  mile  across,  and  as  round  as  a 
wheel.  Because  of  it,  Kathleen  Romoli  wrote  in  Co- 
lombia: Gateway  to  South  America  (1942):  "states- 
men halfway  round  the  world  sat  in  conclave:  fleets 
were  armed  in  Cadiz  and  Plymouth  and  Lisbon; 
German  bankers  and  English  speculators  made 
strange  calculations  and  investments.  Because  of  it, 
great  captains  led  desperate  adventures;  kings 
gained  new  empires  and  simple  people  lost  their 
gods.  This  is  the  lake  of  El  Dorado." 

The  legend  of  El  Dorado  began  when  a 
Spanish  conquistador  was  told  by  an  Indian  of  a 
mountain  place  rich  in  gold.  Although  no  one  knows 
what  the  Indian  actually  said,  his  comment  was 
blown  up  to  mammoth  proportions.  According  to 
the  conquistador,  there  was  a  lake  in  this  mountain, 
where  several  times  a  year  the  chief  made  sacrifices 
and  offerings,  "being  naked,  but  covered  from  his 
head  to  his  feet  and  hands  with  a  sticky  resin,  and 
over  it  much  gold  in  fine  powder,  so  that. . .  it  made  a 
second  skin."  Hoards  of  gold  were  said  to  have  been 
thrown  into  the  lake.  Such  was  the  tale  that  launched 
a  gold  rush  in  Colombia  in  1534. 

Finding  the  lake  was  easy  and  many  attempts 
were  made  to  drain  it.  One  of  the  first  tries  was  to 
carve  the  lip  of  the  mountain  cup  containing  the  lake. 
Although  some  water  drained  from  the  lake  through 
the  wedge-shaped  cut,  the  water  level  never  fell  off 
sufficiently  to  expose  the  lake's  bottom.  Years  later, 
an  ambitious  team  tunnelled  beneath  the  lake  and, 
although  the  water  ran  out,  the  remaining  silt  dried  to 
the  consistency  of  concrete.  In  these  and  other  at- 
tempts, a  few  gold  pieces  were  found,  enough  to 
tantalize  but  nothing  like  the  billions  of  dollars  worth 
expected.  For  centuries  people  flocked  to  Colombia, 
mesmerized  by  the  dream  of  a  kingdom  of  gold.  If 
indeed  untold  golden  treasures  ever  lay  under  the 
lake's  still  waters,  they  are  there  still. 

Despite  the  frustrated  efforts  to  coax  the  lake 
to  yield  its  purported  wealth,  the  Spanish  were  suc- 
cessful in  looting  the  rest  of  the  Colombian  country- 
side for  its  gold  artifacts.  Thousands  of  objects  were 
shipped  to  European  lands  and  the  pieces  of  unex- 
celled craftsmanship  were  melted  to  mere  bullion. 
There  was  also  a  human  price.  Direct  battle,  slavery, 
murder,  and  most  insidious  and  effective  killer  of  all. 


The  Colombian  village 
of  San  Miguel,  the 
largest  such  settlement 
in  its  particular  region. 
In  former  times, 
groups  of  such  villages 
Diay  have  cooperated 
in  the  construction  of 
stonework  complexes 
of  platforms, 
monumental  figures, 
and  buildings  for 
communal  religious 
ceremonies. 


introduced  disease,  took  their  to 

With  "unbelievable  daring,  unforgivable 
cruelty,  and  a  kind  of  superhuman  luck,"  to  use 
Kathleen  Romoli's  wodds,  the  Spanish  swept  Co- 
lombia. Gold  mining  centers  were  particularly  hard 
hit.  Some  agricultural  areas — the  least  prosperous — 
were  virtually  untouched.  The  Paez  Indians,  who 
had  poor  farms,  were  self-sufficient  and  lived  where 
the  land  was  steep  and  cold,  as  if  stranded  on  a 
mountain  island.  They  remained  isolated  for  cen- 
turies. The  Chibcha  Indians,  in  contrast,  lived  in 
Colombia's  most  favorable  agricultural  lands.  They 
became  largely  Hispanicized,  gradually  speaking 
only  Spanish  and  worshipping  as  Roman  Catholics. 

The  Colombian  survivors  of  El  Dorado  gold 
fever  and  European  imperialism  made  adjustments 
in  their  lifestyles.  The  Indians  adopted  Catholic 
motifs  into  their  traditional  wood  carvings.  European 
musical  structure  was  introduced  and  uniquely 
blended  with  indigenous  rhythms.  But  in  an  incredi- 
ble testament  to  human  resiliency,  some  aspects  of 
art  and  music  remained  staunchly  Andean. 

In  the  economic  realm,  there  were  dramatic 
exchanges  between  European  conquerors  and  na- 
tive peoples.  From  South  America,  the  Europeans 
took  the  common  potato,  which  was  to  revolutionize 
the  economies  of  Central  Europe  and,  much  later, 
of  Ireland.  Via  European  transmission  from  West 
Africa,  South  America  inherited  bananas  and  coffee, 
items  considered  almost  stereotypically  South 
American  today. 

COLOMBIA;  CONTEXT  CONQUEST  AND  GOLD  exam- 
ines the  remarkable  story  of  ancient  mountain 
peoples,  conquistador  brutality,  and  the  cultures  and 
crafts  of  Colombia.  The  course  of  study  begins  on 
April  17  and  24  with  two  lectures  by  Field  Museum 
staff,  archeologists  experienced  in  the  Andes.  It  con- 
tinues on  May  8  with  a  screening  of  the  film, 
"Aguin-e.  The  Wrath  of  God."  Aguin-e,  leading  a 
Spanish  military  detachment  in  search  of  the  mythi- 


cal El  Dorado,  begins  his  quest  on  the  Amazon  River. 
Overcome  by  hostile  Indians,  fever,  and  starvation, 
the  conquistadors  succumb  to  an  uncertain  end  in 
impenetrable  jungle.  The  film  serves  as  a  vehicle  for 
discussing  the  Spanish  conquest,  its  motives,  and 
ongoing  legacy  in  South  American  life.  Discussion  is 
led  by  panelists  from  Field  Museum  and  other 
institutions. 

As  the  focus  shifts  to  Colombia,  the  course 
offers  three  lectures  by  Frank  R.  Safford,  professor  of 
history  at  Northwestern  University.  Safford  is  a 
specialist  in  19th  century-Spanish  America,  with  a 
particular  interest  in  the  economic  and  political  his- 
tory of  Colombia.  He  supplements  his  lectures  with 
slides  of  gold  and  pottery  artifacts  to  illustrate  aspects 
of  social  organization  and  to  point  out  distinctive 
cultural  expressions.  The  three  lectures  cover  the 
ancient  cultures  of  Colombia,  Spanish  rule  and  the 
mixture  of  Spanish  and  indigenous  lifestyles,  and 
culminate  in  a  look  at  how  Colombian  Indian  groups 
fare  today. 

Tahuantinsuyo  ("Tah-won-tin-soo-yo"),  per- 
forming Saturday,  May  3,  is  a  musical  group 
specializing  in  folk  tunes  of  South  America.  Their 
performance  at  Field  Museum  will  include  dance 
from  the  highlands  of  Peru  and  Ecuador,  supple- 
mented with  background  slides  of  life  in  the  Andes. 

"Colombia  Context  Conquest  and 
Gold"  corresponds  with  "Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The 
Heritage  of  Colombia,"  an  exhibit  of  more  than  500 
gold  objects  that  miraculously  survived  the  Spanish 
scourge.  This  spectacular  exhibit,  opening  at  Field 
Museum  on  April  25,  is  the  subject  of  a  seminar 
available  only  to  lecture  course  participants.  The 
seminar  explores  the  meaning  of  gold  to  the  people 
of  Colombia.  Details  on  the  lecture  course  and  on 
Tahuantinsuyo's  performance  are  available  in  the 
Spring  Courses  for  Adults  brochure  and  in  April's 
Calendar  of  Events  respectively.  All  Chicago-area 
members  are  on  the  mailing  list  for  both 
publications.  □ 


15 


TheThorne -Graves  Arctic 
Expedition  of  1929 


^ 


Questions  by  Irene  Sehultz 
Response  by  BniceThorue 


M|>i»*lW> 


All  photos  courtesy  Bruce  Thorne,  unless  otherwise  credited 


The  group  ofivnlruses  on  vieio  hi  Hall  N  is  more  than 
Ukeh/  to  eateh  the  eye  of  any  passerby,  for  the  diorama 
baekground  is  dominated  by  the  ruddy  gloiv  of  the 
midnight  sun,  and  in  front  of  it  are  arranged  seven 
walruses,  the  largest  benig  of  near-record  size.  The 
specimens  were  obtained  in  1929  by  two  young  men, 
Bruce  Thonie  and  George  Coe  Graves  II. 

Graves  died  in  1934,  but  Bruce  Thorne  is  today 
a  resident  of  Lake  Bluff ,  lUinois,  a  Chicago  suburb.  The 
folloiving  account  of  the  Thome-Graves  Arctic 
Expedition  of  1929  was  taped  by  Irene  Sehultz,  a 
Museum  Member  who  had  learned  only  recently  that 
her  neighbor  was  one  of  those  jointly  responsible  for 
the  adxKiihirous  undertaking. -Ed. 


16 


BruceThorne 
(1928) 


Sehultz:  How  did  you  happen  togoon  this  expedition? 

Thorne:  After  graduation  from  Yale  in  1928  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  take  one  year  off 
to  travel.  The  first  trip  I  took  was  to  Alaska  for 
big  game  hunting,  and  I  went  with  a  very  close 
friend  of  mine,  George  Coe  Graves  II,   whose 
nickname  was  "Toot."  On  my  return  in  the  fall  of 
1928,  through  a  mutual  friend,  I  met  Dr.  Wilfred 
Osgood,  who  was  then  the  curator  of  zoology  at 
the  Field  Museum.  He  invited  me  to  come  to  the 
Museum  so  that  he  could  show  me  the  Zoology 
Department  including  the  many  animal  exhibits. 
At  that  time  the  marine  room  was  quite  new; 
they  only  had  one  completed  exhibit,  as  I  recall, 
but  they  had  paintings  of  the  backgrounds  for 
several  future  exhibits  for  which  they  hoped 
some  day  to  obtain  the  specimens.  One  of  these 
was  to  be  an  exhibit  of  Pacific  walrus,  and  there 
was  a  beautiful  painting  of  the  midnight  sun 
shining  over  the  arctic  ice.  Dr.  Osgood  said,  "The 
only  trouble  is,  this  exhibit  is  a  long  way  off  and 
we  don't  know  when  we'll  ever  get  to  it." 

Well,  several  days  later  I  thought  to  my- 
self, "Why  wouldn't  it  be  a  good  idea  if  my  part- 
ner. Toot  Graves,  and  1  went  back  in  the  fall  of  the 
next  year  (since  I  had  planned  to  take  one  year  off 
before  1  went  to  work)  and  obtain  the  walrus  so 
the  exhibit  could  be  completed?"  And  so  I  called 
him  to  see  if  he  would  have  any  interest,  and  he 
did.  I  later  contacted  Dr.  Osgood  and  told  him  of 
our  interest.  To  make  a  long  story  short,  the 
Museum  was  interested  if  proper  arrangements 
could  be  made.  We  had  hoped  the  Museum 
would  contribute  some  financial  backing,  but  it 
was  against  their  policy,  and  we  agreed  to  fi- 
nance the  expedifion  entirely  ourselves. 


So  when  we  got  back  from  Europe  in 
about  March  or  April  of  1929,  we  started  the  task 
of  organizing  the  expedition.  Our  first  priority 
was  to  charter  a  ship.  The  expedition,  of  course, 
was  subject  to  finding  a  ship  that  was  suitable  for 
the  purpose  of  going  up  into  the  ice,  and  it  had  to 
have  what  is  called  "iron  bark"  on  its  hull  to 
pre\'ent  the  ice  from  penetrating  it. 

Hozc  did  i/ou  kiioTc  about  llic  kind  of>liip  i/oii  needed? 

We  read  a  lot,  we  talked  to  a  lot  of  people.  1  went 
to  Seattle  and  spent  two  or  three  weeks  there 
investigating  ship  possibilities  and  checking 
with  people  like  the  Loman  brothers,  who  knew 
arctic  conditions,  while  Toot  Graves  remained  in 
New  York  working  through  the  Explorers'  Club 
to  contact  people  experienced  in  arctic  explora- 
tion, like  Bob  Bartlett,  for  one.  We  got  quite  a  few 
offers  of  different  ships,  but  thorough  investiga- 
tion concerning  the  reputation  of  the  owner  and 
suitability  for  ice  conditions  caused  us  to  discard 
most  opportunities  until  we  finally  found  a  ship 
that  we  considered  suitable.  We  ended  up  with 
an  old  105-foot  halibut  schooner  equipped  with  a 
270  h.p.  diesel  engine  with  "iron  bark"  on  its  hull 
and  very  suitable  for  going  up  into  the  ice.  It 
proved  to  be  very  satisfactory,  but  there  were  no 
comforts  aboard.  The  expedition  had  no  other 
purpose  than  to  obtain  a  good  representative 
group  of  Pacific  walrus. 

Had  either  of  you  made  such  a  rough  trip  even  on  a 
shorter  term  before? 

We  had  been  up  to  Alaska  a  year  before,  and  both 
of  us  always  had  been  very  much  outdoor  people 
all  our  lives,  but  neither  of  us  had  done  anything 
like  this  before. 

But  you  were  familiar  with  arms  for  hunting 
big  game? 

Oh,  yes.  In  Alaska,  the  year  before,  we  spent  six 
weeks  mostly  in  the  interior  hunting  sheep, 
goats,  three  kinds  of  bear,  caribou,  and  moose. 

What  did  you  do  after  locating  the  ship? 

The  next  priority  was  to  arrange  for  an  experi- 
enced taxidermist  to  prepare  and  preserve  the 
specimens  we  obtained.  The  Museum  could  not 
spare  one  of  their  own  taxidermists,  whom  we 
would  have  been  delighted  to  have,  so  we  hired 
John  Jonas,  one  of  the  three  Jonas  brothers  who 
were  then  very  famous  in  taxidermy.  On  the 
expedition  he  took  photographs,  painted  colors, 
and  took  plaster  casts  of  the  heads  and  hides, 
and  he  would  split  the  skins  so  that  they  could  be 
preserved  and  eventually  molded  to  appear  like 
the  live  animal  itself.  I  think  I  can  say  that  he  did 


this  very  carefully  and  successfully. 

It's  such  a  convincing  group  that  the  proof  of  the 
pudding  is  in  the  group  itself.  What  other  arrange- 
ments did  you  make? 

After  chartering  the  ship  in  Seattle,  we  arranged 
with  a  food  distributor  to  buy  a  fairly  large  sup- 
ply of  food.  The  danger  of  going  up  into  the  ice 
floes  north  of  Alaska  and  Siberia  is  that  the  cur- 
rent takes  you  north.  If  you  get  caught  in  the  ice, 
it's  possible  that  you  would  drift  virtually  across 
the  North  Pole  and  then  come  out  on  the  Atlantic 
side — like  the  Nansen  expedition  deliberately 
did  on  the  Fram  to  prove  that  point  prior  to  1900. 
We  feared  that  we  might  get  caught,  so  we 
bought  a  year's  supply  of  food  that  would  keep 
us  alive  should  we  get  caught  in  the  ice,  as  did 
happen  to  the  schooner  NahwA'  shortly  after  we 


BruceThonie,  shown 
recently  with  umtrus 
diorama  in  Hall  N. 


George  Coe  Graves  II 
(1928)  17 


Craves(cen>  "and 
Thome  (Slid  from 

right)  s;Liiiui  icith 
plane  that  ftciv  them 

from  Anchorage  to 
Nome. 


WILL  HUNT  WALRUS 

IN  THE  FAR  NORTH 


New  Yorker  and  Chicagoan  Will 

Use  Airplane  in  Expedition 

for  Field  Museum. 


Special  to  The  New  York  Times. 

CHICAGO,  May  18— Venturing  into 
the  Far  North  by  water  and  air- 
plane, an  expedition  headed  by 
George  Coe  Graves  II  of  New  York 
and  Bruce  Thorne,  member  of  a 
well-known  Chicago  family,  will 
spend  the  Summer  on  the  trail  of 
the  walrus  and  the  caribou  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Field  Museum.  The 
expedition  hopes  to  acquire  for  the 
museum  the  best  groups  of  walrus 
ever  exhibited.  It  will  sail  from 
Seattle  on  June  19. 

Announcing  the  undertaking  today. 
Stephen  C.  Simms,  director  of  the 
museum,  explained  that  the  venture 
would  be  difficult  and  exciting,  as 
walrus  have  to  be  hunted  far  from 
land,  in  the  ice-laden  ocean.  The 
schooner  to  be  used,  the  Dorothy, 
will  probably  have  to  cruise  as  far 
north  £13  Wrangel  Island. 

Dr.  Wilfred  Osgood,  Curator  of 
Zoology,  stated  that  the  walrus  is 
one  of  the  hardest  animals  to  pre- 
pare for  preservation  and  that  no 
specimen  has  ever  been  satisfactorily 
mounted.  John  Jonas,  an  expert 
taxidermist,  will  accompany  the  ex- 
pedition. It  is  planned  to  mount  the 
group  In  lifelike  attitudes  at  the 
museum  in  a  setting  showing  the 
Midnight  Sun  and  fields  of  floating 
Ice. 

For  the  second  stage  of  the  hunt 
the  adventurers  will  make  an  over- 
land trip  across  Alaska  from  Nome 
to  Fairbanks  to  reach  the  caribou 
hunting  grounds,  and  for  this  the 
airplane  vH\  be  used. 

Thome  and  Graves,  both  of  whom 
have  had  big  game  hunting  experi- 
ence, are  financing  the  expedition. 
They  also  hope  to  obtain  pol«r  bear;; 
for  the  museum. 


18 


met  it  off  the  coast  of  Siberia.  It  was  a  trading 
vessel  headed  for  North  Cape  and  beyond,  but  it 
got  caught  fast  in  the  ice  and  spent  the  winter 
there.  Its  owner,  Olaf  Swenson,  wirelessed  us 
not  to  proceed  to  North  Cape  as  we  had  planned, 
and  we  followed  his  advice. 

Wltat  kindf  of  food  did  you  stock? 

For  that  purpose  we  bought  mostly  canned 
goods.  I  don't  remember  exactly,  but  we  got  rec- 
ommendations from  people  who  knew  what  was 
necessary  to  keep  us  alive.  We  also  took  with  us 
certain  equipment  such  as  an  outboard  motor  to 
fit  onto  an  Eskimo  umiak  so  that  we  could  leave 
the  boat  in  an  emergency. 

Cain/ou  remember  some  of  the  other  things  specifically 
tliat  i/oii  had  to  provide? 

Wireless  equipment  for  one.  We  were  able  to 
borrow  a  wireless  set  and  related  equipment 
from  the  International  Fisheries  Commission 
stationed  at  the  University  of  Washington.  We, 
of  course,  needed  this  in  case  of  an  emergency 
and  for  communication  in  general.  To  reduce  the 
cost  of  our  provisions,  equipment,  and  charter, 
the  owner  of  the  Dorothy,  Captain  Hvatum, 
helped  us  to  arrange  for  a  load  of  tea  and  other 
food  to  be  delivered  to  North  Cape,  Siberia,  and 
we  had  a  Russian  permit  to  deliver  it.  Fortunately 
we  had  a  provision  in  the  contract  that  if  we 
could  not  get  through  the  ice  we  could  leave  it  in 
Nome  and  the  Russians  would  pick  it  up  there, 
and  that  is  what  actually  happened  because  of 
the  bad  ice  conditions  I  mentioned  before. 

When  and  from  where  did  you  start  this  expedition? 


John  Jonas,  our  taxidermist,  went  with  the  boat 
across  the  Pacific,  leaving  Seattle  the  middle  of 
June.  My  partner.  Toot  Graves,  and  1  took  a 
steamship  to  Seward  in  earl\'  June  and  went  on  a 
bear  hunt  on  Kenai  Peninsula  before  we  met  the 
ship.  Then  on  June  28  we  flew  from  Anchorage  to 
Fairbanks,  and  on  the  next  da\'  from  Fairbanks  to 
Nome,  where  we  met  the  ship  which  arrived 
from  Seattle  on  about  July  1.  We  left  Nome  on 
July  3,  headed  north  toward  the  pack  ice. 

In  Seattle  we  had  been  very  fortunate  in 
employing  the  services  of  Carl  Hansen  as  our  ice 
pilot.  He  had  hadagreatdealofexperiencein  the 
arctic,  having  accompanied  Roald  Amundsen  for 
two  years  on  his  trip  through  the  Northeast  Pas- 
sage on  the  Mtuui .  Because  of  this  and  other  arctic 
experiences  he  was  very  informed  on  ice  condi- 
tions, which  was  extremely  beneficial  to  us.  This 
was  most  important,  because  the  ice  changes 
with  the  wind,  tightening  and  loosening.  We 
could  cruise  outside  of  the  ice  floes  and  not  be  in 
any  danger,  but  when  we  went  into  the  ice  after  a 
group  of  walrus  we  had  to  watch  ice  conditions 
constantly  in  order  to  get  out. 

You  mean  going  in  with  your  ship? 

Yes.  Going  in  with  the  schooner  Ddrof/n/,  break- 
ing through  the  pack  ice  to  get  as  near  as  possible 
to  a  group  of  walrus  which  had  been  spotted 
from  the  crow's  nest.  We  went  in  as  close  as  we 
could,  then  used  an  umiak,  and  paddled  with 
our  two  Eskimos  close  to  but  downwind  from 
the  walrus.  We  had  hired  the  Eskimos  at  the 
Diomede  Islands  after  leaving  Nome. 


Expeditio)!  taxidermist 
John  /onus  s/kr'cs 
dowti  walrus  hide 
aboard  the  Dorothy. 


BruceThorne  (left)  and 
George  Graves  (third 
from  right)  icith  John 
]onns  (right)  and  crew 
member^  atward  the 
Dorothy.  19 


Ice  pilot  and  navigator 

CarlHai:  .11  {left) and 

Civ/yi'Grat'es  in 

d:ring  fuits  they 

jcoic  while  repairing 

Dorothy's  broken 

rudder  stock. 


~  r 


^ 


20 


/  have  to  ask  you  about  tlu'  unnak.  I  thought  that  only 
one  person  could  ;^o  into  an  umiak.  Are  they  the  ones 
that  fasten  arou)id  you? 

No.  An  umiak  is  a  big  skin  boat — you're  thinking 
of  a  kayak — an  umiak  is  like  a  big  rowboat,  but 
it's  made  of  skin.  It's  very  light,  and  you  can  pull 
it  over  the  ice,  but  it'll  hold  six  or  seven  people. 

There  were  tioo  Eskimos  and  i/ou  ami  your  partner, 
and  who  else  miglit  ;^o  in  close  to  the  walrus? 

Usually  just  the  four  of  us. 

As  a  mother,  I  have  to  ask  what  your  mother  thought  of 
the  whole  expedition,  or  didn't  she  kiurw  the  extent  to 
which  you  'd  be  involved? 

Well,  that  is  an  interesting  question.  At  the  same 
time  that  1  was  up  there  in  the  arctic,  my  brother 
was  in  Antarctica  with  Byrd's  first  expedition, 
and  he  was  on  Lawrence  Gould's  three-month 
dog  sled  trip  south  from  Little  America  explor- 
ing, mapping,  and  studying  the  geology  of  the 
Queen  Maud  Mountains,  and  also  establishing 
emergency  food  depots  for  Byrd  in  case  of  trou- 
ble on  his  flight  to  the  South  Pole.  And  while  he 
was  only  about  300  miles  from  the  Pole,  and  I  was 
up  in  the  ice  north  of  the  Siberian  Coast,  I  sent 
a  wireless  to  The  Neio  York  Times  via  Nome,  Se- 
ward, and  Seattle.  The  Neio  York  Times  relayed  it 
to  Little  America  and  Little  America  then  short- 
waved  it  down  to  my  brother's  base  camp  in  the 
Queen  Maud  Mountains,  and  within  a  week  I 


had  a  reply.  So  my  mother  had  two  sons  at  either 
end  of  the  earth  at  the  same  time.  I  think  she  was 
very  happy  about  it  all  though.  We  both  com- 
municated with  her  by  wireless  and  had  some 
communication  from  her  too. 

Did  you  have  problems  in  speaking  with  the  Eskimos 
who  accompanied  you? 

No.  They  spoke  broken  English.  There  are  mis- 
sionaries on  the  Diomede  Islands,  where  we  ob- 
tained them,  and  in  the  winter  they  go  over  to 
Nome  to  trade.  They  had  had  a  disease  the  year 
before  and  were  very  low  on  food  and  skins.  I 
think  that  we  helped  them  a  great  deal  because 
all  of  the  walrus  carcasses  and  skins  that  we  had 
and  did  not  need  for  the  Museum,  we  stored 
in  the  hold  and  gave  to  the  Eskimos  for  their 
food  and  leather  hides.  They  were  very  grateful 
for  that. 

/  have  been  very  ijnpresscd  by  the  skill  that  the  Eskimos 
have  ui  makhig  clotlung  appropriate  for  the  weather. 

Yes.  We  purchased  from  them  fur  parkas  and 
mukluks — soft  sealskin  boots  that  are  quite 
waterproof.  We  were  there  in  July  when  the 
temperatures  were  not  low,  usually  being  in  the 
forties  and  sometimes  in  the  thirties,  but  it  was 
quite  raw  and  we  found  this  equipment  to  serve 
our  purpose  very  well. 

Was  tlie  captaui  of  your  sliip  particularly  uiterested  in 
you  r  endeavor,  or  was  he  just  going  along  as  a  conmier- 
cial  interest? 

He  was  very  much  interested,  but  his  sole  func- 
tion was  to  be  responsible  for  the  crew  and  the 
ship's  operation.  He  had  had  very  little  experi- 
ence in  the  ice,  if  any,  and  when  we  were  there, 
our  ice  pilot,  Carl  Hansen,  was  in  charge. 

/  read  in  your  notes  that  your  rudder  broke,  and  1 
zvoiuier  what  your  reactions  were. 

Since  we  spent  quite  a  bit  of  time  cruising  in  the 
pack  ice,  we  were  often  bumping  into  or  pushing 
ice  cakes,  and  one  time  a  large  ice  cake  bumped 
our  stern  hard  and  broke  our  rudder  stock. 
We  were  then  right  in  the  ice  floes  north  of  the 
Alaskan  Coast  and  the  only  thing  we  could  do 
was  to  go  back  to  Nome  and  get  it  fixed.  So  the 
captain  rigged  what  is  called  a  jury  rudder  with 
two  or  three  men  on  either  side  of  the  boat  pul- 
ling on  a  rope  attached  to  the  rudder  so  that  we 
could  maintain  our  course  by  pulling  on  one  side 
or  the  other.  It  became  fairly  rough  on  the  way 
back  to  Nome  and  this  procedure  was  not  easy. 
Naturally  we  were  disappointed  about  this  mis- 
hap as  it  meant  we  would  lose  about  a  week 
making  repairs. 


The  Dorothy,  the  105- 
foot  halibut  schooner 
that  fenvd  as 
expedition  ship. 


Diiii/ou  do  the  actual  replacement? 

Yes.  At  Nome  we  obtained  a  new  rudder  stock, 
but  it  was  too  rough  to  install  it,  so  we  wirelessed 
the  Coast  Guard  cuUct  Northland  and  it  arrived 
the  next  day  and  towed  us  to  Teller,  where  a  bay 
protected  us  from  the  weather.  After  using  the 
Northland'f  lathe  to  reduce  the  diameter  of  the 
new  rudder  stock.  Toot  Graves  and  Carl  Hansen 
put  on  diver  suits  and  fastened  the  new  stock  to 
the  rudder,  and  then  we  went  back  up  into  the 
ice  again. 

How  many  were  in  the  creio? 

In  addition  to  our  taxidermist.  Toot  Graves,  and 
myself,  there  were  8  crew  members.  But  it  was 
a  short  crew  from  the  standpoint  of  watches, 
and  we  all  shared  in  some  of  these.  In  addition 
we  picked  the  two  Eskimos  up  at  the  Diomede 
Islands,  so  that  while  we  were  cruising  in  or 
near  the  ice  there  were  a  total  of  13  of  us. 

Who  would  spot  the  walrus? 

We'd  take  turns  up  in  the  crow's  nest.  When  we 
saw  a  walrus  group  in  the  distance,  that  looked 
like  a  little  black  spot,  we  would  cruise  toward  it 
and  then  go  into  the  ice  with  the  ship  and  get 
close  enough  to  see  whether  there  were  any  po- 
tential specimens  for  the  Museum  group.  We 
saw  many  groups  of  walrus  that  didn't  have  suit- 
able specimens.  We  were  after  a  very  large  bull; 
the  one  in  the  Museum  isn't  a  record,  but  it  is 
counted  among  the  record  heads.  And  we 
wanted  a  typical  big  cow,  and  a  typical  middle- 
sized  bull  and  cow  as  well  as  young  ones  so  that 
we  would  end  up  with  a  typical  family  group. 


and  at  the  same  time  have  outstanding  speci- 
mens. We  looked  over  many  walrus;  we  lost 
some;  we  were  mistaken  on  some;  and  some- 
times we  would  shoot  one  and  find  that  one  tusk 
would  be  partially  broken  off,  and  we'd  have  to 
discard  that  one,  but  fortunately  it  was  not  really 
wasted,  because  the  meat  would  go  to  the  Es- 
kimos. We  didn't  shoot  any  just  for  the  sake  of 
shooting.  We  were  always  looking  for  a  certain 
type.  We  searched  for  a  big  one  until  we  got  a  big 
one;  then  we  searched  for  a  smaller  one. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  kill  a  walrus  with  a 
high-powered  rifle.  But  you  do  have  to  be  accu- 
rate in  your  shooting.  They  have  a  very  small 
brain,  and  I'd  say  you  have  about  a  six-  or  seven- 
inch  diameter  circle  that  you  have  to  hit  them  in; 
otherwise  they  waddle  off  the  ice  cake  and  sink, 

{Continued  on  p.  26) 


BruceThorne,  ah^nui 
the  Dorothy  suitably 
attired  :ii  Lskimo  parka 
and  inukhiks.  2\ 


Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series 


March  and  April 

James  Simpson  Theatre 

Saturdays,  2:30  p.m. 


The  entrance  to  Simpson  Theatre  is  conveniently  located  inside  the 
west  entrance.  This  is  of  special  interest  to  the  handicapped,  for  the 
entrance  is  at  ground  level,  with  all  steps  eliminated.  The  west  en- 
trance also  provides  free  admission  to  the  theatre.  Access  to  other 
Museum  areas,  however,  requires  the  regular  admission  fee  (except 
on  Fridays)  or  membership  identification.  The  film/lectures  are  ap- 
proximately 90  minutes  long  and  recommended  for  adults.  Reserved 
seating  available,  until  2:25,  for  members.  Doors  open  at  1 :45  p.m. 

March  1 

"Holy  Lands"  by  Charles  Forbes  Taylor 

This  nonsectarian  film  takes  us  to  Damascus;  places  of  the  Patriarchs 
judges,  Kings,  and  Prophets;  the  route  of  Moses;  Bethlehem 
Shepherds'  cave;  Herod's  castle,  Galilee,  Jacob's  well,  Mt.  Zion, 
Jerusalem,  Pilate's  palace,  Calvary,  and  more. 


Land  and  Sea  Adventure:  Naples  piazza  (March  29) 
March  8 

"Exploring  Darwin's.  Islands"  by  Quentin  Keynes 

Keynes  first  shows  us  the  volcanic  scenery,  giant  tortoises,  and  other 
unique  Galapagos  life.  Then  we  step  ashore  on  Ascension,  and  carry 
on  to  St.  Helena,  where  Napoleon  was  exiled.  In  the  Falklands  we 
travel  by  hovercraft  and  see  the  remarkable  King  penguins  and 
elephant  seals. 

March  15 

"Norway"  by  Ed  Lark 

A  country  wedding,  Laplanders,  Europe's  largest  glacier,  the  in- 
comparable fjords,  the  midnight  sun  are  highlights  of  this  film. 

March  22 

"Portugal"  by  Frank  Nichols 

Portugal  today  is  a  blend  of  old  and  new.  The  old  can  be  seen  in 
fishing  villages  where  men  dress  in  traditional  plaids  and  women 
wear  seven-petticoated  dresses.  The  new  is  reflected  in  deluxe  resorts 
of  the  Algarve. 


March  29 


The  ever-winding  Rhine  (April  2b) 


"Land  and  Sea  Adventure:  by  Freighter 
to  the  Adriatic"  by  William  Sylvester 

Ports  of  call  Sylvester  takes  us  to  (aboard  a  freighter)  include  New 
Orleans,  Casablanca,  Genoa,  Portofino,  Naples,  Capri,  and  the 
Yugoslavian  Riviera.  Hawaiian  waterlall  (April  19 1 


April  5 

"Central  America"  by  Jonathan  Hagar 

Guatemala,  u'ith  ancient  Mayan  sites;  El  Salvador,  with  coconut  har- 
vesting; Honduras,  rich  in  mahogany  forests;  Panama,  transected  by 
the  busy  canal;  Nicaragua,  with  views  of  earthquake-ravaged  Man- 
agua; and  Costa  Rica,  with  its  rich  tablelands. 

April  12 

"Bavaria:  Land  of  the  Mountain  King" 
by  l-Howard  and  Lucia  Meyers 

We  see  the  Passion  Play  at  Oberammergau,  visit  the  home  of  Prince 
Constantine,  see  the  hamlet  of  Gergweis  (with  500  persons  and  5,000 
dachshunds),  and  we  are  dazzled  by  a  4,000-candle  spectacle  at  the 
Castle  of  Hcrrenchiemsee. 


Bavaria:  NeusLhwanbtein  Cdil'f  (A/jn/  12) 
April  19 

"The  Hawaiian  Adventure"  by  Doug  lones 

Film  highlights:  erupting  volcanoes,  waterfalls,  the  art  of  lei-making, 
the  old  leper  colony  on  Molokai,  Queen  Liliukolani's  palace,  the 
sugar  industry,  surfing, 

April  26 

"The  Majestic  Rhine"  by  John  Roberts 

From  its  source  high  in  the  Alps  to  its  North  Sea  mouth,  the  Rhme  is 
one  of  the  world's  busiest  and  most  colorful  waterways — a  vital  ar- 
tery of  Switzerland,  Germany,  France,  and  the  Netherlands.  23 


VOLUNTEERS  HONORED 


We  at  Field  Museum  wish  to  express  our  gratitude  to  260 
dedicated  people  who  committed  themselves  as  volunteers 
once  a  week  during  1979.  Their  total  contribution  of  39,791 
hours  represents  the  equivalency  of  21  staff  people  working 
full  time.  All  the  departments  in  the  Museum  benefited 
from  the  volunteers'  zeal  and  dedication.  Their  tasks  have 
been  varied  and  manv,  some  challenging,  others  routine, 
but  all  needed  and  appreciated  more  than  we  can  say- 

Their  responsibilities  included  cataloging  and  acces- 
sioning newly  acquired  specimens,  photographing  speci- 
mens, presenting  programs  to  school  groups  and  the  gen- 


eral public,  textile  preparation,  editing  and  typing,  plant 
care,  illustration,  collection  maintenance,  exhibit  research- 
ing, and  other  items  too  numerous  to  list.  To  honor  and  to 
thank  the  serious  commitment  of  the  1979  volunteers  a 
buffet  dinner  was  given  on  February  20,  1980  in  Stanley 
Field  Hall.  Field  Museum  president  E.  Leland  Webber  pre- 
sented gifts  to  the  16  volunteers  with  more  than  500  accumu- 
lated hours.  The  remaining  volunteers  with  100  or  more 
accumulated  hours  then  received  gifts  from  their  staff 
super\'isors.  The  e\^ening  ended  with  entertainment  pro- 
vided b\'  the  staff. — Vicki  Grigelaitis,  coordinator  of  Volunteer 
Program. 


SPECIAL  RECOGNITION 


Over  500  Hours 


Sol  Centurv  (810  hours):  Anthropology;  accessioning  and  catalog- 
ing, general  departmental  projects. 

Anne  Leonard  (713  hours):  Anthropology;  researching  for  "Pat- 
terns of  Paradise"  exhibit,  coauthoring  exhibit  catalog. 

David  Weiss  (660  hours);  Anthropology;  administrative  assistant, 
responsible  for  overseeing  loans,  handling  miscellaneous  corre- 
spondence, special  projects. 

James  Swartchild  (653  hours):  Anthropology;  photographing  new 
and  previously  acquired  specimens  for  cataloging. 

Gary  Ossewaarde  (615  hours):  Education,  Weekend  Discovery 
Program;  researching,  developing,  and  presenting  tours  in  an- 
thropologv  to  the  public. 

Carol  Landow  (610  hours):  Education,  Place  for  Wonder;  orientat- 
ing and  assisting  school  groups  and  the  public  in  Place  of  Wonder 

Caroh'n  Moore  (596  hours):  Anthropology;  researching,  catalog- 
ing, and  writing  labels  for  "Art  Lacquer  of  Japan"  exhibit,  special 
projects. 

Peter  Gayford  (555  hours):  Anthropologv;  editing  forthcoming 
book  on  Chinese  rubbings,  reconstructing  "Y"  cemeterv  at  Kish, 
Mesopotamia,  helping  with  maintenance  of  the  Chinese  rubbings 
collection. 

Carol  Kopeck  (555  hours):  Public  Relations;  developing  and  writ- 
ing press  releases  for  traveling  exhibits,  answering  public  in- 
quiries, researching  Quaker  Oats  project. 

Connie  Crane  (554  hours):  Anthropology;  researching  for  the 
Northwest  Coast  and  Eskimo  exhibit  (opening  1982),  editing  and 
checking  catalog  information. 

Burke  Smith,  Jr  (540  hours):  Zoolog)';  curating  walking  sticks 
collection,  processing  specimen  loan  requests. 

Margaret  Martling  (533  hours):  Botany;  consolidating  and  reor- 
ganizing Botany's  reprint  collections,  helping  with  photograph 
collection,  filing  negatives  and  filling  print  orders. 

Dorothea  McGivney  (529  hours):  Education;  orientating  and  assist- 
ing school  groups  and  the  public  in  the  Place  for  Wonder. 

Sol  Gurewitz  (523  hours):  Anthropology;  photographing 
specimens. 

Patricia  Talbot  (522  hours):  Geology;  assisting  with  preparation  of 
bibliographic  and  systematic  text,  and  photographic  illustrations 
for  book  on  Coal  Age  fossil  animals  in  northeastern  Illinois. 

William  Bentley  (500  hours):  Anthropology;  photographing 
24  specimens. 


Over  400  Hours 

James  Burd:  Anthropology;  accessioning  and  cataloging,  general 
departmental  projects. 

Louva  Calhoun:  Anthropology:  illustrating  and  assisting  with 
cataloging  of  7,000  specimens  of  stone  tools  and  other  artifacts 
from  Isimilia  Prehistoric  Site  in  Tanzania. 

Miva  E.  Diablo:  Education;  Compiling  Adult  Education's  statistical 
information:  zip  code  summaries,  registration  information;  assist- 
ing in  Building  Operations'  numbering  system. 

Loma  Gonzales:  Education,  Group  Programs;  presenting  school 
programs  on  Anthropology  and  Geology,  assisting  Summer 
Workshops. 

Sylvia  Schueppert:  Anthropology;  storage  preparation  of  Navajo 
rugs,  reorganizing  small  Chinese  textiles. 


Over  300  Hours 

Dennis  Bara:  Membership;  manning  weekend  membership  booth. 

Audrey  Faden:  Botany;  organizing  and  maintaining  greenhouse 
collection  of  research  plants,  assisting  with-  illustration,  proof- 
reading, and  typing. 

Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi:  Zoology,  Division  of  Invertebrates; 
Acting  Head  of  Division,  specimen  processing,  research  on 
Melanesian  land  snails. 

Viola  Laski:  Anthropology;  researching  bibliographic  material  and 
references  for  articles,  preparing  preliminary  work  for  exhibits. 

Withrow  Meeker:  Anthropology;  accessioning  and  cataloging,  tex- 
tile identification,  special  projects. 

John  O'Brien:  Education,  Harris  Extension;  assisting  in  prepara- 
tion of  school  loan  materials  and  resources. 

Elizabeth  Rada:  Botanv;  editing  and  typing  cryptogamic  papers, 
cataloging  and  filing  botanical  periodicals. 

Helen  Ruch:  Building  Operations;  care  of  living  plants  in  public 
areas  of  Museum,  repotting  and  soil  care. 

James  Skorcz:  Library;  assisting  in  filling  interlibrary  loan  re- 
quests, fiUng  cards  in  card  catalog,  compiling  annual  statistics, 
retrie\ing  books  for  Reading  Room  \'isitors. 

Llois  Stein:  Anthropology;  researching  and  cataloging  Oceanic 
and  African  collections. 


Julie  Ahem 
Bruce  Ahlborn 
Victor  Algmin 
Mar\-  Allan 
Carrie  Anderson 
Cleo  Anderson 
Dolores  Arbanas 
Judv  Armstrong 
Beverly  Baker 
Dennis  Bara 
Gwen  Barnett 
Marv  Barrett 
Sanda  Bauer 
Dodie  Baumgarten 
John  Ba\alis 
Curtis  Bean 
Virginia  Beatty 
Marvin  Benjamin 
Frances  Bentley 
Phoebe  Bentley 
William  Bentley 
Patricia  Bercher 
Ruth  Blazina 
Ri\a  Blechman 
Sharon  Boemmel 
Dons  Bohl 
Marjorie  Bohn 
Idessie  Bowens 
Hermann  Bowersox 
Susan  Boynton 
Carol  Briscoe 
Louise  Brown 
Jcihn  Clay  Bruner 
Carol  Brunk-Hamish 
Sophie  Brunner 
John  Brzuskiewich 
Rose  Buchanan 
Gwen  Buckun 
Teddv  Buddington 
James  Burd 
Ann  Butterfield 
Louva  Calhoun 
Jean  Carton 
Cathe  Casperson 
Gilda  Castro 
Sol  Century 
June  Chomsky 
Jane  Collins 
Mary  Ann  Cramer 
Connie  Crane 
Velta  Cukers 
Eleanor  DeKoven 


Sara  Delahant\- 
Carol  Deutsch 
Anne  DeVere 
Mi\a  Esperanza  Diablo 
Marianne  Diekman 
Jennifer  Dillon 
Delores  Dobberstein 
Margaret  Dreessen 
Alison  Duff 
Stanle\'  Dvorak 
Bettie  Dwinell 
Milada  Dvbas 
Alice  Eckie\' 
Anne  Ekman 
Nancy  Evans 
Audrey  Faden 
Martha  Farwell 
Vaughn  Fitzgerald 
Gerry  Fogarty 
Gerda  Frank 
Arden  Frederick 
Nancy  Frederick 
Peter  Gayford 
Patricia  Georgouses 
Nancy  Gerson 
Jim  Gibbons 
Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi 
Lorna  Gonzales 
Steven  Gonzales 
Helen  Gornstein 
Evelyn  Gottlieb 
Carol  Graczyk 
Frank  Green,  Jr. 
Loretta  Green 
Cecily  Gregory 
Paul  Gritis 
Kathy  Gunnell 
Sol  Gurevvitz 
Bernadette  Guzzy 
Sylvia  Haag 
Dorothy  Haber 
Charles  Hadala 
Michael  Hall 
Elizabeth  Hamilton 
Marjorie  Hammerstrom 
John  Harding 
Shirley  Hattis 
Richard  Heaps 
Carol  Hill 
Audrey  Hiller 
Vicki  Hlavacek 
April  Hohol 


Claxton  Howard 
Ruth  Howard 
Adrienne  Hurwitz 
Diane  Hutchinson 
Lucinda  Hutchison 
Ellen  Hyndman 
Penny  Jacobs 
Judith  Johnson 
Mabel  Johnson 
Malcolm  Jones 
Julia  Jordan 
Carole  Kamber 
Doroth\'  Karall 
Dorothy  Kathan 
Ruth  Keller-Petitti 
Shirley  Kennedy 
Marjorie  King 
Judy  Kirby 
Carol  Kopeck 
Judy  Kurtz 
John  Kusmirek 
Anita  Landess 
Carol  Landow 
Viola  Laski 
Katharine  Lee 
June  LeFor 
Marion  Lehuta 
Steve  LeMay 
Anne  Leonard 
Virginia  Leslie 
EUzabeth  Linden 
Margaret  Litten 
Elizabeth  Lizzio 
Edna  MacQuilkin 
Jean  Malamud 
Kay-Karol  Mapp 
Gabby  Margo 
Gretchen  Martin 
Margaret  Martling 
Joyce  Matuszewich 
Joan  Maynard 
Melba  Mayo 
Mark  McCollam 
Patsy  McCoy 
Dorothea  McGivney 
Ann  Meeker 
Withrow  Meeker 
Sister  Giles  Mehren 
Beverly  Meyer 
Laura  Michalik 
Judi  Minter 
Carolyn  Moore 


Patricia  Morin 
Dorothy  Morrison 
Debra  Moskovits 
LeMoyne  Mueller 
Anne  Murphy 
Charlita  Nachtrab 
Mary  Naunton 
Isobel  Neal 
David  Neisser 
John  Ben  Nelson 
Mary  Nelson 
Norman  Nelson 
Louise  Neuert 
Ernest  Newton 
Herta  Newton 
Suzanne  Niven 
Bernice  Nordenberg 
lla  Nuccio 
Janis  O'Boye 
John  O'Brien 
Joan  Opila 
Gary  Ossevvaarde 
Anita  Padnos 
Raymond  Parker 
Peter  Paterson 
Delores  Patton 
Frank  Paulo 
Christine  Pavel 
Mary  Ann  Peruchini 
Barbara  Preston 
Sue  Prybylowski 
Elizabeth  Rada 
Karlene  Ramsdell 
Lori  Recchia 
Sheila  Reynolds 
Elly  Ripp' 
Addie  Roach 
William  Roder 
Barbara  Roob 
Robert  Rosberg 
Sarah  Rosenbloom 
Marie  Rosenthal 
Anne  Ross 
Helen  Ruch 
Lenore  Ruehr 
Faye  Ryan 
Mary  Kay  Sabino 
Linda  Sandberg 
Theresa  Schaefer 
Tim  Schalk 
Everett  Schellpfeffer 
Marianne  Schenker 


Marc  Schlossman 
Alice  Schneider 
Jackie  Schneider 
Sylvia  Schueppert 
Carole  Schumacher 
Beverly  Scott 
Cynthia  Segal 
Jean  Sellar 
Ann  Shanower 
Albert  Shatzel 
Louise  Sherman 
Jessie  Sherrod 
Judy  Sherry 
Thomas  Silvestri 
Abe  Simon 
James  Skorcz 
Eleanor  Skydell 
Burke  Smith,  Jr. 
Beth  Spencer 
Irene  Spenslcy 
Steve  Sroka 
Monica  Steckin rider 
Llois  Stein 
Lorain  Stephens 
Susan  Streich 
Frances  Stromc]uist 
Cheri  Sukowski 
Marjorie  Sutton 
Beatrice  Swartchild 
James  Swartchild 
Dean  Swedlund 
Melvia  Sykes 
Patricia  Talbot 
JaneThain 
Gerda  Thompson 
Clare  Tomaschoff 
Dana  Treister 
Nora  Tweetie 
Karen  Urnezis 
Lillian  Vanek 
Barbara  Vear 
Harold  Voris 
Harold  Waterman 
David  Weiss 
Peyton  Wells 
Penny  Wheeler 
Ron  Winslow 
Marilyn  Wodka 
Reeva  Wolfson 
Lynn  Zeger 
Joseph  Zeller 
Faith  Zieske 


Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi: 
Evolution  of  a  Malacologist 

The  dirt-encrusted  vials  and  shells  shown 
here  are  from  a  collection  of  moUusks  that 
for  many  years  had  been  stored  in  open 
trays  next  to  a  soft-coal-burning  furnace  in 
Lawrenceburg,  Indiana.  They  presented 
a  major  curatorial  problem  to  Field 
Museum,  since  nearly  6,000  such  trays  of 
specimens  required  cleaning  and  rehous- 
ing. For  Members'  Night,  1964,  a  tray,  dis- 
played together  with  a  scribbled  sign, 
"shell- washer  wanter,"  elicited  numerous 
comments,  plus  one  offer  of  volunteer 
help.  In  May,  1964,  Mrs.  Joseph  B.  Girardi 
spent  12  hours  "rehousing  specimens." 

From  this  simple  beginning  to  1979, 
when  Dr.  Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi  acted 


r 


i 


26 


as  head,  Di\  ision  of  Invertebrates,  during 
my  absence  on  field  work  in  Australia  and 
New  Zealand,  there  were  changing  goals, 
graduate  study  at  Northwestern  Univer- 
sity, field  trips  to  several  parts  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  and  an  increasing  commit- 
ment to  both  research  and  teaching. 

In  Girardi's  early  years  as  a  volunteer, 
many  hours  were  spent  in  work  on  collec- 
tion routine  and  assisting  with  phases  of 
research.  In  1966,  she  asked  if  I  would 
write  a  letter  of  recommendation  for  her 
entry  into  a  master's  program  at  North- 
western University.  By  this  time,  aware  of 
her  abilihes,  I  stated  to  the  program  head 
"Mrs.  Girardi  thinks  she  will  get  only  a 
master's  degree.  She's  wrong.  She  will  go 
on  for  a  Ph.D."  Time  proved  the  correct- 
ness of  my  forecast,  and  in  August,  1973, 
her  Ph.D.  in  biological  sciences  was 
awarded  by  Northwestern  University. 
Her  thesis  reviewed  a  genus  of  land  snails 
in  the  Museum's  collection  from  Western 
Samoa.  Subsequently,  additional  speci- 
mens were  obtained  from  American 
Samoa.  The  study  was  thus  expanded  and 
revised  to  be  published  in  January,  1978, 
as  "The  Samoan  Land  Snail  CenusOstodcs 
(Mollusca:  Prosobranchia:  Poteriidae)," 


The  Vcligcr.  vol.  20(3):  191-250,  2  plates,  36 
text-figures. 

In  recognition  of  her  professional  ac- 
complishments and  many  contributions  to 
the  Division  of  Invertebrates,  in  August, 
1977,  Dr.  Girardi  was  appointed  research 
associate.  Division  of  Invertebrates. 
Among  her  efforts  have  been  untold 
hours  of  work  on  curation  of  specimens, 
functioning  as  acting  head  of  division  for  a 
period  in  1979,  instigator  and  composer  of 
several  moUusk  oriented  lyrics  to  tra- 
ditional tunes,  use  of  divisional  resources 
in  teaching  at  the  "Center  for  Self- 
Directed  Learning,"  New  Trier  Township 
High  School  East,  numerous  lectures  to 
high  school  and  college  classes  and  atten- 
dance at  a  number  of  national  and  interna- 
tional meetings. 

Dr.  Girardi's  research  on  various  snail 
groups  continues,  while  her  quiet  advice 
and  unobtrusive  help  remain  an  invalu- 
able resource  to  our  activities.  It  is  with 
more  than  great  pleasure  that  we  give  pub- 
lic recognihon  to  one  who  has  so  quietly 
and  effectively  contributed  to  the  activities 
of  the  Divison  of  Invertebrates  for  almost 
16  years. — Alan  Solcm,  curator  of  inverte- 
brates, Department  of  Zoology. 


26 


Con 't  from  p.  21 

and  they're  gone.  We  lost  a  few,  but  not  too 
many.  We  were  usually  on  a  different  ice  cake 
than  the  one  the  group  was  on  and  if  there  was  a 
little  swell,  our  ice  cake  was  going  up  and  theirs 
was  going  down,  so  we  had  to  be  pretty  careful  in 
order  to  hit  that  small  target.  But  it's  not  difficult 
shooting.  It's  just  a  question  of  selection. 

After  the  trip  was  over,  did  you  find  that  liaviii^  gone 
on  such  an  enormous  trip,  you  fou)ui  that  it  influenced 
you  in  ways  thatyou  hadn't  expected,  orplayedapmrt 
in  your  life  aftenoard? 

It  did  influence  me  a  great  deal. 

In  what  way? 

It's  hard  to  say,  but  the  experience  that  I  obtained 
in  helping  to  organize  and  carry  out  the  expedi- 
tion successfully  gave  me  self-confidence  and  a 
feeling  of  gratification  for  having  made  a  lasting 
contribution  to  the  Field  Museum. 

There's  a  saying  that  "nothing  succeeds  like  success." 
And  I  think  that  particularly  at  a  very  formative  age, 
when  one  is  stepping  over  in  to  being  completely  grown 
up,  to  have  successful  experiences  is  very  telling. 

I  have  always  said  that  it's  one  of  the  best  invest- 
ments I've  ever  made,  not  from  the  standpoint  of 
monetary  reward,  but  for  the  reward  of  doing 
something  that  I  wanted  to  do  and  having  it  work 
out  the  way  I  planned  it.  D 


Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi 


]"% 


Ice  pilot  and  navigator  Carl  Hansen  in  Dorothy's  pilot 
house 


March  and  April  at  Field  Museum 

(March  15  through  April   15) 


New  Exhibit 

"Patterns  of  Paradise."  This  major  exhibit  of  dramatic  and  rare  bark 
cloth,  or  tapa,  illustrates  the  people  and  history  of  exotic  tropical 
islands.  See  how  Pacific  peoples  took  the  ancient  task  of  making  cloth 
out  of  tree  bark  and  elaborated  it  into  an  art  form  of  distinctive  and 
remarkable  styles.  The  Exhibit  also  includes  wood  carvings,  masks, 
costume  accessories,  and  tools.  Most  of  the  200  artifacts  are  from  Field 
Museum's  world-famous  oceanic  collections.  Conceived  and  created 
by  the  Museum's  own  staff.  Exhibit  curator:  John  Terrell;  designer: 
Donald  Skinner.  Through  June  8,  Hall  26,  2nd  floor. 

Continuing  Exhibits 

Birds.  Examine  the  varied  woHd  of  birds  from  the  Antarctic  emperor 
penguin  to  the  common  sparrows  of  America.  Three  scenes  show 
Chicago-area  birds.  Specimens  of  recently  extinct  birds  such  as  the 
passenger  pigeon  and  the  great  auk  are  also  on  view.  Halls  20  and  21, 
1st  floor. 

"The  Place  for  Wonder."  Touch,  handle,  sort,  and  compare  natural 
history  specimens  in  this  gallery.  Carefully  trained  Museum  volunteers 
help  guide  exploration.  Open  weekdays  1  to  3  p.m.;  weekends  10  a.m. 
to  noon  and  1  to  3  p.m.  Ground  floor,  near  cafeteria. 

"Hall  of  Useful  Plants."  Survey  the  plants  and  plant  products  that  have 
contributed  to  the  well-being  of  people  around  the  worid.  The  hand- 
made plant  models  are  famous  for  their  beauty  and  craftsmanship  as 
well  as  their  scientific  accuracy  Miniature  dioramas  depict  a  tea  planta- 
tion in  Sri  Lanka  and  a  coffee  plantation  in  Brazil.  Hall  28,  2nd  floor. 

New  Programs 

"The  Royal  Dancers  and  Musicians  from  the  Kingdom  of  Bhutan." 
Experience  the  magic  of  this  Himalayan  troupe  making  their  premiere 
tour  of  the  United  States.  Thirteen  ornately  costumed  performers — 
experts  in  lively  music,  dancing,  and  comic  pantomime — act  out 
stories  from  Buddhist  legend  and  ancient  folklore.  Sponsored  by  the 
Asia  Society's  Performing  Arts  Program.  Tickets  (Members,  S5.0O; 
nonmembers,  57.00)  may  be  purchased  at  the  West  Door  before  the 
performance.  Friday  March  21,  8  p.m.  in  Simpson  Theatre.  A  special 
lecture/demonstration  on  Bhutanese  dance-drama  is  offered  by  the 
performers  at  4  p.m.  on  the  same  day  in  Lecture  Hall  I.  Tickets  for  this 
event  are  also  available  at  the  West  Door  (Members,  $2.00;  nonmem- 
bers S3.50). 

"Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lectures."  These  colorful  programs  are  held 
each  Saturday  during  March  and  April  at  2:30  p.m.  in  SimpsonTheatre. 
Narrated  by  the  filmmakers  themselves,  the  programs  are  recom- 
mended for  adults.  Admission  is  free  at  the  Museum's  West  Door. 
Reserved  seating  is  available  for  Members  until  2:25  p.m.  For  program 
details  see  pages  22-23. 

Spring  Journey:  "Pacific  Isles:  A  Voyage  to  the  South  Seas."  Learn 
about  the  cultures  of  Mcronesia,  Polynesia,  and  Melanesia  through  this 
self-guided  tour.  Free  Journey  pamphlets  available  at  Museum 
entrances. 


Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Free  guided  tours,  demonstrations, 
and  films.  Check  "Weekend  Sheet"  available  at  North  Information 
Booth  for  additional  programs  and  locations. 

•  "Northwest  Coast  Indian  Costume."  Find  out  how  native  and  im- 
ported materials  were  used  in  Northwest  Coast  clothing  to  display 
wealth  and  social  status  in  this  45-minute  slide  presentation  Sunday 
March  16,  2:30  p.m. 

•  "Endangered  Animals."  Focus  on  animals  in  danger  of  extinction  in 
this  half-hour  tour.  Saturday  March  22,  12  noon. 

•  "The  Vanishing  People."  This  30-minute  slide  presentation  of  E.  S. 
Curtis's  famous  photographs  reveals  eariy  20th-century  North  Ameri- 
can Indian  life.  Sunday  March  23,  1:30  p.m. 

•  "in  the  Land  of  the  War  Canoes."  E.  S.  Curtis's  classic  1914  film 
drama  recaptures  the  life  and  spirit  of  British  Columbia's  KwakiutI 
Indians.  Sunday  March  23,  2:30  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  Explore  the  underwater  world  of 
ancient  invertebrate  animals  in  this  45-minute  tour.  Saturday  March 
29,1:30  p.m. 

•  ""Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt."  This  45-minute  tour  ex- 
amines the  Museum's  collection  of  ancient  Egyptian  artifacts  and 
concludes  with  a  movie.  Sunday  March  30, 1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt. "  Ancient  traditions  are  examined  in  this  45-minute 
tour.  Saturday  April  5, 1 1:30  a.m. 

•  "Death  of  a  Legend."  This  50-minute  film  looks  at  wolves  and  the 
mistreatment  they  have  received  from  men.  Saturday  April  5,  I  p.m. 

•  ""The  Ancient  Etruscans."  Explore  the  everyday  life  and  religion  of 
the  Etruscans  in  this  35-minute  tour  Sunday  April  6, 1  p.m. 

•  "American  Indian  Dress."  Investigate  the  construction,  craft  style, 
and  symbolism  of  Indian  dress  of  North  America.  Saturday  April  12, 
11:30  a.m. 

•  "Endangered  Animals. "  Saturday  April  12, 12  noon. 

•  "Bighorn. "  This  26-minute  film  studies  an  endangered  species,  the 
bighorn  sheep.  Saturday  April  12,  1  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals"  Bones  and 
Teeth. "  This  45-minute  tour  looks  at  some  changes  in  teeth  and  bones 
that  characterize  the  great  variation  in  today's  mammals.  Saturday 
April  12, 1:30  p.m. 

•  "Prehistoric  People  in  the  Lower  Illinois  Valley."  This  half-hour  tour 
and  demonstration  shows  how  these  people  adapted  to  their  environ- 
ment through  the  use  of  tools.  Sunday  April  13, 1  p.m. 

(Continued  on  back  cover) 


T-^ 


27 


ILLINOIS  NATURAL  HISTORY 
SURVEY  LIP  RN  196 
NATURAL  RESOURCES  BUILDING 
URBANA  ILL  61801 


^^1 


March  &  April  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cover) 
Continuing  Programs 


"The  Ancient  Art  of  Weaving."  Learn  about  age-old  weaving  tech- 
niques and  textile  development  during  these  free  demonstrations. 
Monday.  Wednesday,  and  Friday  from  10:00  a.m.  to  noon.  South 
Lounge,  2nd  floor 

Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  here  is  to 
determine  which  one  of  a  pair  of  apparently  similar  specimens  is 
harmful  and  which  is  not  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire  bat 
a  headhunter's  axe,  a  poisonous  mineral,  or  a  deadly  mushroom  from 
its  benign  look-alike.  Ground  floor,  no  closing  date. 

On  Your  Own  at  Field  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets,  adult-  and 
family  oriented,  are  available  for  25'  each  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 


Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  scientific  interests  and  back- 
grounds are  needed  to  work  in  the  various  departments.  For  more 
information  call  Volunteer  Coordinator.  922-9410,  ext  360. 

March  and  April  Hours.  The  Museum  is  open  every  day,  9  a.m.  to  f 
p.m.,  except  Fridays.  On  Fridays  the  Museum  is  open  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m 
throughout  the  year. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Closed  Qooc 
Friday,  April  4.  Obtain  a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor. 


Museum  telephone:  (312)  922-9410 


^.jX.^'i'^K. 


^^^ 


A  Young  Woman  of  Otaheite,  engraving  after  a  sketch  by  John  Webber 
The  tapa  cloth  wrapped  about  her  body  was  presented  as  a  gift  to 
CapL  James  Cook.  Pacific  explorer  For  more  on  tapa  cloth  exhibit. 
"Patterns  of  Paradise."  see  page  4. 


FIELD  MGSEaM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BOLLETIN 


1 

1 

H 

■>^3^.'.A^ 

D 

W 

■^ 

_~  1 

./ 


Gold  of  El  Dorado 

The  Heritage  of  Colombia 


AprU25^uly6 

Members '  Preview  April  24 


Field  Museum 

of  Natural  History 

Bulletin 

April  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  4 


Editor 'Designer:  David  M.  Walsfen 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

Presidetit  and  Director:  E.  Leland  Webber 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chairman 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr. 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  I! 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L,  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.  Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Mrs.  Edward  F.  Swift 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly, 
except  combined  July/August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
Roosevelt  Road  at  Ljke  Shore  Drive.  Chicago,  11  60605.  Subscriptions:  $6.00 
annually,  $3.00  for  schools.  Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription. 
Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are  their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the 
policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manuscripts  are  welcome.  Museum  phone: 
(3121  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579  to  Field  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II.  60605  ISSN: 
0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II 


CONTENTS 
3  Field  Briefs 

Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 


4 
6 

10 

14 
16 

27 


Gold  of  El  Dorado: 

The  Heritage  of  Colombia 

Exhibit  opens  April  25 

The  Kente  Cloth  of  Ghana 

/n/  Karen  Chesna  McNeil,  technical  assistant  in 
anthropiologi/ 

Our  Environment 

Fieldiana  1978  and  1979  Titles 

April  and  May  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


COVER 

Tolinia  pectoral,  or  chest  ornament.  Made  of  cast  and  hammered 
gold.  Height  19.7cm  (7-314  in .} .  From Museo del Oro.  Oneofmore 
than  500  pieces  of  ancient  goldivork  to  he  seen  in  the  exhibit  "Gold 
of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia,"  opening  April  25  and 
closing  July  6.  See  p.  7.  Photo  by  Lee  Boltin,  courtesy  American 
Museum  of  Natural  Histon/. 

The  national  tour  of  "Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of 
Colombia"  is  spwnsored  by  Chemical  Bank,  with  additional  sup- 
port from  the  National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities  and  the 
National  Endowment  for  the  Arts,  and  has  been  organized  by  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History. 


Gold  of  El  Dorado 
Group  Tours 

Special  tours  of  the  major  forthcoming  exhibit  "Gold  of 
El  Dorado,"  opening  April  25  and  closing  July  6,  may 
nozv  be  arranged  for  groups  as  small  as  30  persons. 
During  public  hours,  daily  except  Friday,  special 
groups  of  30  to  100  persons  can  be  accommodated.  On 
Tuesday  and  Thursday  evenings  (after  the  Museum  is 
closed  to  the  general  public)  groups  of  50  or  more  can  be 
accommodated. 

Supplemental  lectures  by  Museum  staff  for 
such  groups,  as  well  as  private  dining  arrangements, 
are  also  available.  For  rates  and  other  information  call 
Caryn  Friedman,  at  786-9570. 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


NSF  Grant  for  Mazon  Creek  Study 

The  National  Science  Foundation  has 
awarded  a  $50,000  grant  to  Field  Museum 
to  study  the  fossil-rich  area  around  Mazon 
Creek  and  the  abandoned  Braidwood- 
Coal  City  strip  mines  about  60  miles 
southwest  of  Chicago.  Gordon  C.  Baird, 
assistant  curator  of  fossil  invertebrates 
and  Eugene  Richardson,  curator  of  fossil 
invertebrates,  will  direct  the  study-  A  team 
of  scientists,  volunteers,  and  amateur  col- 
lectors will  work  together  to  take  a  fossil 
census,  and  to  tr\'  to  reconstruct  the  an- 
cient ecology  of  this  area  which  about  300 
million  years  ago  included  fresh  and  salt 
water  habitats  around  a  delta  which  bor- 
dered a  large  inland  sea. 

"We'll  tr\'  to  reconstruct  the  particular 
events  which  took  place  in  this  'Coal  Age 
Pompeii'  that  left  so  many  well  preserved 
and  finely  detailed  plants  and  animals," 
said  Baird.  "It  is  one  of  the  most  important 
invertebrate  fossil  sites  in  the  world  be- 
cause man)'  unusual  soft-bodied  animals 
are  found  here.  These  fossils  are  superbly 
preser\'ed  because  the  animals  and  plants 
were  buried  rapidly  during  floods  and  be- 
cause hard  nodules  formed  around  the 
fossils  immediately  after  burial.  These 
nodules  preserved  such  details  as  patterns 
of  color  and  larval  egg  sacs. 

"Although  the  Mazon  Creek  area  has 
been  studied  for  over  100  years,  there  is  an 
urgent  need  to  complete  the  work  before  a 
nuclear  power  plant  and  residential  proj- 
ects planned  for  some  sites  destroy  their 
usefulness,"  Baird  continued.  "More  than 
500  plants  and  animals,  many  bizarre  and 
problematic,  have  been  discovered  in  the 
area,  and  I  believe  many  more  are  present 
in  unexplored  areas  and  in  some  extensive 
private  collections. 

"The  statistical  census  will  be  done  by 
trained  scientists,  but  we  also  want  to  ex- 
amine private  collections  of  amateur  col- 
lectors for  the  rarer  forms  of  fossils,  as  well 
as  for  undiscovered  species.  For  instance, 
an  insect  is  found  only  once  in  every  two 
to  three  thousand  fossils,  and  an  amphi- 
bian once  ever\'  100,000  fossils.  Therefore, 
these  rare  forms  can  be  seen  more  often  in 
large  amateur  collections  than  in  random 
samples.  We  can  also  get  a  better  idea  of 
the  relationships  of  the  land  and  water 
plants  and  animals  through  examining 
nodules  containing  two  or  more  species. 
These  are  much  valued  in  private  collec- 
tions." 

Mazon  Creek  fossil  collecting  is  cur- 
rently centered  at  Pit  11  of  the  Peabody 
Coal  Company  strip  mine  west  of  Essex, 
Illinois.  Amateur  collectors  as  well  as 
paleontologists  are  allowed  to  collect  at 


this  site  through  the  joint  cooperation  of 
Field  Museum  and  Commonwealth  Edi- 
son UtilitN'  Company,  which  now  owns 
the  property.  However,  half  of  this  site  is 
scheduled  to  be  flooded  because  of  the 
construction  of  a  cooling  pond  for  a  nu- 
clear power  plant. 

Most  fossils  are  found  inside  round  or 
oblong  ironstone  nodules  along  the  banks 
of  Mazon  Creek  or  in  the  dump  heaps  of 
the  strip  mine  areas  southwest  of  Joliet  on 
highway  1-55.  The  nodules  can  usually  be 
opened  by  hammering;  this  pounding  will 
often  cause  the  nodule  to  break  along  the 
plane  of  the  fossil. 


MEMBERS'  PREVIEW 

of 

"Gold  of  El  Dorado: 

The  Heritage  of  Colombia" 

Thursday,  April  24,  1:00  to  9:00  p.m. 
Hall  27 

Refreshments  to  be  served 


NSF  Summer  Anthropology  Course 

For  the  fifteenth  consecutive  year.  Field 
Museum  offers  its  six-week  NSF  Summer 
Anthropology  Course  for  high-ability 
high  school  students.  Objectives  of  the 
course,  which  is  free,  are  to  provide  a 
sound  foundation  in  the  various  funda- 
mentals of  anthropology,  to  bring  stu- 
dents into  contact  with  scientists  promi- 
nent in  these  fields,  to  enable  students 
to  gain  experience  in  both  group  and  in- 
dividual research,  and  to  assist  students 
in  tesHng  a  career  interest. 

The  popular  course,  under  the  direc- 
torship of  Harriet  Smith,  is  scheduled 
June  23  through  August  1,  weekdays.  The 
fifth  week  will  be  spent  at  an  archeological 
dig.  The  course  is  made  possible  by  a  grant 
from  the  National  Science  Foundation. 

Faculty  members  for  the  1980  session 
include  Phillip  Lewis,  cochairman  of  the 
Department  of  Anthropology,  Field 
Museum;  Rtmald  Weber,  visiting  assistant 
curator  for  the  Northwest  Coast  area, 
Department  of  Anthropology,  Field 
Museum;  Ronald  Singer,  physical  an- 
thropologist. Department  of  Anatomy, 
University  of  Chicago;  Stuart  Struever,  ar- 
cheologist.  Department  of  Anthropology, 


Northwestern  University;  John  Aubrey, 
Ayer  Documentary  Collection,  Newberry 
Library;  Peter  Knauss,  political  scientist. 
University  of  Illinois  at  Chicago  Circle;  M. 
Kenneth  Starr,  director  of  the  Milwaukee 
Public  Museum;  Joseph  Berland,  cultural 
anthropologist.  Northwestern  University; 
William  Adelman,  Labor  Relations  Pro- 
gram, University  of  Illinois  at  Chicago  Cir- 
cle; David  Keene,  doctoral  candidate. 
University  of  Wisconsin;  and  Edward 
Lace,  naturalist-historian.  Cook  County 
Forest  Preserves. 

Applications  for  the  course — which 
must  be  submitted  by  April  14 — ma\-  be 
obtained  by  writing  or  calling  Field 
Museum's  Department  of  Education 
(922-9410,  ext.  246).  Additional  informa- 
tion may  be  obtained  by  writing  Harriet 
Smith,  Department  of  Education,  Field 
Museum,  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake  Shore  Dr., 
Chicago,  111.  60605. 


Trustees  Elect  New  Officers 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Field 
Museum  Board  of  Trustees,  held  January 
21,  the  following  officers  were  elected  or 
reelected: 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr.,  chairman 
of  the  board,  and  John  W.  Sullivan,  vice 
chairman  of  the  Facilities  Planning  Com- 
mittee, were  reelected  for  two-year  terms. 

Robert  O.  Bass,  vice  chairman  of  the 
Resource  Planning  and  De\'elopment 
Committee;  Blaine  J.  Yarrington,  treasurer 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees;  and  George  R. 
Baker,  vice  chairman  of  the  Internal  Af- 
fairs Committee,  were  elected  for  two- 
year  terms. 

Reelected  for  five-year  terms  as  trus- 
tees were  Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr.,  James  J. 
O'Connor,  James  H.  Ransom,  William  L. 
Searle,  John  W.  Sullivan,  Mrs.  Theodore 
D.  Tieken,  and  Blaine  J.  Yarrington. 


.^.^- 


FIELD  MUSEUM  TOURS 

1980  rourPackoges  Exclusively  for  Members 

;/V*-^^  ^v  ^:>  ■> ; 


I 


/ 


(:ivi)cscsclifH^lc!Ml(tici)sii)ijii)l\'hin(is  1  icii  AnMcnScntaic.    Plyno  ImStdnum  R.  (.:<n)k.  courfcsiy  Chicago  Tribiint- 


People's  Republic  of  China 
May  lO  31 

The  sinfiuiar  experience  of  a  trip  to  the  People's  Re- 
public of  China  can  be  \ours!  For  its  members.  Field 
Museum  a^ain  offers  an  opportunit\'  to  visit  China's 
major  attractions.  The  tour  leader  will  be  Susan  Mann 
Jones,  assistant  professor  of  Chinese  civilization,  of 
the  University  of  Chicago.  The  group,  limited  to  25 
persons,  vsill  leave  Chicago  May  10  and  return  Ma\'  31. 

After o\ernight  in  Vancouver  and  a  visit  in  To- 
kyo,you  will  continue  to  Peking,  China's  centuries-old 
capital.  Relics  of  the  imperial  past,  now  national 
monuments,  include  the  magnificent  imperial  palace, 
museums,  temples  and  shrines,  and  the  vast  park-like 
Summer  Palace  on  the  shores  of  nearbx'  Kunming 
Lake.  A  trip  will  be  made  to  the  Great  Wall.  The  next 
destination.  Nanking,  situated  on  the  Yangtse  River,  is 
a  source  of  pride  for  the  People's  Republic  as  a  center 
of  modern  development  as  well  as  for  its  scenic  and 
historic  attractions.  Of  special  interest  is  the  visit  to  the 
charming  city  of  Kweilin.  The  awesome  surrounding 
landscape  of  jutting  peaks  and  rocky  caves  brings 
scenes  of  Chinese  painting  to  life.  Kwangchow  (Can- 
ton) is  China's  most  important  .southern  city,  reflecting 
e\ents  in  the  histor\'  of  the  republic  as  well  as  former 
times  when  it  was  Chinas  only  port  open  to  foreign 
trade. 

Cost  of  the  tour  is  54.295  (which  includes  a  $500 
donation  to  Field  Museum).  Advance  deposit:  $500 
per  person.  For  additional  information  on  this  exciting 
tour,  contact  the  Tours  Office  and  ask  for  the  China 
4  brochure. 


Illinois  Archeology  Field  Trip 
July  6  11 

For  man\'  of  us,  the  word  "archeologv"  conjures  up 
\isions  of  great  architecture  in  distant  places:  Egypt's 
Pyramids  and  Sphinx.  Cambodia's  Angkor  Wat, 
and  Mexico's  Pyramids  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  at 
Teotihuacan.  These  sites,  with  their  relics,  are  limit- 
lessly  fascinating. 

But  right  here  in  Illinois  we  also  have  exciting  ar- 
cheological  sites,  including  the  largest  aboriginal 
structure  north  of  Mexico — Monk's  Mound  at  Cahokia. 
One  of  the  most  broadly  based  archeological  re- 
search centers  in  the  countrv'  is  the  Foundation  for 
Illinois  ArcheologN",  at  Kampsville;  and  one  of  the 
largest  covered  excavations  with  the  longest  continu- 
ing research  programs  is  at  Dickson  Mounds,  near 
Lewistown. 

For  the  second  consecutive  xear  Field  Museum 
is  offering  an  archeological  field  trip  which  will  visit 
Dickson  Mounds,  Kamps\'ille,  and  Cahokia  Mounds. 
Limited  to  30  participants,  the  trip  includes  site  visits, 
lecture  and  slide  presentations,  workshops  and  dis- 
cussions led  by  staff  archeologists  working  at  the  re- 
spective sites.  The  field  trip  director  is  Roben  Picker- 
ing, a  doctoral  candidate  at  Northwestern  University. 


For  additional  information  and  rcsen^ations 
for  all  lours,  call  or  write  Dorotliij  Rodcr  Field 
Museum  Tours.  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake  Shore 
Dr.  Chicago.  III.  60605.  Phone (312)922-9410. 


ife 


^.^^ 


Sanunini.  nidkint  in  the  Mediterranean  sun.  is  one  o/  many 
island  sites  to  he  I'isited  hy  mernl)ers  of  Field  Museum's 
Septemher  ti  nir  to  Greeee. 

The  Classical  Lands: 

Greece  and  the  Grecian  Isles 

September  7  26 

Under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Donald  Whitcomb,  Field 
Museum  assistant  curator  of  Near  Eastern  archeology 
aiid  ethnology,  this  tourwil  visit  Athens,  the  sites  of 
ancient  Corinth  and  Mycenae,  Delphi.  Olympia.  Knos- 
sos,  Santorini,  ttie  island  of  Rhodes,  Miletus,  Skiros. 
Piraeus,  and  numerous  other  sites  of  interest  in  the 
histor>'  of  western  civilization  and  art. 

Following  six  days  and  five  nights  in  Athens,  the 
sleek  luxur\'  motor \acht  Cavo D'Oro.  with 30 
passenger  cabins,  will  take  tour  members  across  the 
shimmering  waters  of  the  Aegean  to  some  of  the 
loveliest  and  most  historically  interesting  of  the  Greek 
Isles. 

Cost  of  the  tour— $3,725  (which  includes  a  $300 
donation  to  Field  Museum) — is  based  upon  double 
occupancy  and  includes  round  trip  air  fare  via  TWA 
between  Chicago  and  Greece.  First  class  accommo- 
dations will  be  used  throughout.  The  package  in- 
cludes almost  all  meals  (all  meals  while  aboard  the 
CAH'oiroro}.  motorcoach  fares,  baggage  handling,  all 
I  ransfers,  taxes  (except  airpon  tax),  and  tips  (except  to 
tour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges  and  admissions 
i< )  spec  iai  e\ents.  Advance  deposit:  $300  per  person. 


GeologN'  Tour  ot  Fngland  and  Wales 
Iunel4-July3 

Highlights  of  this  fascinating  tour— which  includes 
sites  of  geologic,  historic,  and  aesthetic  interest — are 
Stonehenge,  the  4,()00-year-old  mar\el  of  prehistc^ric 
engineering:  the  Homan  ruins  at  Bath:  Ironbridge,  on 
the  Severn,  the  first  iron  bridge  ever  constructed 
(1777-79):  the  incomparably  lovely  Lake  District;  Win- 
chester Cathedral:  and  many  other  beautiful  old  cas- 
tles, cathedrals,  and  manor  houses  of  Wales  and  Eng- 
land. Three  nights  will  be  spent  in  London.  Leader  of 
this  tour  (which  is  limited  to  25)  will  be  Dr  Bertram 
Woodland,  curator  of  petrology,  and  a  nati\e  of  Wales. 
Cost  of  the  tour— $2,640  (which  includes  a  $300 
donation  to  Field  Museum) — is  based  upon  double 
occupancy  and  includes  round  trip  air  fare  between 
Chicago  and  London.  First  class  accommodations 
will  be  used  throughout.  The  package  includes  break- 
fast and  dinner  ciaiK',  chartered  motorcoach,  baggage 
handling,  all  transfers,  taxes  (except  airpon  tax),  and 
tips  (except  to  lour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges 
and  admissions  to  special  events.  Advance  deposit: 
$250  per  person. 


.^ii^ 


Devils  Luki 
Range 


a  leu 


Wisconsins  Buralxyo 


Clieddar  Gurtje.  Somerset,  an  interestiim  (jeoliKiicui  lonita- 
tion  to  lie  L'isited hij EncjIandWales  tour  I'hoto  hyBenrant  G. 
Woodland. 

Wisconsin's  Baraboo  Range 
June  21-22 

Dr.  Edward  Olsen,  curator  of  mineralogx'.  will  lead  tour 
members  through  the  Baraboo  range  and  along  the 
shores  and  hinterland  of  beautiful  Devil's  Lake. 
The  Baraboo  Range  is  of  special  interest  as  a 
/no/KKi/iock— what  is  left  of  an  ancient  mountain 
r.inge  and  which  now  stands  out  above  the  younger 
rocks  and  sediments.  The  range  consists  of 
( luanzite — more  than  one  billion  years  old— which, 
.ilthough  compressed  in  places  into  vertical  folds,  re- 
tains the  original  sedimentary  structures.  The  moun- 
tains were  further  modified  by  glaciers,  forming  the 
lake  antl  the  pic  luresciuc  glens,  and  changing  the 
course  of  rivers. 

Hiking  clothes  are  slrongl>'  recommended  tor  the 
scheduled  hikes.  The  trip  is  not  suitable  for  children, 
but  younger  people  interested  in  natural  histor>'  are 
welcome.  The  cost  of  the  Barabocj  trip  is  595  per 
person.  5 


Gold  of  El  Dorado 
The  Heritage  of  Colombia 


April  25-July  6 


Plwtos  by  Lee  Boltin 
Cou rtesy  of  the  American  M useu m  of  Natii ral  History 


The  Largest  and  Most  Comprehensive  display 
of  Colombian  archeology  ever  seen  in  the  United 
States  will  be  open  to  public  view  at  Field 
Museum,  in  Hall  27,  from  April  25  to  July  6.  More 
than  500  artifacts,  the  great  majority  fashioned 
from  gold,  come  to  Chicago  after  an  initial  North 
American  showing  at  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History.  Prior  to  that,  the  exhibit  was 


Opposite:  Quimbaya  pectoral.  Made  of  cast  tumbaga 
{gold- copper  alloy).  Heightl2.3cm  (4Vsin.).  FromMuseo 
del  Oro.  The  tumbnga  of  ivhich  this  piece  is  made  has  a 
relatively  high  percentage  ofcopjper,  thus  its  greettish  cast. 

Below:  Alligator  or  lizard.  Made  of  cast  tumbaga. 
Length  13.6cm  (5%  in.).  The  creatures  rendered  in  Colom- 
bian goldwork  were  chosen  for  their  symbolic  value  rather 
than  for  their  significance  as  sources  of  food.  The  lizard 
represented  knowledge,  power,  and  social  correctness. 


hosted  by  the  Royal  Academy  of  Arts,  in  Lon- 
don. The  size  of  the  show,  in  number  of  pieces,  is 
about  eight  times  that  of  the  never-to-be- 
forgotten  "Tut"  exhibit,  which  was  also  mostly 
gold. 

Included  in  the  exhibit  are  a  remarkable 
variety  of  pieces:  jewelry  to  adorn  virtually  every 
part  of  the  body,  crowns  and  other  regal  wear, 
masks,  pectorals  (chest  ornaments),  bells, 
diadems,  spear-throwers,  effigies,  figurines, 
helmets,  musical  instruments,  bowls,  flasks, 
jars,  and  other  containers;  also  to  be  seen  are 
gold  coins  of  Spain's  Charles  V  (1516-58)  and  the 
weaponry,  body  armor,  and  other  accouterments 
of  the  16th-century  conquistador. 

Text  continued  on  page  18. 


Atiiwinting  and  covering 

El  Dorado  with  gold  duft. 

Engraving  In/ 

Thcodordc  Bry. 

from  Historia  Americae, 

Frankfurt  (1580). 


Courtesy  The  New  York  Public  Library 


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ill 


THE  KENTE  CLOTH  OF  GHANA 


A  Marvel  of  Weaver's  Art 


BY  KAREN  CHESMA  McNEIL 


Kente  Cloth  is  a  woven  fabric  composed  of 
narrow  strips  of  cotton,  rayon,  or  silk  sewn  to- 
gether \'erticallv  so  as  to  produce  a  patchwork 
effect.  It  is  made  throughout  West  Africa,  but  the 
kente  cloth  produced  by  the  Ashanti  people,  of 
Ghana,  is  particularly  well  known  for  its  excep- 
tionally fine  craftsmanship,  complex  abstract  de- 
signs, fine  weave,  and  bright  colors.  An  excep- 
tionally beautiful  example  of  Ashanti  work  is  that 
shown  opposite. 

This  piece  was  hand-woven  in  the  work- 
shop of  Mrs.  Mary  Asare  (a  relative  of  the  late 
master  weaver  A.  E.  Asare)  and  bears  the  label 
"A.  E.  Asare  &  Co.,  Dento  Mills,  Nsawam, 
Ghana."  It  was  collected  for  Field  Museum  in 
1966  by  Professor  Roy  Sieber,  a  specialist  in  Afri- 
can art  at  Indiana  University,  Bloomington.  Al- 
though the  date  this  cloth  was  woven  is  un- 
known, its  excellent  condition  suggests  that  it 
may  have  been  made  not  long  before  Sieber  ac- 
quired it. 

Many  qualities  common  to  African  art  are 
to  be  seen  in  this  piece.  Its  design  is  completely 
geometric,  as  opposed  to  naturalistic.  To  the 
touch  it  is  cool  and  smooth,  while  to  the  eye  it  is 
exciting.  The  equilibrium  and  offbeat  rhythm  so 
often  found  in  the  art  of  West  Africa  can  be 
sensed  in  this  piece  with  its  variety  of  colors, 
shapes,  and  textures.  While  there  is  nothing  stat- 
ic about  its  design,  all  the  elements  seem  to  be  in 
balance. 

The  cloth  is  made  of  brilliantly  hued 
rayon,  machine  spun  and  synthetically  dyed.  Its 
colors  are  bold:  red,  green,  yellow,  electric  blue, 
and  silvery  white;  a  more  subtle  purple  shade 
has  been  achieved  by  combining  a  red  weft  with 
the  blue  warp.  A  surface  tension  has  been  pro- 
duced by  alternating  dark  with  light  bands. 
Further  contrast  is  added  by  reversing  the  order 
of  the  yellow  and  green  stripes  of  the  block  de- 
signs found  at  the  ends  and  in  the  main  body  of 
the  cloth. 

Large  smooth  warp-faced  areas  contrast 
texturally  with  the  smaller  rectangles  of  raised 
weft  designs.  With  their  offset  arrangements 
they  also  create  a  rhythmic  patchwork  effect. 
Stripes,  bars,  rectangles,  trapezoids,  and  check- 
ered patterns  contribute  further  to  this  interplay 
of  elements  in  elastic  tension  as  vertical  warp 
stripes  contrast  with  horizontal  weft  elements, 
rectangular  bars  are  juxtaposed  with  trapezoids, 
and  barred  and  striped  blocks  form  interpenet- 


rating zig-zags  in  the  border  areas. 

The  quality  of  high  visibility — notable  in 
African  art  as  a  whole — appears  in  the  traditional 
white  outlining  of  the  brocaded  blocks.  Rayon 
threads  give  the  piece  luminosity.  Symmetry  can 
be  found  in  the  sequence  of  colors  and  sizes  used 
in  the  warp  strips  and  the  weft  designs.  Only  the 
arrangement  of  the  cloth  strips  appears  asym- 
metrical. Elements  on  each  are  different  so  that 
the  cloth  does  not  mirror  itself  when  folded  in 
half  vertically.  This  piece,  however,  is  but  a  sam- 
ple of  kente  cloth.  In  a  finished  work  perhaps 
more  strips  would  be  added,  giving  the  piece  the 
appearance  of  greater  symmetry. 

Measuring  76V2  inches  (including  a 
V2-inch  fringe  on  each  end)  by  20%  inches,  this 
piece  is  considerably  smaller  than  the  96-by-60- 
inch  dimensions  of  a  traditional  man's  cloth.  It  is, 
nonetheless,  surprisingly  heavy,  a  feature 
largely  attributable  to  the  extra  weft  threads  in- 
troduced in  the  tapestrylike  areas.  The  piece  con- 
sists of  five  strips  approximately  4V2  inches  wide 
joined  by  a  sewing  machine  with  a  zigzag  stitch. 
The  rectangular  areas  that  are  completely  cov- 
ered with  a  supplementary  weft  tend  to  be  Vs  to 
Vi  inch  narrower,  for  this  inlay  technique  pulls 
the  warp  thread  closer  together. 

It  is  a  common  practice  of  the  Ashanti  to 
name  a  kente  cloth  for  its  particular  warp  pat- 
tern, a  custom  that  may  have  originated  long 
before  supplementary  weft  patterning  became 
an  extensively  used  technique  and  covered  the 
warp  as  it  does  now.  Weft  designs  are  also  given 
names.  In  the  case  of  warp  as  well  as  weft,  the 
name  can  describe  the  pattern,  be  based  on  a 
proverb  (to  which  the  color  provides  the  key),  or 
refer  to  a  personal  experience  of  the  weaver  that 
occurred  while  the  cloth  was  being  made;  the 
cloth  is  never  named  for  the  type  of  occasion  on 
which  it  is  to  be  worn  or  presented. 

According  to  tradition,  new  patterns, 
color  combinations,  cloth  names,  and — where 
applicable — proverbs  symbolically  represented 
are  submitted  to  {htiasantclicnc,  or  tribal  chief,  for 
his  approval.  While  the  rights  to  all  the  Ashanti 
kente  patterns  are  held  by  the  asantehene  he 
may  on  occasion  award  a  pattern  to  someone  he 
favors.  A  pattern  can  thus  come  to  signify  social 


Karen   Chesna   McNeil  is   a    technical  assistant  in   the 
Department  of  Anthropology. 


II 


Fiillk'n^thofkcntcchthof 

ii'hkh  detail  i^^liowii,  m 

color,  on  pn^c  10.  The  full 

fizi- if  76-1:2x20-3:4 

inches  (194.3cm  X 

52.7  cm). 


T??^^^*^     '  Kllllllllll    11  ■^■^^^ll  ■■■.If 

iiTi 


12 


iS'yTiMT^iBiniini 


position,  clan  membership,  or  sex,  as  well  as 
symbolically  represent  a  proverb  or  object. 

The  cloth  shown  on  page  10  is  not  repre- 
sentative of  any  particular  family  or  clan;  it  may, 
however,  relate  to  the  proverb  Obi  nkyem  tra  ye  tra 
na:  "It  is  not  easy  to  stay  with  someone."  This 


saying  is  typical  of  the  Ashanti,  for  whom  money 
and  the  familv's  economic  welfare  are  of  particu- 
lar importance.  In  large  extended  families,  the 
wealthiest  are  obligated  to  support  the  poorest. 
Thus,  proverbs  concerned  with  family  tensions, 
such  as  "family  is  war"  or  the  one  represented  in 
this  cloth,  referring  to  marriage,  are  common. 

Traditionally,  five  brocaded  blocks  of  three 
different  patterns  mark  the  beginning  and  end  of 
each  strip  in  a  kente  cloth.  They  appear  in  the 
order  ABCBA  in  one  strip,  CBABC  in  the  next, 
ABCBA  in  the  next,  and  so  on.  In  this  cloth  the 
designs  are  nsatia,  or  "fingers";  nnowbtoa,  or 
"snail's  bottom";  and  bahadua,  a  tree  common  to 
the  Ashanti  region.  Cloths  which  incorporate 
luiw'dtoa  and  babadua,  the  most  commonly  used 
border  designs,  are  rather  expensive  because 
they  completely  cover  the  warp  and  thus  require 
much  time  to  weave.  Nsatia,  which  requires  less 
time  to  produce,  is  frequently  used  on  the  less 
expensive  cloths.  Generally,  some  of  these  end 
designs  are  also  put  into  the  main  body  of  the 
weaving. 

Kente  cloth  made  for  sale  is  created  solely 
by  professional  male  weavers  who  have  gone 
through  an  apprenticeship.  Each  weaver  makes 
or  buys  his  own  loom  and  tools,  lays  out  the 
warp,  and  completes  the  cloth.  Women  and  girls 
are  in  charge  of  preparing  the  fibers.  They  plant, 
harvest,  and  spin  the  cotton.  In  former  times, 
when  silk  could  not  be  obtained  by  the  spool  or 
skein  it  was  their  task  to  obtain  thread  by  un- 
ravelling it  from  silk  trade  cloth. 

Even  until  today  the  Ashanti  have  con- 
tinued to  honor  certain  taboos  against  weaving 
by  females.  (The  fact,  however,  that  the  cloth 
shown  on  page  10  was  made  in  the  workshop  of  a 
woman  suggests  that  such  prohibitions  are  not 
as  strict  today  as  in  former  times.)  A  woman's 
menstrual  period,  it  is  suspected,  will  either 
interfere  with  the  actual  production  of  a  cloth  or 
cause  "undesirable  forces"  to  form  around  the 
unfinished  product.  During  her  menstrual 
period  a  woman  may  neither  touch  a  loom  nor 
speak  directly  with  her  weaver  husband;  any 
communication  with  him  must  be  done  through 
someone  else,  preferably  a  child.  Other  taboos, 
such  as  that  against  beginning  a  weaving  on  a 
Friday,  are  also  still  observed  today. 

Much  conflicting  information  is  to  be 
found  concerning  the  historical  development  of 
the  kente  cloth.  According  to  one  legend,  weav- 
ing was  taught  about  1700  to  two  farmers  of 
Bonwire,  Ghana  (now  the  principal  weaving 
center),  by  a  spider,  Ananse.  After  studying 
Ananse's  web  the  two  men  duplicated  the  tech- 
nique in  black  and  white  cotton  and  presented  a 
finished  cloth  to  their  leader,  Asantehene  Nana 
Osei  Tutu.  This  tradition  of  black  and  white 


■--.si 
-Eli 


-'»K^ 


■flMl 


Kaitccloth  on  pcrinauail  display  at  United  Natuvii  headquarters.  Photo  courtcsi/  United  ;\'(ifu))is,  V.  Na\;ata. 


weaving  continued  until  around  1900  when,  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Asantehene  Nana  Agyemen 
Prempeh,  colored  yards  became  available.  The 
first  colored  cloth  was  supposedly  called 
Oyokoman  in  tribute  to  Prempeh's  clan,  the 
Okoyo. 

Another  authority  suggests  that  the  kente 
weaving  tradition  started  much  earlier,  that  cara- 
vans brought  silk  fabric  and  dyes  into  the 
Ashanti  territory  from  the  Near,  Middle,  and  Far 
East  some  five  centuries  ago.  These  items  in- 
spired Asantehene  Oti  Akenten,  who  had  a  flair 
for  color  and  design,  to  make  this  type  of  cloth.  It 
is  for  him,  supposedly,  that  kente  cloth  is  so 
named.  Whatever  its  origins,  most  authorities 
agree  that  the  cloth  as  we  know  it  today  de- 
veloped from  a  band-woven  black  and  white  or 
indigo  and  white  cotton  fabric,  and  that  the 
bnght  colors  were  introduced  only  after  the  arri- 
val of  the  Europeans. 

Traditionally  the  kente  cloth  was  a  pres- 
tige item  worn  only  by  Ashanti  royalty.  Thomas 
E.  Bowdich  describes  in  his  Mission  from  Cape 
Castle  to  Ashantee  (1817)  seeing  an  asantehene 
with  a  heavy,  brightly  colored  cloth  worn  like  a 
toga  over  his  shoulder.  Today  in  Ghana  the  kente 
cloth  is  a  national  costume  worn  by  wealthy  men 
and  women  on  special  occasions.  A  man  still 
wraps  it — a  single  piece — around  his  body  and 
over  his  left  shoulder  like  a  toga.  The  woman's 
costume  consists  of  two  identical  cloths.  One 


cloth  is  cut  and  fashioned  into  a  long  dress  while 
the  other  is  worn  as  a  shawl  or  used  to  hold  a 
baby  on  the  back. 

But  kente  cloth  has  a  number  of  other  uses 
as  well.  Two-inch-wide  pieces  serve  as  sashes, 
hair  bands,  and  decorative  ornaments.  Several 
four-inch  weavings  may  be  combined  into 
shawls,  place  mats,  bags,  skirts,  table  runners, 
pillow  covers,  and  so  on.  A  602cm-by-384cm 
(19'9"  X  12'7')  silk  cloth  (shown  above)  woven  in 
green,  yellow,  and  maroon  on  a  blue  background 
and  designed  by  A.  E.  Asare,  required  for  its 
production  the  labor  of  10  men  for  three  and  a 
half  months,  and  was  presented  in  1960  to  the 
United  Nations,  in  New  York.  It  may  be  seen 
there  today,  on  permanent  display,  in  the  Dele- 
gates' Lounge.  D 


Supplementary  Reading 

Hale,  Sjarief.  "Kente  Cloth  of  Ghana,"  African  Arts, 
Vol.  3,  Spring.  1970. 

Kent,   Kate  P.   "West  African   Decorative  Weaving," 
African  Arts,  Vol.  6,  Autumn,  1972. 

Sieber,  Roy.  African  Textiles  and  Decorative  Arts,  New 
York:  Museum  of  Modern  Art,  1972. 

Smith,  Shea  Clark.  "Kente  Cloth  Motifs,"  African  Arts, 
Vol.  9,  October,  1975. 

Thompson,    Robert    Farris.    African    Art    in    Motion, 
Berkeley:  University  of  California  Press,  1974. 


13 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Red  Wolf:  Our  Most 
Endangered  Mammal 

The  red  wolf  tCanis  rufus)  probably  no 
longer  roams  free  in  the  wild,  according  to 
the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  (FWS). 
Much  smaller  than  its  close  relative,  the 
timber  wolf,  this  slender  40-to-80-pound, 
sometimes  reddish  wolf  has  the  dubious 
distinction  of  being  America's  most  en- 
dangered mammal. 

Red  wolves  once  ranged  throughout 
the  southeast  and  parts  of  Illinois  and  In- 
diana. But  today,  at  most  only  40  survive, 
in  a  Tacoma,  WA  zoo  and  holding  pens  in 
nearby  Graham. 

Ver.'  early  in  this  century,  soon  after  the 
American  West  was  "won"  and  the  land 
was  still  in  need  of  "taming,"  a  federally- 
sponsored  predator  control  program  was 
initiated  to  assist  stockmen  in  their  fight 
to  protect  cattle  and  sheep  from  wolves 
and  coyotes.  Among  the  "varmints"  to 
succumb  to  the  federal  trappers  was  the 
red  wolf. 

Even  before  the  predator  control  pro- 
gram, the  wolf's  range  had  shrunk  from 
the  entire  southeast  to  a  belt  of  southern 
states  including  eastern  Texas  and  Ok- 
lahoma. Tragically,  the  red  wolf's  ever- 
shrinking  population  went  unnoticed  for 
decades.  Only  by  the  1960's  did  anyone 
become  concerned  over  the  red  wolf's 
plight. 

In  1962,  Howard  McCarley,  a  biologist 
with  Austin  College,  suggested  that  the 
wolf  was  much  less  common  than 
realized,  and  perhaps  even  threatened  in 
Texas.  FWS  officials  discounted  his  warn- 
ing. Its  predator  control  agents  had  re- 
ported trapping  over  2,700  red  wolves  in 
Texas  in  1963,  and  they  appeared  as  com- 
mon as  ever.  The  agency  was  sure  these 
were  red  wolves  because  it  thought 
coyotes  didn't  occur  in  the  same  area. 
McCarley  found  instead  that  nearly  all  the 
"red  wolves"  killed  by  the  federal  agents 
were,  in  fact,  coyotes.  His  study,  and  later 
studies  by  Canadian  zoologist  Doug  Pim- 
lott,  showed  that  the  range  of  the  red  wolf 
had  shrunk  dramatically,  and  at  most, 
only  a  few  hundred  survived  in  the  wild, 
limited  to  a  small  range  on  the  Texas- 
Louisiana  border. 

Protection  for  the  red  wolf  finally  came 
in  1966,  when  the  species  was  declared 
endangered,  and  a  red  wolf  recovery 
team,  composed  of  state  and  federal 
wildbfe  experts,  was  formed. 

Even  in  a  swampy  habitat,  inhospitable 

to  man,  the  remaining  wolves  were  not 

free  from  extinction  pressures.  Habitat 

change  was  a  continued  threat  in  the 

U  Texas-Louisiana  region,  and  external  and 


internal  parasites  plagued  the  population. 
But  the  greatest  threat  to  its  continuation 
as  a  distinct  species  was  and  is  the  red 
wolf's  close  kinship  with  coyotes  and 
domestic  dogs.  As  man  altered  the  wolf's 
habitat,  the  more  adaptable  coyote  was 
able  to  expand  its  range  into  what  had 
been  red  wolf  territory.  As  their  numbers 
dwindle,  red  wolves  looking  for  mates  are 
forced  to  accept  coyotes  or  occasionally 
feral  dogs  when  none  of  their  own  kind 
can  be  found. 

A  red  wolf-coyote  or  red  wolf-dog  mat- 
ing produces  fertile  hybrid  offspring.  The 
behavioral  and  physical  characteristics 
that  make  a  red  wolf  a  red  wolf,  and  not  a 
coyote  or  dog,  fade  with  successive  in- 
breedings invoKing  hybrids,  coyotes,  and 
dogs.  The  eventual  result  is  extinction 
through  the  complete  genetic  absorption 
of  the  red  wolf. 

As  dismal  as  the  red  wolf's  situation 
seems  to  be,  one  hope  remains  for  its  con- 
tinued existence.  The  hope  is  an  ongoing 
captive  breeding  program  begun  around 
1974  by  the  FWS  and  the  Tacoma  Point 
Defiance  Zoo.  This  zoo  was  selected  for 
the  captive  breeding  program  because  the 
staff  had  much  experience  with  canids, 
and  the  region  is  free  from  the  heartworm 
and  hookworm  parasites  that  plagued  the 
wolves  in  Texas  and  Louisiana.  The  zoo 
hopes  to  breed  pure  red  wolf  strains 
through  careful  monitoring  of  the  genetic 
purity  of  captured  wolves,  and  pairing  of 
pure  red  wolf  adults. 

Distinguishing  a  hybrid  wolf  from  the 
real  thing  isn't  a  simple  matter,  though. 
Curtis  Carley,  endangered  species 
biologist  and  red  wolf  expert  with  the 
FWS,  uses  a  set  of  25  criteria  to  carefully 
evaluate  a  wolf's  genetic  heritage. 

Unhybridized  wolves  and  coyotes  differ 
visibly  in  size.  For  example,  a  large  male 
wolf  outweighs  a  large  male  coyote  by  al- 
most 50  pounds,  and  even  the  smallest 
possible  male  wolf  has  at  least  15  pounds 
over  a  coyote  Goliath.  However,  such  eas- 
ily observable  distinctions  become 
hopelessly  clouded  upon  hybridization. 
Carley  likens  the  difficulty  of  distinguish- 


ing  pure  wolves  from  hybrids  to  the  breed- 
ing of  a  poodle  and  a  cocker  spaniel,  say- 
ing, "Some  of  the  mixed-breed  pups  can 
look  just  like  a  poodle,  and  some  other 
may  look  just  like  a  cocker  spaniel." 

Most  important  among  the  25  charac- 
teristics Carley  examines  are:  hind  foot 
and  ear  length,  shoulder  height,  and  vari- 
ous x-rayed  skull  measurements  includ- 
ing frontal  bone  slope,  brain  case  position, 
and  jawbone  structure.  For  example, 
comments  Carley,  some  hybrids  may  have 
the  upper  jaw  of  a  wolf  and  the  lower  jaw 
of  a  dog,  which  causes  the  jaws  to  fit 
incorrectly. 

It's  ironic  that  the  skulls  used  as  models 
for  measurements  come  from  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution,  w'here  they  had  been 
sent  by  those  same  federal  trappers  who 
played  a  role  in  the  wolf's  decline! 

However  carefully  screened  the  wolves 
are,  the  real  proof  of  genetic  purity  comes 
only  through  the  birth  of  pure  red  wolf 
pups.  No  one  had  even  seen  a  red  wolf 
pup  until  the  first  ones  were  bom  in  cap- 
tivity at  the  Point  Defiance  Zoo  in  May, 
1977.  However,  as  a  final  check,  the  pups 
still  must  pass  the  25-point  checklist  when 
mature  at  9  to  12  months  to  be  certified  as 
the  "real  thing." 

This  year,  the  third  that  red  wolf  pups 
have  been  bom  in  captivitv',  15  pups  out  of 
six  litters  survived,  with  half  of  them  be- 
lieved to  be  pure  wolves.  With  four  to  six 
pups  normal  in  a  litter,  the  number  surviv- 
ing this  year  implies  significant  pup 
mortality.  Cannibalism  of  diseased  or 
weak  newborn  pups  by  their  parents  is  the 
suspected  cause.  Dave  Peterson,  head  of 
the  red  wolf  recovery  team,  says  he  is  un- 
certain whether  this  behavior  is  normal  or 
a  phenomenon  of  captivity. 

Overall,  the  team  is  pleased  with  this 
year's  success  in  captive  breeding,  as  six  of 
nine  possible  pairs  bred.  Wolves  taken 
from  the  wild  may  take  several  years  to 
breed  in  captivity.  "The  females  are 
especially  nervous,  and  may  abort 
young,"  says  Carley. 

Fed  a  commercial  dog  food  and  paired 
in  pens  with  ample  natural  vegetation  and 
freedom  from  human  disturbance,  the 
wolves  seem  content.  Carley  remarks 
that,  "The  captive  wolves  get  into  group 
singing,  howling,  and  carrying  on."  These 
group  antics  may  seem  to  stereotype  the 
red  wolf  as  a  pack  animal  like  the  timber 
wolf,  which  hunts  in  packs  in  order  to 
bring  down  large  prey  like  moose.  How- 
ever, the  red  wolf  selects  small  prey 
species,  and  therefore  hunts  in  pairs  or 
small  family  groups.  "It  doesn't  take  ten 
wolves  to  bring  down  a  marsh  rabbit," 
jokes  Carley. 


Breeding  captive  red  wolves,  no  matter 
how  successfuilv,  is  not  the  final  st)lution 
to  the  red  wolf's  predicament.  Mere  pres- 
ervation of  the  red  wolf  in  capti\it\',  where 
natural  selection  pressures  do  not  operate, 
may  only  prolong  its  decline.  A  geneticallv 
inferior  weilf  could  result  after  a  few  gen- 
erations. Despite  survi\al  risks  for  trans- 
planted animals,  translocation — the  rees- 
tablishment  of  wolves  in  a  suitable 
habitat — needs  to  be  the  goal  of  a  breeding 
program.  A  suitable  release  site  is  one 
where  humans,  covotes,  dogs,  and  live- 
stock do  not  present  a  problem,  and  that 
includes  adequate  food,  water,  anti  cover. 
The  number  of  sites  meeting  these  criteria 
are  limited,  however,  constraining  the 
scope  of  translocation  efforts. 

While  the  FWS  continues  its  search  for 
suitable  southeastern  translocation  sites. 
Bulls  Island,  SC,  a  part  of  the  Cape  Re- 
main National  VVilcilife  Refuge,  has  al- 
ready been  the  site  of  translocation  exper- 
iments involving  mated  pairs  of  red 
wolves.  Such  transplants  allow  biologists 
to  study  under  controlled  conditions  the 
little-known  behavior  of  the  red  wolf;  es- 
tablishment of  a  viable  population  was  not 
their  objective. 

A  mated  pair  offers  the  most  chance  for 
success  in  reestablishing  a  red  wolf  popu- 
lation, so  for  the  Bulls  Island  trials,  a  pair 
named  Buddy  and  Margie  became  the  first 
experimental  red  wolf  Adam  and  Eve. 
Initially  the  pair  fared  well,  until  Margie, 
spooked  by  something  unknown,  sud- 
denly left  the  island  and  swam  .to  the 
mainland.  She  later  died  of  a  uterine  infec- 
tion, and  Buddy  was  subsequently  re- 
turned toTacoma. 

That  translocation  of  red  wolves  is  in- 
deed possible  has  been  demonstrated  by  a 
second  released  pair  named  John  and 
Judy,  who  stayed  on  the  island  for  almost 
a  year.  The  male,  apparently  enjoying  the 
island's  abundant  marsh  rabbits,  gained  13 
pounds.  The  lengthy  duration  of  John  and 
Judy's  stay  has  provided  a  wealth  of  in- 
formation on  red  wolf  habits,  increasing 
the  probability  of  success  in  later  translo- 
cation efforts. 

Finally,  perhaps  the  most  difficult  im- 
pediment to  reestablishing  the  red  wolf  in 
the  wild  remains:  man's  attitude  toward 
wolves.  A  site  for  reintroduction  can't  be 
selected  without  consent  of  the  area's  re- 
sponsible political  bodies,  and,  in  turn, 
their  constituents.  Hopefully,  the  fear  that 
made  eradication  a  goal  of  predator  con- 
trol will  become  extinct,  instead  of  the  red 
woU.— George  /.  Maurer,  National  Wiltilife 
Federation. 


New  Federal  Regulation  Encourages 
Captive  Breeding  of  Endangered  Species 

A  marked  increase  in  capHve  breeding  of 
endangered  species  is  the  anhcipated  re- 
sult of  a  new  regulation  issued  by  the  De- 
partment of  the  Interior's  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service.  The  rule  eases  federal 


regulation  of  interstate  transfer  of  certain 
captive  species  covered  bv  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  of  1973. 

The  action  was  prompted  bv  evidence 
that  stringent  regulatory  procedures  have 
led  to  decreased  breeding  bv  zoological 
parks,  bird  breeders,  and  others.  Breeders 
have  pointed  out  that  tough  federal  re- 
strictions— while  intended  to  protect  and 
propagate  such  species — have  sometimes 
had  the  opposite  effect.  In  some  cases, 
persons  who  would  titherwise  breed  en- 
dangered species  have  ceased  to  do  so  or 
have  limited  the  number  of  offspring  pro- 
duced because  they  could  not  be  readily 
transferred  to  other  facilihes. 

Under  the  new  regulation,  a  zoo,  wild- 
life park,  aquarium,  and  other  organiza- 
tions or  individuals  can  register  with  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  to  become  a 
licensed  shipper  and  receiver  of  captive- 
born  endangered  species.  After  registra- 
tion, reports  will  be  required  annuallv. 

Wildlife  affected  by  the  regulation  in- 
cludes non-native  U.S.  endangered 
species  and  native  U.S.  endangered 
species  that  are  sufficiently  protected  from 
unauthorized  taking  or  are  in  low  de- 
mand. The  rule  provides  that  native 
species  will  be  designated  on  a  case-by- 
case  basis.  One  species,  the  Laysan  teal, 
was  designated  in  the  rulemaking. 

Formerly,  breeders  were  required  to  ob- 
tain a  federal  permit  before  engaging  in 
interstate  commerce  or  exporting  of 
captive-bred  wildlife.  This  time- 
consuming  process  led  to  higher  mainte- 
nance costs  of  animals  awaiting  shipment, 
increased  difficulties  in  handling  adult 
animals  instead  of  young  ones,  and  un- 
availability of  breeding  stock  when 
needed. 

The  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  deter- 
mined that  activities  involving  captive 
wildlife  should  be  regulated  as  required  by 
the  Endangered  Species  Act,  but  only  to 
the  extent  necessary  to  conserve  the 
species.  According  to  service  biologists, 
the  new  regulation  should  help  reduce  in- 
breeding— which  has  been  cited  as  a  factor 
in  juvenile  mortality  —  by  facilitating  ex- 
change of  animals.  It  is  also  hoped  that  the 
rule  will  reduce  the  demand  for  wildlife 
that  might  otherwise  be  taken  from  its 
natural  habitat. 


Fallout  Linked  to  Sheep  Deaths 

Ranchers  in  Nevada  are  going  back  to 
court  to  fight  a  battle  they  lost  in  1956  over 
government  reparations  for  4,200  sheep 
lost  near  an  atomic  testing  site.  A  newly- 
released  private  report  by  a  former 
member  of  the  Atomic  Energy  Commis- 
sion's (AEC)  Fallout  Studies  Branch  has 
scientifically  connected  the  deaths  of  the 
sheep,  which  were  wintering  50  miles 
from  the  tesHng  ground,  with  the  radia- 
tion fallout.  The  earlier  case  had  been  lost 
because  government  scientists  claimed 


there  was  no  connection  between  the 
deaths  and  the  fallout,  stating  that  the 
sheep  had  died  of  natural  causes.  The  re- 
port also  noted  that  some  of  the  sheep  had 
been  grazing  in  areas  where  the  reported 
fallout  was  within  safety  levels  set  by 
the  AEC. 


Throw  Another  Log  on  the  Fire 

Wood  now  provides  Americans  with  half 
as  much  energy  as  nuclear  power  does, 
according  to  the  Department  of  Energy. 
Since  the  1973-74  oil  embargo,  the  use  of 
wood  as  fuel  has  expanded  nearly  15  per- 
cent a  year.  Between  1972  and  1977,  the 
number  of  woodburning  stoves  in  use  has 
increased  from  250,000  to  2,000,000.  One- 
fifth  of  the  homes  in  Northern  New  Eng- 
land rely  on  wood  as  their  primary  heat 
source,  and  30  percent  more  use  it  as  a 
supplemental  source. 


Kenya  Large  Mammal  Census 

A  Canadian  aid  program,  the  Kenya 
Rangeland  Ecological  Monitoring  Unit 
(KREMU),  has  recently  completed  its  first 
aerial  count  of  selected  species  of  animals. 
It  reports  that  there  are  60,000  elephants  in 
Kenya,  compared  with  a  count  of  167,000 
made  bv  a  game  biologist  in  1973. 

The  loss  of  100,000  elephants  in  five 
years  correlates  closely  with  World 
Wildlife  Fund  figures  obtained  from  the 
sales  of  raw  ivory  recorded  in  customs  and 
excise  figures  in  various  countries.  In  1976, 
280  tons,  or  the  tusks  of  23,000  elephants, 
were  sold  as  raw  ivory  from  Kenva,  ac- 
cording to  the  Fund  in  Kenya. 

The  rhino,  whose  horn  is  regarded  by 
many  peoples  in  undeveloped  countries 
as  an  aphrodisiac,  is  much  nearer  extinc- 
tion than  the  elephant.  KREMU  counted 
only  1,800  rhinos  in  Kenya,  compared 
with  11,500  in  1963.  Since  then,  52,800  lbs. 
of  rhino  horn  from  11,000  rhinos  have  been 
exported  from  Kenya,  according  to  cus- 
toms records. 


How  to  Spruce  up  Those 

Hard-to-Reach  Feathers? 

Try  an  Ant  or  Two 

Crows  as  well  as  blue  jays  and  magpies, 
and  probably  other  birds  as  well,  practice  a 
curious  skill  known  as  "anting."  Anhng 
consists  of  picking  up  ants  with  the  beak, 
squashing  them  and  then  rubbing  them 
into  the  feathers  that  are  not  often  reached 
by  regular  grooming  practices.  The  ants 
are  usually  those  which  eject  either  acidic 
or  pungent  anal  fluids  when  squashed. 

The  purpose  for  all  this?  Apparently, 
say  some  experts,  it's  to  kill  or  drive  away 
many  of  the  harmful  parasites  which  in- 
fect birds.  Crows  in  captivity  sometimes 
also  use  smoldering  cigarette  butts  to  keep 
pesky  parasites  off  their  plumage.  15 


Fieldiana:  1978  and  1979  Titles 


Fieldiana  is  a  continuing  series  of  sci- 
entific papers  and  monographs  in  the 
disciplines  of  anthropology,  botany, 
zoology,  and  geology;  the  series  is 
intended  primarily  for  exchange- 
distribution  to  museums,  libraries, 
and  universities,  but  all  titles  are  also 
available  for  public  purchase. 

The  following  titles,  published 
during  1978  and  1979,  may  be  ordered 
from  the  Division  of  Publications. 
Members  are  entitled  to  a  10  percent 
discount.  Publication  number  should 
accompany  order.  A  catalog  of  all 
available  Fieldiana  titles  is  available 
on  request.  (Please  specify  discipline: 
anthropology,  botany,  geology,  or 
zoology.) 

Fieldiana:  Anthropology 

1244.  "The  Bruce  Collection  oi  Eskimo  Material 
Culture  from  Port  Clarence,  Alaska,"  bv  James 
VV.  VanStone.  Vol.  67.  $6.00. 

1257.  "Human  Biogeographv  in  the  Solomon 
Islands,"  by  John  TerreU.  Vol'.  68,  No.  1.  $2.00. 

1268.  "A.  F.  Kashevarov's  Coastal  Explorations 
in  Northwest  Alaska,  1838,"  bv  James  W.  Van- 
Stone.  Vol.  69.  $4.00. 

1274.  "A  Seriation  of  the  Late  Prehistoric  Santa 
Maria  Culture  of  Northwestern  Argentina,"  by 
Ronald  L.  Weber.  Vol.  68,  No.  2.  $2.50. 

1281.  "E.  W.  Nelson's  Notes  on  the  Indians  of 
the  Yukon  and  Innoko  Rivers, Alaska,"  by  James 
W.  VanStone.  Vol.  70.  $3.75. 

1295.  "Ingalik  Contact  Ecology:  An  Ethno- 
history  of  the  Lower-Middle  Yukon,  1790- 
1935,"  by  James  VV.  VanStone.  Vol.  71.  $L2.00. 

1296.  "Historic  Ingalik  Settlements  along  the 
Yukon,  Innoko,  and  Anvik  Rivers,  Alaska,"  by 
James  VV.  VanStone.  Vol.  72.  $4.75. 


Fieldiana:  Botany 

1246.  "Ferns  and  Fern  Allies  of  Guatemala,"  by 
Robert  G.  Stolze.  Vol.  39  (Part  1).  $4.75. 

1251.  "Revision  of  Oparanthus  (Compositae, 
Heliantheae,  Coreopsidinae),"  by  Tod  F 
Steussy.  Vol.  38,  No.  6.  75c. 

1260.  "Comprehensive  Index  to  the  Flora  of 
Guatemala,"  by  Terua  P.  Williams.  Vol.  24,  Part 
XIII.  $8.50. 

1267.  "Austral  Hepaticae  IX  Anastrophyllum 
Tristaruanum,  a  New  Species  from  Tristan  da 
16  Cunha,"  by  John  J.  Engel.  Vol.  38,  No.  7.  75c. 


1270.  "Flora  Costaricensis,"  by  William  Burger. 
Vol.  40.  $10.50. 

1286.  "Revision  of  Lagascea  (Compositae, 
Heliantheae),"  bv  Tod  F  Steussv.  Vol.  38,  No.  8. 

$2.25. 

1291.  "A  Taxonomic  and  Phytogeographic 
Studv  of  Brunswick  Peninsula  (Strait  of  Magel- 
lan) Hepaticae  and  Anthocerotae,"  bv  John  J. 
Engel.  Vol.  41.  $19.00. 

1300.  "Donrichardsia,  a  New  Genus  of  Amblys- 
tegiaceae  (Musci),"  by  Howard  Crum  and 
Lewis  E.  Anderson.  New  Series  No.  1.  $1.00. 


Fieldiana:  Geology 

1242.  "Upper  Devonian  Receptaculites  chardini 
n.  sp.  from  Central  Afghanistan,"  by  Matthew 
H.  Nitecki  and  Albert  F.  de  Lapparent.  Vol.  35, 
No.  5.  $2.00. 

1248.  "Megapleuron  zangerli,  A  New  Dipnoan 
from  the  Pennsvlvanian,  Illinois,"  bv  Hans- 
Peter  Schultze.  Vol.  33,  No.  21.  $1.25. 

1249.  "A  Primitive  Pyrothere  (Mammalia, 
Notoungulata)  from  the  Early  Tertiary  of 
Northwestern  Venezuela,"  bv  Brvan  Patterson. 
Vol.  33,  No.  22.  $1.25. 

1252.  "The  Stature  and  Weight  of  Sterkfontein 
14,-a  Gradle  Australopithecine  from  Transvaal, 
as  Determined  from  the  Innominate  Bone,"  by 
Charles  A.  Reed  and  Dean  Falk.  Vol.  33,  No.  23. 
$1.00. 

1253.  "Tooth  Histology  and  Ultrastructure  of  a 
Paleozoic  Shark,"  by  Katherine  Taylor  and 
Thomas  Adamec.  Vol'  33,  No.  24.  $1.75. 

1254.  "New  Fossil  Polychaete  from  Essex,  Il- 
linois," bv  Ida  Thompson  and  Ralph  G. 
Johnson.  Vol.  33,  No.  25.  $1.00. 

1255.  "New  Information  on  the  Holocystites 
Fauna  of  the  Middle  Silurian  of  Wisconsin,  Il- 
linois, and  Indiana,"  by  Terrence  J.  Frest, 
Donald  G .  Milulic,  and  Christopher  R.  C.  Paul 
Vol.  35,  No.  6.  $1.75. 

1256.  "Cyathocrinites  from  the  Silurian  Strata 
of  Southeastern  Indiana,"  bv  T.  Frest.  Vol.  35, 

No.  7.  $1.75. 

1259.  "Type  Fossil  Miscellanea  (Worms,  Prob- 
lematica,  Conoidal  Shells,  Trace  Fossils)  in  Field 
Museum,"  by  Gerald  Glenn  Forney,  Daniel 
Jenkins,  and  Matthew  H.  Nitecki.  Vol.'37,  No.  1 
$2.00. 

1261.  "New  Agathour  Fishes  from  the  Pennsyl- 
vanian  of  Illinois,"  by  David  Bardack  and 
Eugene  S.  Richardson,  Jr.  Vol.  33,  No.  26.  $1.25. 

1262.  "Sedimentary  Processes  in  Rayonnoceras 
Burial,"  by  James  H.  Quinn.  Vol.  33,  No. 
27.  75c. 

1263.  "Paraparchites  mazonensis  n.  sp.  (Os- 
tracoda)  from  Middle  Pennsvlvanian  Ironstone 
Concretions  of  Illinois,"  by  l'.  G.  Sohn.  Vol  37 
No.  2.  $1.25. 


1264.  "Cecops  (Amphibia;  Labyrinthoiontia) 
from  the  Fort  Sill  Locality,  Lower  Permian  of 
Oklahoma,"  by  John  R.  Bolt.  Vol.  37,  No.  3.  75c. 

1265.  "Type  Fossil  Coelenterata  (Except  Corals) 
in  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,"  by 
Gerald  Glenn  Forney,  Matthew  H.  Nitecki,  and 
Daniel  F.  Jenkins.  Vol.  37,  No.  4.  $1.00. 

1266.  "New  Information  on  the  Evolution  of  the 
Bradvondont  Chondrichthyes,"  by  Richard 
Lund.  Vol.  33,  No.  28.  $1.00. 

1277.  "OrdoWcian  Receptaculites  camocho  n. 
sp.  from  Argentina,"  bv  Matthew  H.  Nitecki 
and  Gerald  G.  Forney.  Vol.  37,  No.  5.  $1.25. 

1278.  "Sedimentary  Structures  from  the  Car- 
bondale  Formation  (Middle  Pennsylvanian  of 
Northern  Illinois),"  bv  Charles  VV.  Shablica, 
VoL33,  No.29.  $1.75.  ' 

1279.  "The  Mammalian  Faunas  of  the  Washakie 
Formation,  Eocene  Age,  of  Southern  Wvoming 
Part  I,  Introduction:  The  Geology,  Historv  and 
Setting,"  bv  WiUiam  D.  TumbuU.  Vol.  33,  No. 
30.  $2.25. 

1280.  "Internal  Structures  of  Cvclocrinites  dac- 
tioloides,  a  Receptaculitid  Alga  from  the  Lower 
Silurian  of  Iowa,"  by  Matthew  H.  Nitecki  and 
MarkesE.  Johnson.  Vol.  39,  No.  1.  $1.25. 

1283.  "Morphologv  and  Arrangement  of 
Merones  in  Ischadites  dixonensis,  an  Ordovi- 
dan  Receptaculitid,"  by  Daniel  C.  Fischer  and 
Matthew  H:  Nitecki.  Vol.  39,  No.  2.  $1.00. 

1284.  "Investigation  of  the  Classification  of  the 
Rodent  Genus  Eumys  from  the  Middle 
Oligocene  of  the  Big  Badlands  of  South  Dakota 
Using  Multivariate  Statistical  Analvsis,"  bv  Sue 
Vilhauser  Rosser.  Vol.  39,  No.  3.  $1.75. 

1287.  "Arthropods:  A  Convergent  Phenome- 
non," bv  Frederick  R.  Schram.  Vol.  39,  No.  4. 
$2.25. 

1288.  "The  Morphology  and  Relationships  of 
the  Cretaceous  Teleost  Apsopelix,"  by  Susan 
TeUer-MarshaU  and  David  Bardack.  Vol.  41,  No. 
1.  $1.75. 

1290.  "The  Mammalian  Fauna  of  Madura  Cave, 
Western  Australia,"  bv  Ernest  L.  Lundelius,  Jr. 
and  William  D.  TumbuU.  Vol.  38.  $5.75. 

1292.  "The  Deseadan,  Early  Oligocene,  Mar- 
supialia  of  South  America,"  by  Bryan  Patterson 
and  Larry  G.  MarshaU.  Vol.  41,  No.  2.  $3.25. 

1293.  "British  Carboniferous  Malacostraca,"  by 
Frederick  R.  Schram.  Vol.  40.  $6.50. 

1293.  "Type  Graptolithina  in  Field  Museum  of 
Natural  History,"  by  Robert  H.  Hansman  and 
Matthew  H.  Nitecki.  New  Series  No.  1.  $1.25. 

1299.  "Organic  Buildups  in  the  Lower  Ordovi- 
dan  (Canadian)  of  Texas  and  Oklahoma,"  by 
Donald  Francis  Toomev  and  Matthew  H. 
Nitecki.  New  Series  No.  2.  $11.75. 

1302.  "Re\iew  of  the  Prothvlacyninae,  an  Ex- 
tinct Subfamily  of  South  American  'Dog-Like' 
Marsupials,"  bv  Larry  G.  Marshall.  New  Series 
No.  3.  $3.50. 


Fieldiana:  Zoology 

1241.  "Rhinodoras  boehlkei,  a  New  Catfish 
from  Eastern  Ecuador  (Osteichthyes, 
Siluroidei,  Doradidae),"  by  Garrett  S.  Glodek, 
Glen  L.  VVhitmire,  and  Gustavo  Orces  V.  \'o\. 
70,  No.  1.75c. 

1243.  "Supplementary  Catalogue  of  Type 
Specimens  of  Reptiles  and  Amphibians  in  Field 
Museum  of  Natural  History,"  by  Hvman  Marx. 
Vol.  69,  No.  2.  $2.75. 

1245.  "A  New  Chaenopsid  Fish,  Emblemana 
hvltoni,  from  Isla  Roatan,  Honduras,"  by  R.  K. 
Johnson  and  D.  \V.  Greenfield.  Vol.  69,  No. 
2.75C. 

1247.  "The  Larval  Characters  of  Featherwing 
and  Limukxlid  Beetles  and  Their  Family  Rela- 
tionships in  the  Staphylinidea  (Coleoptera: 
Ptiliidae  and  Limulodidae), "  by  Henry  Dybas. 
Vol.  70,  No.  3.  $2.25. 

1258.  "A  Phvlogeny  of  the  Sea  Snakes  (Hydro- 
phiidae),"  by  Harold  K.  Voris.  Vol.  70,  No.  4. 
$4.25. 

1269.  "The  Differentiation  of  Character  State 
Relationships  by  Binary  Coding  and  the  Mono- 
thetic  Subset  Method,"  by  Hvman   Marx, 


George  B.  Rabb,  and  Harold  K.  Voris.  Vol.  72, 
No.  1.  $1.25. 

1271.  "Amphisbaena  medemi,  an  Interesting 
New  Species  from  Colombia  (Amphisbaenia, 
Reptilia)  with  a  Key  to  the  Amphisbaenians  of 
the  Americas,"  by  Carl  Gans  and  Sandra 
Mathers.  Vol.  72,  No.  2.  $1.25. 

1272.  "Trachelyichthysexilis,  A  New  Species  of 
Catfish  (Pisces:  Aushenipteridae)  from  Peru," 
by  David  VV.  Greenfield  and  Garrett  S.  Glodek. 
Vol.  72,  No.  3.  75C. 

1273.  "The  Status  of  HybalicusBerlese,  1913  and 
Oehsershestes  Jacot,  1939  (Acari:  Acariforms: 
Endeostigmata),"  bv  John  B.  Kethley.  Vol.  72, 

No.  4.75C. 

1275.  "A  New  Species  of  Allactaga  (Rodenfia 
Dipodidae)  from  Iran,"  by  Daniel  R.  VVomochel. 
Vol.  72,  No.  5.  75(Z. 

1276.  "A  New  Helogeneid  Catfish  from  Eastern 
Ecuador  (Pisces,  Siluriformes,  Helogeneidae)," 
by  Garrett  S.  Glodek  and  H.  Jacque  Carter  Vol. 
72,  No.  6.  75C. 

1282.  "A  Generic  and  Tribal  Revision  of  the 
North  American  Aleocharinae  (Coleoptera: 
Staphylinidae),"  by  Charles  H.  Seevers.  Vol.  71. 
$16.00. 


1285.  "Differential  Epibiont  Pouling  in  RelaHon 
to  Grooming  Behavior  in  Palaemonetes 
Kadiakensis,"  by  Bruce  E.  Felgenhauer  and 
Fredrick  R.  Schram.  Vol.  72,  No.  7.  $1.25. 

1289.  "The  Importance  of  Catfish  Burrows  in 
Maintaining  Fish  Populations  of  Tropical 
Freshwater  Streams  in  Western  Ecuador,"  b\ 
Garrett  S.  Glodek.  Vol.  73,  No.  1.  75C. 

1294.  "A  Review  of  the  Western  Atlantic  Stark 
sia  ocellata-Complex  (Pisces:  Clinidac)  with  the 
DescripHon  of  Two  New  Species  and  Proposal 
of  Superspecies  Status,"  by  David  VV.  Green- 
field. Vol.  73,  No.  2.  $2.50.  ' 

1297.   "Chromis  woodsi,  a  New  Species  of 

Damselfish  (Pomacentrid^e)  from  the  Western 
Indian  Ocean  with  a  Redescripfion  of  Chromis 
axillaris  (Bennett)  1831,"  by  John  C.  Bruner  and 
Steven  Arnam.  Vol.  73,  No.  3.  $1.50. 

1301.  "Some  Mollusks  from  Afghanistan,"  by 
Alan  Solem.  New  Series  No.  1.  $6.25. 

1303.  "The  Functional  Morphology  of  the 
Grooming  Appendages  of  Palaemonetes 
kadiakensis  Rathbun,  1902,"  by  B.  E. 
Felgenhauer  and  F.  R.  Schram.  New  Series  No. 

2.  $2.00. 


Hnida  ^rizzlx/  Iviii;  or 
huaji.  Silk  screen  print  by 
Bill  Rcid,  distinguished 
Uaida  Indian  artist  of 
Vancouver.  B.C.  The  red 
and  black  print  is  a  recent 
gift  to  Field  Museum  by 
Reid,  who  also  works  in 
wood,  silver,  gold,  argillite 
(a  rock  intermediate 
between  slate  and  shale), 
and  other  media.  Reid 
recently  visited  the 
Museum  as  a  consultant 
for  the  Northwest  Coast 
and  Eskimo  exhibit,  a 
permanent  exhibit 
scheduled  to  open  in  Hall 
W  in  1982. 


17 


■•^ 


-J^^t 


Lake  Cuatavita,  slioicmg  the  results  of  Antonio  de  Sepi'ilve- 
da's  attempt  to  cut  through  the  enclosing  rock  and  thus  drain 
the  lake.  Begun  in  the  1580s,  the  project  employed  some 
8,000  Indian  laborers  but  was  eventually  abandoned.  From 
an  1810  engraving. 


Indians  pour  molten  gold  down  the  throat  of  one  Spanish 
captive  zohile  butchering  another.  From  History  of  the 
Ww  World,  hi  Girolnmo  Benzorii  CJ547-56). 


EL  DORADOcontinued  from  p.  7 


-The  Legend  of  El  Dorado 

The  story  of  this  extraordinary  assemblage  is  that 
of  the  New  World  before  the  coming  of  the 
Conquistador,  and  of  the  explorations,  discov- 
eries, and  cultural  technological  transmutations 
that  were  brought  about  by  the  coming  of  the 
Europeans. 

In  1539,  more  than  three  decades  after 
coming  to  Colombia,  the  Spaniards  began  to 
hear  stories  of  a  certain  "golden  man,"  or  El 
Dorado,  and  the  extraordinary  rituals  which  in- 
cluded his  throwing  vast  quantities  of  gold  offer- 
ings into  Guatavita,  a  sacred  lake  located  not 
many  miles  northeast  of  what  is  today  Colom- 
bia's capital  city  of  Bogota. 

The  most  authoritative  earlv  account  of  El 
Dorado  is  that  of  the  chronicler  Juan  Rodriguez 
Freyle  (1636): 

The  first  journey  [the  nezv  Indian  ruler]  had  to 
make  was  to. . .  Guatavita,  to  make  offerings  and  sac- 
rifices to  the  demon  which  they  worshipped  as  their 
god  and  lord . . .  The  lake  was  large  and  deep,  so  that  a 
ship  with  high  sides  could  sail  on  it,  all  loaded  with 

Text  continued  on  page  24 


Tolima  pectoral.  Made  of  cast  gold.  Height  U.7cm  (7  in.). 
From  Museo  del  Oro.  ^»- 


^  ••«"■'<  H>       ••!• 


^Uju... 


Overleaf,  p.  22:  Lime 
fhsk  decorated  with  female 
figures  in  relief.  Made  of 
cast  tumhaga  (copper-gold 
alloy).  Height  28cm  (h 
in.).  Museo  de  America, 
Madrid.  From  theTrcasure 
of  the  Quimbayas,  discov- 
ered in  1891  and  given  to 
the  queen  of  Spain  In/  the 
govern  men  t  of  Colombia. 

Page  23:  Darien  pec- 
toral, made  of  cast  gold. 
Height  n. 6cm  (4-9116 
m.).  From  Museo  del  Oro. 
The  Darien  style  is  noio  be- 
lieivd  to  have  been  a  com- 
posite of  many  regional 
sti/les.  Similar  pectorals 
have  also  been  found  in 
Panama,  Costa  Rica,  and 
Yucatan. 


21 


urtesy  The  New  York  Public  Library 


;^=r-T::2I3I3!! 


:'3o£Ui" 


ij^^a 


TK-a 


'1 

1 

1 


EL  DORADO  co« (in i<ed  from  p.  18 


24 


. . .  men  and  zvomen  dressed  in  fine  plumes,  golden 
plaques,  and  crozcms . . . 

Thei/  stripped  the  heir  to  his  skin,  and  an- 
nointed  him  with  a  sticky  earth  on  which  they  placed 
gold  dust  so  that  he  was  completely  covered  with  this 
metal.  Thei/  placed  him  on  the  raft,  on  which  he 
remained  motionless,  and  at  his  feet  they  placed  a  great 
heap  of  gold  and  emeralds  for  him  to  offer  to  his  god. 
On  the  raft  with  him  wait  four. .  .chiefs,  decked  in 
pilumes,  crowns,  bracelets,  pendants  and  ear  ri)igs  all 
of  gold. . .  The  gilded  Indian  then  made  his  offering, 
throwing  out  all  the  pile  of  gold  into  the  middle  of  the 
lake,  and  the  [four]  chiefs... did  the  same... After 
this, . . .  the  shouting  began  again,  with  pipes,  flutes, 
and  large  teams  of  singers  and  dancers.  With  this 
ceremony  the  neiv  ruler  zoas  received,  and  was  recog- 
nized as  lord  and  king.  From  this  ceremony  came  the 
celebrated  name  of  El  Dorado,  which  has  cost  so  many 
lives. 

A  few  years  before  the  publication  of 
Freyle's  account,  officials  reported  from  Bogota: 
there  is  definite  information  that  the  lake  bed  contains 
great  riches  in  gold,  and,  that  although  many  different 
persons  have  several  times  tried  to  drain  the  said  lake, 
none  has  succeeded.  We,  at  our  own  expense  and  risk, 
with  our  oion  persons,  industry,  and  effort,  wish  to 
drain  it. 

Thus  began  a  frustrating,  disappointing 
series  of  efforts  to  harvest  riches  from  the  lake's 
bottom.  "Having  robbed  the  living  Indians  of 
most  of  their  gold,"  wryly  noted  one  historian, 
"it  was  time  to  attack  the  richest  treasure  of  all." 

About  1545  Hernan  Perez  de  Quesada 
employed  a  battalion  of  laborers  to  lower  the 
lake's  level  by  literally  bailing  it  out.  After  three 
months  of  back-breaking  effort  the  lake's  level 
was  down  by  three  meters  (about  10  feet)  and 
Guatavita  had  grudgingly  yielded  a  mere  3,000- 
4,000  pesos  worth  of  gold.  A  generation  later, 
Antonio  de  Sepiilveda  attempted,  with  the  help 
of  8,000  Indians,  to  dig  through  the  lake's  rocky 
rim.  This  brought  about  an  additional  drop  of  20 
meters  in  the  lake  level  before  the  steep  walls  of 
the  cut  collapsed,  killing  many  workers  and 
bringing  an  end  to  the  project.  Sepulveda's 
costly  efforts  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  12,000 
pesos  worth  of  treasure — a  far  cry  from  the  mil- 
lions alleged  to  lie  beneath  Guatavita's  waters. 

Little  more  was  done  about  draining 
Guatavita  until  the  1820s,  when  work  was  re- 
sumed in  deepening  the  cut  begun  more  than 
two  centuries  earlier  by  Sepulveda.  But  this,  too, 
came  to  an  end  as  landslides  along  the  steep 
canal  walls  persisted.  In  1899  interest  was  again 
revived  in  exposing  the  lake  bottom.  This  time 
the  scheme  was  to  construct  a  tunnel  under  the 
lake  and  come  up  through  its  floor.  The  plan 
worked — for  a  time.  The  water  quickly  ran  out. 


revealing  a  bottom  of  slime  and  mud,  several  feet 
thick.  In  a  few  days,  under  the  equatorial  sun, 
the  mud  baked  to  the  consistency  of  brick.  The 
dried  mud  also  sealed  up  the  sluices  and  the 
tunnel,  and  soon  the  lake  again  filled  with  water 
to  its  former  level. 

In  1911  a  group  of  investors  calling  them- 
selves Contractors  Ltd.  hoped  to  work  a  steam 
shovel  to  the  lake's  center.  "There  will  be  no 
doubt  when  it  is  reached,"  they  assured  prospec- 
tive shareholders,  "for  gold  dust  and  nug- 
gets will  certainly  be  found."  But  the  firm's 
£15,000  capital  was  hardly  enough  to  see  the 
project  through  and  the  enterprise  terminated  in 
bankruptcy. 

Following  Contractors  Ltd.'s  demise  in 
1929,  other  expeditions  tried  their  luck,  using 
every  mechanical  means  from  drags  to  airlifts. 
With  each,  Guatavita  continued  to  yield  a  tan- 
talizingly  few  objects  of  gold,  but  the  lake's  cen- 
ter remained  essentially  untouched.  The  final 
chapter  in  this  400-year  quest  was  the  establish- 
ment by  the  Colombian  government  in  1965  of 
legal  protection  for  Guatavita  as  part  of  the  na- 
tion's cultural  and  historical  heritage. 

Will  the  full  story  of  El  Dorado  and  the 
Guatavita  treasure  ever  be  known  or,  like  the 
treasure  of  Mexico's  Sierra  Madre,  North  Ameri- 
ca's Lost  Dutchman  Mine,  and  other  troves,  real 
and  fanciful,  around  the  world,  will  it  merely 
persist  as  an  ambiguous  half-fact,  half-legend  to 
intrigue  the  imagination? 

Though  the  tale  of  El  Dorado  and 
Guatavita  will  stir  the  pulse  of  anyone  adventur- 
ous, the  substantive  story  of  Colombia's  golden 
treasures  and  the  one  of  principal  interest  to  his- 
torians and  archeologists,  is  that  of  existing 
artworks,  the  greatest  number  of  which  (26,000) 
are  today  part  of  the  collection  of  Bogota's  Museo 
del  Oro.  It  is  this  collection — gathered  from 
every  part  of  Colombia's  gold-working  regions 
— that  provides  the  bulk  of  the  500  pieces  coming 
to  Field  Museum. 

Though  confined  to  a  strip  of  the  Cordill- 
era about  the  size  of  the  state  of  California,  Col- 
ombia's gold-producing  tribes  were  separate  and 
distinct  groups,  to  the  degree  that  their  lan- 
guages were,  in  most  cases,  mutually  unintellig- 
ible. Their  customs,  religious  practices,  and — as 
we  may  expect — art  forms  and  styles  were  also 
highly  individual. 

Notable  among  these  styles  were  the 


Available  at  the  Museum  Shop  is  the  striknigh/  beautiful 
Gold  of  El  Dorado,  jointly  published  by  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  Histoni  and  Harry  N.  Abrams.  The 
J 1  Vi-by-tb-inch  volume  carries  28  four-color  iUustrations  of 
artifacts  to  be  seen  m  theshoie.  $9.95,  leith  10%  discount 
for  Members. 


Tairona  of  the  far  northern  coastal  region;  Sinu, 
midway  betvyeen  present-day  Panama  and  Ven- 
ezuela; Quimbava  and  Muisca,  of  the  central 
Cordillera;  Calima,  Tolima,  Popayan,  Tierraden- 
tro,  and  San  Agustin,  somewhat  further  south; 
and  Tumaco  and  Narifio,  whose  regions  extend 
into  Ecuador. 

The  visitor  to  "Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The 
Heritage  of  Colombia"  will  have  the  opportunity 
to  study  at  close  hand  the  intricate  goldwork  of 
the  native  Colombian  tribes,  to  marvel  at  their 
sophisticated  artistn,',  and  the  technologically 
advanced  methods  that  were  employed  to  pro- 
duce them. 


The  presentation  of  the  exhibit  at  Field 
Museum  is  under  the  direction  of  Michael 
Moseley,  associate  curator  of  Middle  and  South 
American  archeology  and  ethnology,  assisted  by 
Robert  Feldman,  research  archeologist.  The  ex- 
hibit designer  is  David  Edquist.  The  U.S.  tour  is 
sponsored  by  Chemical  Bank,  with  additional 
support  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the 
Humanities  and  the  National  Endowment  for  the 
Arts,  and  has  been  organized  by  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History.  Further  support  for 
presentation  of  the  exhibit  at  Field  Museum  has 
been  provided  by  a  grant  from  the  Robert  R. 
McCormick  Charitable  Trust.  D 


Jaguar  of  cast  gold, 
in  the  Sinu  stifle. 
From  Museo  del  Oro. 
Length  U. 1cm  (4^/4  in.). 


Diadem.  Made  of  cut  and  hammered  gold;  Early  Calima 
style.  Height  27cm  (20%  in.).  From  Museo  del  Oro.  The 
Early  Calima  style,  coinciding  with  the  time  of  Christ,  is 
typified  by  large  hammered  ornaments. 


.»l- 


26 


April  and  May  at  Field  Museum 


(April  15  through  May  15) 


New  Exhibits 


"Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia."  The  legend  of 
El  Dorado  has  intrigued  mankind  for  centuries.  Find  out  the  real 
story  by  viewing  more  than  500  of  the  priceless  treasures  that 
inspired  the  legend.  Some  believe  these  glittering  artifacts  are 
among  the  most  beautiful  objects  ever  created  in  gold.  Jewelry, 
musical  instruments,  hunting  and  fishing  gear,  and  cooking 
utensils — all  crafted  from  the  valuable  metal — acquaint  us  with 
a  lost  civilization.  This  extraordinary  exhibit  is  the  largest  display 
of  Colombian  archeology  ever  to  leave  Latin  America.  Exhibit 
curator:  Michael  Moseley:  designer:  David  Edquist  Opens  April 
25,  Hall  27,  2nd  floor. 

"Patterns  of  Paradise."  This  major  exhibit  of  dramatic  and  rare 
bark  cloth,  or  tapa,  illustrates  the  people  and  history  of  exotic 
tropical  islands.  See  how  Pacific  peoples  took  the  ancient  task 
of  making  cloth  out  of  tree  bark  and  elaborated  it  into  an  art 
form  of  distinctive  and  remarkable  styles.  The  Exhibit  also  in- 
cludes wood  carvings,  masks,  costume  accessories,  and  tools. 
Most  of  the  200  artifacts  are  from  Field  Museum's  world- 
famous  Oceanic  collections.  Conceived  and  created  by  the 
Museum's  own  staff.  Exhibit  curator:  John  Terrell;  designer: 
Donald  Skinner.  Through  June  8,  Hall  26,  2nd  floor. 

Continuing  Exhibits 

"Anniversary  Exhibit."  This  exhibit  shows  visitors  earth's  di- 
verse, yet  universal  life  forms.  "A  Sense  of  Wonder "  introduces 
the  four  natural  history  disciplines:  anthropology,  botany,  geol- 
ogy, and  zoology.  The  story  of  Field  Museum's  early  years  is  told 
through  "A  Sense  of  History."  Finally,  "A  Sense  of  Discovery" 
displays  some  unique  features  of  the  natural  world.  Hall  3, 
1st  floor. 


"The  Hall  of  Chinese  Jades."  Superb  examples  of  jade  art  span 
6,000  years  of  Chinese  history.  An  exhibit  in  the  center  of  the  hall 
illustrates  ancient  jade  carving  techniques.  Hall  30,  2nd  floor. 

"The  Place  for  Wonder."  Touch,  handle,  sort,  and  compare 
natural  history  specimens  in  this  gallery.  Carefully  trained 
Museum  volunteers  help  guide  exploration.  Open  weekdays  1  to 
3  p.m.;  weekends  10  a.m.  to  noon  and  1  to  3  p.m.  Ground  floor, 
near  cafeteria. 

New  Programs 

Members'  Preview  to  "Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of 
Colombia."  Field  Museums  breathtaking  new  exhibit  is  open 
exclusively  for  Members  a  day  prior  to  public  viewing.  After 
touring  the  exhibit,  join  the  Museum  staff  for  refreshment  and 
conversation.  Free  admission  with  Members'  card  or  invitation. 
Thursday,  April  24, 1  p.m.-9  p.m..  Hall  27. 

Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Film  Lecture:  "Colombia:  From 
Spanish  Main  to  the  Amazon."  Filmmaker  George  Lange  nar- 
rates this  journey  to  Colombia,  a  land  of  beautiful  mountains, 
tropical  rain  forests,  remote  Indian  villages,  and  modern  cities.  A 
naturalist  and  lepidopterist,  Mr.  Lange  is  a  guest  lecturer  on 
wildlife  and  primitive  tribes  at  New  York  University.  Tickets 
(Members,  $2.00;  nonmembers,  $3.50)  may  be  purchased  at 
the  West  Door  before  the  program.  Friday,  April  25,  8  p.m., 
Simpson  Theatre. 

"Members'  Nights."  How  is  a  special  exhibit  put  together?  What 
topics  are  Museum  scientists  investigating?  How  does  the  staff 
handle  fragile  specimens?  You"ll  find  the  answers  to  these  ques- 

(Continued  on  back  cover) 


Members'  Nights 

Mark  your  calendar  now  for  Members '  Night,  Field  Museum 's 
annual  open  house  for  its  Members,  to  be  held  this  year  on 
Thursday  and  Friday,  May  1  and  2. 

As  in  the  past,  free  round-trip  charter  bus  service  will 
be  provided  between  the  Loop  and  the  Museum.  For  the  first 
time  this  year,  these  CTA  buses,  marked  FIELD  MUSEUM, u;/// 
originate  at  Union  Station  with  stops  at  Northwestern  Sta- 
tion, Washington  and  State,  Washington  and  Michigan, 
Adams  and  Michigan,  and  Balbo  and  Michigan.  Two  buses 
will  be  making  continuous  circuits,  beginning  at  5:45  and 
passing  at  about  15-minute  intervals,  until  the  Museum 
closes. 

Plenty  of  free  parking  is  available  in  Soldier  Field  lots 
and  the  Plantarium  parking  area,  with  a  shuttle  bus  continu- 
ously circling  the  areas  and  collecting  and  discharging 
passengers  at  the  Museum 's  south  steps. 

From  6  p.m.  to  8  p.m.  the  Museum's  food  service  area 
will  provide  complete  dinners  or  snacks. 

So  plan  your  Members '  Night  visit  now,  reacquaint 
yourself  with  your  Museum.  Entertainment  and  educational 
programs  will  be  offered  each  evening  from  6  until  10  p.m. 


27 


ILLINOIS    NATURAL    HIST3RY 
SURVEY    LIB    RM    19& 
MiSTURAL    RESOURCES    3UIL0ING 
URBANA    ILL    61801 


April  and  May  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  couer) 


tions,  and  many  more,  at  the  Museum's  celebrated  behind-the- 
scenes  open  house.  The  staff  has  planned  a  wide  range  of 
activities  exclusively  for  Members  —  special  displays,  lectures, 
games,  tours,  and  demonstrations.  Research  areas  are  open 
7:00-10:00  p.m.  Thursday,  May  1,  and  Friday,  May  2. 

"Tahuantinsuyo:  Music  and  Dance  of  the  Andes."  Come  hear 
this  group  of  performers  play  ancient  music  of  the  Andes. 
Costumed  folkdancers  and  slides  of  the  mountains  enhance 
this  program  of  music  and  folklore.  Planned  in  conjunction  with 
"Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia, "  and  funded  in 
part  by  MEH,  a  federal  agency.  Tickets  (Members,  $2.00;  non- 
members  $3.50)  are  available  at  the  West  Door  before  the 
performance.  Saturday,  May  3,  2:30  p.m.,  Simpson  Theatre. 

Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Field  Trips.  These  one-day  trips  to 
local  areas  of  ecological  and  biological  interest  resume  in  May. 
For  a  field  trip  brochure,  call  922-3136. 

Spring  Adult  Education  Classes.  These  noncredit,  college-level 
courses  in  anthropology  and  the  natural  sciences  begin  April  15. 
Advance  registration  by  mail  is  requested.  For  more  informa- 
tion, call  922-0733. 


ture,"  with  Doug  Jones,  April  19.  "The  Majestic  Rhine,"  with  John 
Roberts,  April  26. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Each  Saturday  and  Sunday 
between  1 1  a.m.  and  2  p.m.,  the  Museum  offers  a  variety  of  free, 
exhibit-related  tours,  demonstrations,  and  films  on  current 
natural  history  topics.  Check  the  "Weekend  Sheet"  available  at 
Museum  entrances  for  program  times  and  locations. 

Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  here  is  to 
determine  which  one  of  a  pair  of  apparently  similar  specimens  is 
harmful  and  which  is  not  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire 
bat,  a  headhunter's  axe,  a  poisonous  mineral,  or  a  deadly  mush- 
room from  its  benign  look-alike.  Ground  floor,  no  closing  date. 

On  Your  Own  at  Field  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets, 
adult-  and  family-oriented,  are  available  for  25'  each  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  scientific  interests 
and  backgrounds  are  needed  to  work  in  the  various  depart- 
ments. For  more  information  call  Volunteer  Coordinator,  922- 
9410,  ext  360. 


Continuing  Programs 

Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lectures.  "Visit"  a  distant  corner  of  the 
world  by  attending  these  free  90-minute  programs,  narrated  by 
the  filmmakers  themselves.  Held  every  Saturday  in  April  at  2:30 
p.m.  in  the  Simpson  Theatre  (enter  through  West  Door),  these 
programs  are  recommended  for  adults.  "The  Hawaiian  Adven- 


April  and  May  hours.  In  April,  the  Museum  is  open  daily  9  a.m.  to 
5  p.m.,  except  Fridays.  During  May,  the  Museum  is  open  every 
day  9  a.m.  to  6  p.m.,  except  Fridays.  On  Fridays,  throughout  the 
year,  the  Museum  is  open  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Obtain  a 
pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor. 

Museum  telephone:  (312)  922-9410 


Indians  panning  for  gold.  From  Historia  General  y  Natural  de  las  lndias,i)y  Gonzalo  Fernandez  de  Ouiedo  (1535-43).  For  more  on  exhibit 
"Cold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia  "see  page  7. 


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Courtesy  The  American  Museum  ot  Natural  History 


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Field  Museum 

of  Natural  History 

Bulletin 

May  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  5 


Editor  Designer:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


CONTENTS 
3  Field  Briefs 

Field  Museum  Tours 
Members'  Nights:  May  1  and  2 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

Presidettt  and  Director:  E.  Leland  Webber 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr. 

chairman 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr. 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H    Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Mrs.  Edward  F.  Swift 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Lake  Michigan  Ravines 
on  Chicago's  North  Shore 

By  Rohbin  C.  Moraii 

12  Six  Decades  of  Change 

in  the  Palos  Woodlands 

By  Phil  Hanson,  head,  Group  Programs  Division,  Department 
of  Education 

14  Volunteers'  Party 

16  Our  Environment 

20  Field  Museum  from  the  Ground  up 

A  Pictorial  Essay 

24  Why  Not  Eat  Insects? 

By  Vincent  M.  Holt 

27  May  and  June  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  Coming  Events 


COVER 

May  fJowerf  in  Morton  Arboretum,  Lisle  Illinois,  about  35  miles  southwest  of 
do-amtoum  Chicago.  Pink-streaked  lohite  flowers  arc  spring  beauty  (Claytonia 
virginica);  also  shown  are  the  blue  violet  (Viola  papilionacea)  and  yellow  violet 
fV.  pensylvanica).  Photo  by  John  Kolar 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bullelin  (USPS  898-9401  is  published  monthly. 
except  combined  July  August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  Histoty, 
Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive.  Chicago.  II  60605.  Subscriptions:  $6.00 
annually.  $3.00  for  schools.  Museum  membership  includes  Bullelin  subscription. 
Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are  their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the 
policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manuscripts  are  welcome.  Museum  phone; 
(312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579  to  Field  Museum  of  t^latural 
History.  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive.  Chicago.  11.  60605  ISSN: 
0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


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FIELD  BRIEFS 


Ambassador  Chai  Zemin  at  Field  Museum:  At  left,  Ed  Bedno,  chair- 
man of  the  Depmrtment  of  Exhibition,  s/u'U's  the  ambassador  a  scale  model  of 
the  coming  exhibit  of  Chinese  bronzes,  opening  August  20.  Shoivn  with 
them  is  William  G.  Swartchild,  jr.,  chairman  of  the  Field  Museum  Boardof 
Trustees.  Above,  Zemin  poses  with  three  other  visitors  whom  he  met  in  the 
"hands-on"  gallery,  the  Place  for  Wonder. 


Chinese  Ambassador  Visits 

Chai  Zemin,  ambassador  of  the  People's 
Republic  of  China  to  the  United  States, 
visited  Field  museum  on  March  11.  High- 
lights of  his  tour  of  the  Museum  included 
"Ancient  Chinese  Culture"  (Hall  24), 
"China  in  the  Ch'ing  Dynasty"  (Hall  32), 
and  a  look  at  a  scale  model  prepared  by  the 
Department  of  Exhibition  for  the  exhibit 
"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Ex- 
hibition from  the  People's  Republic  of 
China,"  opening  August  20. 

Ambassador  Zemin  has  represented 
his  country  since  January,  1979.  This  was 
his  first  visit  to  Chicago. 

Museum  Hosts  Third  Annual 
Spring  Systematics  Symposium 

Saturday,  May  10,  is  the  meeting  day  at 
Field  Museum  for  the  third  annual  Spring 
Systematics  Symposium.  The  theme  this 
year  will  be  "Biotic  Crises  in  Ecological 
and  Evolutionary  Time."  Symposium 
chairman  is  Matthew  N.  Nitecki,  curator 
of  fossil  invertebrates.  Among  the  eight 
symposium  speakers  this  year  are  two 
Field  Museum  curators:  Larry  G.  Mar- 
shall, assistant  curator  of  fossil  mammals, 
who  will  speak  on  "Biological  Crises  of 
Invasion,"  and  Michael  E.  Moseley,  as- 


ican  archeology  and  ethnology,  who  will 
speak  on  "Living  with  Crises;  Human  Per- 
ception of  Processes  and  Time." 

Other  speakers  include  David  N. 
Schramm,  of  the  University  of  Chicago: 
"Astrophysical  Framework  for  life," 
Hugh  M.  Raup,  of  Harvard  University: 
"Physical  Disturbance  in  the  Life  of 
Plants,"  Daniel  S.  Simberloff,  of  Florida 
State  University:  "Community  Effects  of 
Introduced  Species,"  Stanley  M.  Aw- 
ramik,  of  the  University  of  California, 
Santa  Barbara:  "The  Pre-Phanerozoic 
Ecosphere — Three  Billion  Years  of  Crises 
and  Opportunities,"  Alfred  G.  Fischer,  of 
Princeton  University:  "Biotic  Crises,  Cli- 
mates, and  Earth  History,"  Lawrence 
B.  Slobodkin,  of  the  State  University  of 
New  York  at  Stony  Brook:  "The  Determi- 
nance  and  Effects  of  Ecological  and  Evolu- 
tionary Response  Rates — a  Summary  and 
Prospectus." 


Recent  Grants 

Grants  from  three  federal  agencies  —  the 
National  Science  Foundation  (NSF),  the 
National  Endt)wment  for  the  Humanities 
(NEH),  and  the  National  Aeronautics  and 
Space  Administration  (NASA)  —  have  re- 
cently been  received  in  support  of  projects 


The  NSF  grants  include  the  following: 
(1)  $43,267  in  support  of  the  project  "Care 
and  Use  of  the  Systematic  Collection  of 
Mammals,"  under  the  direction  of  Patricia 
W.  Freeman,  assistant  curator  and  head. 
Division  of  Mammals.  (2)  $43,016  in  sup- 
port of  the  project  "Geochronologv  of 
Mammal-Bearing  Cenozoic  of  Argen- 
tina," to  establish  a  radioisotope  time  scale 
for  certain  fossil  beds  in  Argentina.  Prin- 
cipal investigator  for  the  project  is  Larry 
G.  Marshall,  assistant  curator  of  fossil 
mammals.  (3)  A  $12, 110  grant  in  support  of 
the  NSF  Summer  Anthropology  Course 
for  high-ability  high  school  students, 
"Student  Science  Training,"  under  the 
direction  of  Harriet  M.  Smith,  instructor. 
Department  of  Education.  (4)  A  $6,874 
award  for  equipment  to  improve  the 
Botany  Laboratory.  Project  director: 
William  C.  Burger,  curator  and  chairman. 
Department  of  Botany. 

The  NASA  grant  of  $18,965  is  in  sup- 
port of  research  entitled  "Refractory 
Inclusions  in  the  Murchison  Meteorite." 
Principal  investigator  is  Edward  J.  Olsen, 
curator  of  mineralogy.  The  NEH  grant,  in 
the  amount  of  $332,079,  is  in  support  of 
the  project  "Marine  Hunters  and 
Fishers,"  a  major  renovation  and  reinstal- 
lation of  Hall  10.  Edward  Bedno,  chairman 
of  the  Department  of  Exhibition,  is  pro- 

i»irf  rlir*arfor  .^ 


FIELD  MUSEUM  TOURS 

1980  TourPackoges  Exclusively  for  Members 


Stonchcmif,  lo  he  visited  by  Field  Museum 's  tour  of  England  and  Wales. 

The  Classical  Lands: 

Greece  and  the  Grecian  Isles 

September  7-26 

Under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Donald  Whitcomb,  Field 
Museum  assistant  curator  of  Near  Eastern  archeology  and 
ethnology,  this  tour  will  visit  Athens,  the  sites  of  ancient 
Corinth  and  Mycenae,  Delphi,  Olynipia,  Knossos,  Santorini, 
the  island  ot  Rhodes,  Miletus,  Skiros,  Piraeus,  and  numerous 
other  sites  of  interest  in  the  history  of  western  civilization 
and  art. 

Following  six  days  and  five  nights  in  Athens,  the  sleek 
luxury  motor  yacht  Cauo  D'Oro,  with  30  passenger  cabins, 
will  take  tour  members  across  the  shimmering  waters  of 
the  Aegean  to  some  of  the  loveliest  and  most  historically 
interesting  of  the  Greek  Isles. 

Cost  of  the  tour — $3,425  (plus  a  $300  donation  to 
Field  Museum) — is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and 
includes  round  trip  air  fare  via  American  Airlines  between 
Chicago  and  Greece.  First  class  accommodations  will  be  used 
throughout.  The  package  includes  almost  all  meals  (all  meals 
while  aboard  the  Cavo  D'Oro),  motorcoach  fares,  baggage 
handling,  all  transfers,  taxes  (except  airport  tax),  and  tips 
(except  to  tour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges  and  admissions 
to  special  events.  Advance  deposit:  $300  per  person. 


4f dlL  • 


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■^■=^ 


Participants  in  Field  Museum's  September  tour  of  Greece  and  the  Crecun 
Isles  will  spend  part  of  their  time  cruising  the  Aegean  aboard  the  luxury 
4    cruise  ship  Cavo  D'Oro. 


Tour  of  England  and  Wales 
June  14 -July  J 

Highlights  of  this  unique  tour — which  includes  sites  of 
geologic,  historic,  and  aesthetic  interest — are  Stonehenge,  the 
4,000-year-old  marvel  of  prehistoric  engineering;  the  Roman 
ruins  at  Bath;  Weston-super-Mare,  a  popular  seaside  resort  on 
the  Bristol  Channel;  the  incomparably  lovely  Lake  District; 
Winchester  Cathedral;  and  many  other  beautiful  old  castles, 
cathedrals,  and  manor  houses  of  Wales  and  England.  Three 
nights  will  be  spent  in  London,  to  enjoy  the  cultural  amenities 
of  the  city.  Leader  of  this  tour  (which  is  limited  to  25)  will  be 
Dr.  Bertram  Woodland,  curator  of  petrology,  and  a  native 
of  Wales. 

Cost  of  the  tour — $2,340  (plus  a  $300  donation  toField 
Museum) — is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and  includes 
round  trip  air  fare  between  Chicago  and  London.  First  class 
accommodations  will  be  used  throughout.  The  package 
includes  breaktast  and  dinner  daily,  chartered  motorcoach, 
baggage  handling,  all  transfers,  taxes  (except  airport  tax),  and 
tips  (except  to  tour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges  and 
admissions  to  special  events.  Advance  deposit:  $250 
per  person. 


Wisconsin's  Baraboo  Range 
June  21-22 


Dc-.-ih  Lake 


Dr.  Edward  Olsen,  curator  of  mineralogy,  will  lead  tour 
members  through  the  Baraboo  Range  and  along  the  shores 
and  hinterland  of  beautiful  Devil's  Lake.  The  Baraboo  Range 
is  of  special  interest  as  a  moitadiiock — what  is  left  of  an  ancient 
mountain  range  and  which  now  stands  out  above  the  younger 
rocks  and  sediments.  The  range  consists  of  quartzite — more 
than  one  billion  years  old — which,  although  compressed  in 
places  into  vertical  folds,  retains  the  original  sedimentary 
structures.  The  mountains  were  further  modified  by  glaciers, 
forming  the  lake  and  the  picturesque  glens,  and  changing 
the  course  of  rivers. 

Overnight  accommodations  and  meals  will  be  at  the 
Dell  View  Motel,  located  in  a  lovely  pine  grove  on  Lake 
Delton,  at  Wisconsin  Dells.  Hiking  clothes  are  strongly 
recommended  for  the  scheduled  hikes.  The  trip  is  not  suitable 
tor  children,  but  younger  people  interested  in  natural  history 
are  welcome.  The  Cost  of  the  Baraboo  trip  is  $95  per  person 
(double  occupancy). 


Member^  N^ihts 

Field  Museum's  Open  House  for  Members 

May  I,  2 


Ever  wanted  to  see  how  a  museum  exhibit  is  put  together,  to  chat 
A/ith  a  curator  about  Museum  research,  to  write  your  name  in 
::gyptian  hieroglyphics,  or  just  to  explore  the  Museum's 
aboratories,  poke  your  nose  into  the  preparation  rooms  and 
:ollection  areas?  Your  chance  for  that  experience  is  on  May  1 
Jnd  2,  from  6:00  to  10;00  p.m.  —Field  Museum's  annual  open 
louse  for  all  its  members.  There  will  also  be  demonstrations, 
^ames,  lectures,  slide  shows,  and  other  activities  to  satisfy  the 
nterests  and  tastes  of  every  age  group — from  kindergarten  on  up. 

In  addition,  this  year  we  will  be  fortunate  to  have  two 
Tiajor  temporary  exhibits  on  view  during  Members'  Nights:  "Pat- 
:ems  of  Paradise,"  in  Hall  26  and  "Gold  of  El  Dorado,"  in  Hall 
?7.  Special  entertainment  will  be  provided  by  the  South  Ameri- 
:an  group  "Tahuantinsuyo,"  which  will  perform  traditional 
Tiusic  and  dance  of  the  Andes. 

As  in  the  past,  free,  round-trip  charter  bus  service  will  be 
jrovided  between  the  loop  and  the  Museum.  These  CTA  buses, 


marked  FIELD  MUSEUM,  will  originate  at  Union  Station,  and 
stop  at  Northwestern  Station.  Washington  and  State,  Wash- 
ington and  Michigan,  Adams  and  Michigan,  and  Balbo  and 
Michigan.  Two  buses  will  run  circuits,  beginning  at  5:45  and 
continuing  at  15-minute  intervals  until  the  Museum  closes. 

To  achieve  an  equitable  distribution  of  visitors,  it  is 
suggested  that  those  whose  last  name  begins  with  a  letter  be- 
tween A  and  L  come  on  Thursday,  May  1,  and  those  between  M 
and  Z  come  on  Friday,  May  2. 

Plenty  of  free  parking  is  available  in  Soldier  Field  lots  and 
the  Planetarium  parking  area,  with  a  shuttle  bus  continuously 
circling  the  areas  and  collecting  and  discharging  passengers  at 
the  Museum's  south  steps. 

From  6  p.m.  to  8  p.m.  the  Museum's  food  service  area 
will  provide  complete  dinners  or  snacks. 

All  Field  Museum  Members  and  their  families  are  urged 
to  come,  and  to  reacquaint  themselves  with  their  Museum.         s 


MEMBERS'  NIGHTS 
May  1,2 


Scenes  and  activities  on  Members' 
Nights  of  former  years.  (Specific  ac- 
tivities shown  may  not  necessarily  be 
repeated  this  year.) 


:^ 


A 


Lake  Michigan  Ravines 
On  Chicago's  North  Shore 


By  ROBBIN  C.  MORAN 


Just  North  of  Chicago,  between  Waukegan 
and  Evanston,  is  a  series  of  ravines  running  into 
Lake  Michigan.  These  ravines  had  their  origins 
about  12,000  years  ago  while  the  last  continental 
glacier  was  melting  northward.  The  retreat  of  the 
glacier  left  tons  of  rock,  gravel,  sand,  and  espe- 
cially clay  in  a  series  of  consecutive  ridges, 
moraines,  paralleling  the  present  Lake  Michigan 
shoreline. 

In  the  moraine  adjacent  to  Lake  Michigan, 
in  some  places  75  feet  high,  the  scenic  lake  bluffs 
and  ravines  have  formed.  This  moraine  extends 
from  Waukegan  to  Glencoe,  some  20  miles 
south.  North  of  Waukegan  and  south  of  Glencoe 
is  the  low,  flat  sandy  plain  of  Glacial  Lake 
Chicago,  where  no  moraine  was  present  and  the 
ravines  were  thus  unable  to  form. 


During  the  past  12,000  years  the  ravines 
have  been  eroding  themselves  deeper  and  deep- 
er into  this  morainic  ridge,  until  some  extend  as 
much  as  a  mile  inland.  Erosion  has  not  been 
accomplished  by  a  gradual  downslope  move- 
ment of  soil  throughout  the  year;  rather,  the  ero- 
sion occurs  primarily  in  the  spring,  when  large 
chunks  of  earth  fall  all  at  once  into  the  ravine 
bottom.  Since  spring  in  this  area  is  customarily  a 
very  wet  time  of  year,  there  is  abundant  moisture 
between  the  clay  particles  in  the  moraine,  which 
facilitates  slippage  and  the  resultant  movement 
of  huge  amounts  of  earth.  The  large  chunks  that 
break  loose  are  then  slowly  eroded  into  the 
streams  of  the  ravine  bottoms,  and  the  sediments 
are  washed  away  into  Lake  michigan. 

The  same  kind  of  erosion  occurs  on  the 


Aerial  vieiv  of  fyp'ical  north  shore  ravine  as  it  meets  Lake  Michigan  shoreline .  White- trunked  papier  birch  fBetula  papyrifera), 
seen  here  on  left  slope,  is  typically  found  further  north.  Photo  courtesy  Illinois  State  Geological  Survey. 


clay  bluffs  adjacent  to  the  lake;  huge  amounts  of 
earth  slide  downhill,  often  causing  problems  for 
lakeshore  property  owners.  Geologists  have 
known  since  the  late  1800s  that  lake  bluff  erosion 
occurs  in  regular  cycles.  More  recently,  scientists 
from  the  Illinois  Geok)gical  Survey  gathered  old 
records  together  and  determined  erosion  rates 
for  various  locations  along  the  Lake  Michigan 
shoreline.  Survey  results  showed  that  at  the  vil- 
lage of  Lake  Bluff  an  average  of  259  feet  of  clay 
bluff  has  eroded  away  since  1872'.  Lakefront 
property  owners,  unfortunately,  have  no  way  to 
completely  stop  the  erosion;  it  can  only  be 
slowed  down  by  various  means. 

For  many,  a  main  attraction  of  the  ravines 
is  their  growth  of  dense  green  forest.  The  ravines 
are  particularly  interesting  to  local  botanists  be- 
cause of  the  presence  of  plants  that  are  generally 
more  apt  to  be  found  further  north,  such  as  paper 
birch  (Betula  pmpyrifera),  white  pine  (Pinus 
ftrobus),  arborvitae  or  white  cedar  {Thuja  occidcn- 
talis),  Canadian  buffalo-berry  (Shcphardia 
canadensis),  star-flower  (Trim talis  borealis),  and 
small  horsetail  {Equisctum  scirpoides).  Botanists 
consider  these  more  northern  plants  as  "relicts," 
in  the  sense  that  they  were  probably  more  wide- 
spread and  abundant  in  the  Chicago  Area  when 
the  climate  was  cooler  and  the  vegetation  had  a 
more  northern  aspect  in  early  post-glacial  times. 
Since  the  northward  retreat  of  the  glaciers,  the 
climate  has  warmed  and  consequently  the 
ranges  of  these  plants  in  the  Chicago  Area  have 
become  restricted  to  the  deep,  shaded  ravines 
and  cooler  habitats  near  Lake  Michigan. 

Also  of  interest  to  local  botanists  are  the 
only  known  colonies  of  beech  {Fa\;iis  ^^nvidifolia) 
in  northern  Illinois.  Apparently  beech  does  not 
survive  on  the  drier  oak  woodlands  and  prairie 
uplands  of  the  Chicago  area.  Rather,  it  prefers 
the  cool,  moist  north-facing  ravine  slopes. 

The  ravines  also  furnish  habitats  for  16 
native  plant  species  that  are  considered  to  be 
threatened  or  endangered  in  Illinois,  including 
the  American  dog-violet  (Viola  conspersa),  a 
species  of  bluegrass  (Pan  lan^iiida),  downy  Sol- 
omon's seal  (Poly^onatum  pubcscens),  a  black- 
seeded  rice  grass  (Oryzopsis  racemosa),  and  pale 
vetchling  (Latln/rus  ochwleucus).  The  heart- 
leaved  plantain  (Phvitago  cordata)  is  another  en- 
dangered plant  known  to  occur  in  the  ravines.  It 
was  collected  in  1880  at  a  ravine  in  Highland  Park 
by  the  early  Chicago  botanist  Rev.  E.J.  Hill,  and 
has  not  been  found  since.  The  heart-leaved  plan- 
tain grew  in  the  shallow  ravine  bottom  streams 
and  required  a  constant  supply  of  cold,  unpol- 


Doivny  ycUmv  violet 
f  Viola  pubescens) 
ami  the  ivooley  blue 
violet  (V.  sororiaj, 
^•howii  on  p.  U,  are  the 
tuv  commonest  violets 
in  therai'ines.  Photo  by 
Robbin  C.  Moran. 


luted  groundwater  throughout  the  growing  sea- 
son. Presumably  this  plant  has  vanished  from 
the  ravines  as  the  result  of  various  man- caused 
disturbances  to  the  ravine  bottom  streams,  such 
as  sewage  and  rain  water  runoff  pipes,  ditching, 
and  so  forth. 

Several  different  plant  communities,  or 
habitats,  occur  within  the  ravine  ecosystem.  To- 
pography largely  determines  their  presence  or 
absence  in  any  particular  locality.  On  the  ravine 
slopes  occur  a  rich  and  diverse  plant  community 
dominated  by  sugar  maple  (Acer  sacchariim), 
basswt)od  (Tilia  amcricana),  and  red  oak  (Qucrcus 
rubra).  Forest coveron  the  flat  uplands  surround- 


1.  Berg,  R.C.  and  C.  Collinson.  1976.  Bluff  Erosion, 
Recession  Rates,  and  Volumetric  Losses  on  the  Lake 
Michigan  Shoreline  in  Illinois."  Illinois  Geological  Sur- 
vey Environmental  Notes,  7b. 


Robbin  Moran  is  a  graduate  student  in  Ix^tany  at  Southern 
Illinois  University  at  Carbondale.  His  study  of  the  area 
under  consideration  iiere  was  largely  funded  by  the  Lake 
Forest  Garden  Club. 


Because  of 

oivqjicking  by 

zealous  wildflower 

lovers,  the  i/ellow 

lady's  slipper  orchid 

(Cypridedium 

calceolus)  (s  now 

extremely  rare  in 

the  rai^ities.  Photo 

by  Robbin  C. 

Moran. 


ing  the  ravines  consists  primarily  of  shagbark 
hickory  (Can/a  ovata)  and  several  species  of  oaks 
such  as  bur  oak  {Qucrcus  macrocarpa) ,  Hill's  oak 
(Q.  cUipsoidalis) ,  red  oak  (Q.  rubra),  white  oak  (Q. 
alba),  and  swamp  white  oak  (Q.  bicolor).  The  clay 
bluffs  facing  Lake  Michigan  provide  a  different 
set  of  plant  communities. 

Those  who  live  near  the  ravines  are  famil- 
iar with  the  beautiful  spring  wildflowers  dis- 
played there.  The  first  spring  blooming  plants  in 
mid-April  are  bloodroot  {San;^uiiiaria  catmdcnsis) 
and  hepatica  {Hcpatica  acutiloba),  followed  by  the 
great  white  triiiium  (Trillium ^randiflorum),  which 
often  whitens  entire  ravine  slopes.  By  mid-Mav 
other  prominent  blooming  wildflowers  are  trout 
lily  {Erythronium  albidum),  bellwort  (Uvularia  per- 
foliata),  Jack- in- the  pulpit  [Arisaema  triphyllum), 
wooley  blue  violet  {Viola  sororia),  downy  yellow 
violet  (V.  puhescens),  wood  anemone  {Anemone 
quinqiicfolia),  blue  phlox  {Phlox  divaricata), 
pussey's-toes   {Antcnnaria  plantaginifolia), 


baneberry  or  doll's-eyes  {Actaca  alba),  and  many 
others.  About  75  percent  of  the  ravine  wildflow- 
ers come  into  bloom  and  complete  their  life  cycle 
before  mid-June.  This  adaptation  of  early  spring 
flowering  allows  the  plants  to  manufacture  food 
while  sunlight  is  available  on  the  forest  floor 
before  the  overhead  trees  have  produced  a  dense 
shade.  Plants  with  this  life  strategy  are  called 
ephemerah.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  ravine 
wildflower  populations  come  into  flower  approx- 
imately two  weeks  later  than  wildflower  popula- 
tions a  few  miles  inland.  This  is  because  tempera- 
tures nearer  the  lake  are  cooler  in  springtime. 

Since  spring  ephemerals  manufacture 
food  by  photosynthesis  for  only  a  short  time 
during  spring,  picking  or  gathering  them  greatly 
reduces  their  chance  for  survival,  for  not  enough 
time  remains  for  them  to  manufacture  the  food 
that  is  to  be  stored  in  roots,  corms,  or  bulbs  for 
the  following  year's  growth.  Several  plants  have 
been  greatly  reduced  in  the  ravines  by  zealous 
over-  picking.  The  showy  lady's-slipper  orchid 
{Cypnpcdium  rc;>;iiuie)  has  apparently  been  extir- 
pated from  the  ravines  for  this  reason. 

At  the  base  of  some  ravine  slopes  occurs  a 
special  type  of  plant  community  known  as  a  seep 
—  where  calcareous  groundwater  percolates,  or 
"seeps,"  out  of  the  ground.  The  soOs  in  these 
areas  are  saturated  with  water  year-round  and 
are  a  nuisance  to  hikers  who  may  sink  well  above 
their  ankles  in  mud.  Special  environmental  con- 
ditions created  by  the  abundance  of  calcareous 
groundwater  allows  many  interesting  plants  to 
occur.  Skunk  cabbage  {Symplocarpus  feotidus),  the 
ecological  dominant  of  many  seeps,  can  be  used 
as  an  "indicator  plant"  because  it  typically  out- 
lines the  boundaries  of  the  seep  habitat.  This 
hardy  plant  sends  up  its  unusual  flowers  during 
the  last  cold  days  of  March,  when  other  spring 
wildflowers  are  still  dormant.  The  skunk  cab- 
bage flower  is  surrounded  by  a  thick  fleshy  hood 
known  to  botanists  as  a  spathc.  This  reddish- 
purple  structure  enables  the  plant  to  absorb  the 
sun's  rays  and  keep  the  developing  flower  within 
at  a  warmer  temperature  than  the  outside  air. 

The  witch-hazel  {Hamamelis  virginiana)  is 
the  most  abundant  shrub  in  the  ravines  and  on 
the  uplands.  It  is  unique  among  ravine  trees  and 
shrubs  in  that  it  produces  its  small  yellow  flowers 
in  late  September  and  earlv  October.  All  other 
ravine  trees  and  shrubs  flower  in  the  spring.  A 
good  field  identification  character  of  witch  hazel 
is  its  horizontal  layered  pattern  of  spreading 
branches.  The  shrub's  layered  branching  pattern 
is  a  survival  strategy  which  allows  the  leaves  to 
intercept  the  small  amount  of  sunlight  that  man- 
ages to  filter  down  through  the  tall  trees  in  mid- 
summer. Other  shrubs  frequently  found  in  the 
ravines  are  maple-  leaved  viburnum  {Viburnum 
accrifolium),  downy  arrowwood  (V.  rafiiiesquia- 


Wooley  blue  violet  (Viola  sororia)  and  the  downy  yellow  violet  C  V.  pubescens),  shown  on  p.  9,  are  the  two  commonest  violets 
in  the  ravines.  (Photo  by  Robbin  C.  Moran.) 


mini),  black  haw  (V.  pniiiifolinni),  prickly  goose- 
berry {Ribes  cynosbati),  and  shadbush  or  ser- 
viceberry  {Amclanchicr  laevis). 

The  original  vegetation  of  the  lake  bluffs 
was  primarily  forest;  lake  erosion,  however,  has 
now  greatly  reduced  the  extent  of  this  forest.  An 
open  shrub  community  with  numerous  prairie 
forbs  occurred  interspersed  among  the  forests  on 
the  lake  bluffs.  Common  shrubs  in  these  open 
lake  bluff  habitats  included  Canadian  buffalo- 
berry  {Shcplianiia  canadensis),  red  osier  dogwood 
(Comus  stolonifcra),  common  juniper  (Juiiipcnis 
communis),  red  cedar  (/.  vir^iniaiia),  and  New  Jer- 
sey tea  {Ceanotlnis  americanus).  Some  of  the 
prairie  forbs  that  occurred  on  the  clay  bluffs  were 
seneca  snakeroot  (Poly^ala  scnc^^a),  smooth  aster 
(Aster  laevis),  golden  Alexanders  (Zizia  aurea), 
toadflax  {Comandra  richardsiana),  and  stiff  gentian 
{Gentiaiia  quiiiquefolia).  Today,  because  of  severe 
erosion  by  Lake  Michigan,  many  of  the  lake 
bluffs  are  bare  morainic  clay  with  only  a  few 
foreign  weeds  growing  on  their  steep  slopes. 
Nevertheless,  as  lake  levels  recede,  the  steep  clay 
bluffs  will  erode  to  more  gentle  slopes,  enabling 
plants  to  get  a  foothold  and  begin  the  process  of 
succession  to  a  mature  forest. 

Constantly  changing  the  ravine  ecosys- 
tem are  various  disturbances  caused  by  man: 
power  lines,  rainwater  runnoff  pipes,  and  hous- 


ing subdivisions;  fragile  ravine  slopes  are  tram- 
pled and  exotic  plants  are  introduced.  In  the 
course  of  my  botanical  study  of  the  ravines  I  was 
unable  to  find  17  plants  that  had  been  recorded 
there  by  earlier  botanists.^  Presumably,  many  of 
these  plants  have  been  eliminated  by  various 
forms  of  human  disturbance  (the  heart-leaved 
plantain  for  example).  I  did  find  in  the  ravines  36 
plants  that  are  introduced  aliens  to  the  United 
States.  One  of  these  alien  plants,  goutweed  {Ae- 
gopodiuni  podagraria),  poses  a  threat  to  native 
plants  that  li\'e  in  the  ra\'ine  bottoms,  for  it  often 
forms  dense  colonies,  excluding  all  the  indige- 
nous species.  Other  exotic  introduced  plants  are 
also  establishing  themselves  in  the  ravines  and 
taking  the  place  of  native  ravine  species.  Several 
years  from  now,  certainly,  the  ravine  flora  will  be 
different  in  manv  respects  from  that  which  pre- 
vails today.  Despite  these  disturbances,  the 
ravines  with  their  many  interesting  plants  and 
spectacular  scenery  will  continue  to  be  a  unique 
feature  t)f  the  Chicago  area's  natural  landscape. 


2.  Moran,  R.C.  1978.  "Vascular  Flora  of  the  Ravines 
along  Lake  Michigan  in  Lake  County,  Illinois."  The 

Michi^;iw  Rotcini^t.  17(4):123-140. 


II 


Six  Decades  of  Change 
In  the  Palos  Woodlands 


By  PHIL  HANSON 


Vintage  Photographs,  typically,  have  not  only 
a  nostalgic  charm,  they  can  also  be  of  unique 
value  to  the  historian  or — in  the  case  of  the 
photos  reproduced  here — to  the  natural  histo- 
rian and  ecologist. 

Such  photos  of  outdoor  scenes  may  reveal 
features  in  the  landscape  that  have  been  altered, 
dramatically  or  subtly,  during  the  intervening 
years,  or  thev  may  reveal  conditions  that  have 
vanished  entirely  or,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
have  remained  essentially  unchanged  for 
perhaps  a  millennium. 

What  can  often  cast  an  old  photograph 
into  special  perspective  is  comparison  of  it  with  a 
contemporary,'  one.  By  comparing  two  photo- 


graphs taken  from  the  same  vantage  point  many 
years  apart,  they  become  more  than  just  a  record 
of  a  place  at  two  different  times.  It  is  possible,  by 
comparing  the  photographs,  to  recognize  not 
only  what  kinds  of  change  have  taken  place,  but 
to  determine  how  fast  these  changes  have  oc- 
curred, and  to  what  extent. 

The  changes  are  frequently  obvious:  a 
housing  development  now  covers  what  was 
once  a  farm,  an  expressway  transects  an  old 
neighborhood.  In  other  cases  the  changes  may 
be  more  subtle.  Areas  that  have  escaped  de- 
velopment change  at  a  more  leisurely  pace:  A 
forest  edge  may  have  crept  a  few  more  yards  into 
an  abandoned  pasture,  or  the  spring  torrents  of 
many  years  may  have  established  a  new  course, 
with  the  former  route  outlined  by  abandoned 
oxbows.  Such  changes  usually  occur  so  slowly 
and  so  subtly  that  they  escape  our  attention  until 
we  are  confronted  by  the  dramatic  evidence  of 
photos  taken  at  great  intervals  of  time. 

The  vintage  photographs  shown  here, 
taken  from  the  Field  Museum  archives,  date 
mostly  from  1916  or  before.  All  are  of  what  is  now 
known  as  the  Palos  area,  in  southwestern  Cook 
County,  some  20  miles  from  downtown  Chicago. 
The  highly  scenic  Palos  area,  with  its  pleasing 
vales  and  hills,  differs  markedly  from  the  table- 


Palos  Woodland  stream .  Old  vieu' above, 
present vieic at  right.  Bridgein  oldvie^c 
has  disappeared. 


12 


Palos  Park  Hill.  Left:  As  it  appeared 
on  October  21,  1914.  Belozc:  as  it  ap- 
pears some  66  years  later. 


top  flatness  of  most  of  the  citv  of  Chicago.  In 
Palos,  the  Des  Plaines  Ri\'er  Valley  and  the  Sag 
Valley  have  cut  a  hundred  feet  into  the  flat  sur- 
face, and  streams  draining  from  the  highlands  to 
the  valley  floors  ha\e  created  a  whole  range  of 
rugged  mini-landscapes.  It  was,  and  is  today,  an 
ideal  setting  for  the  landscape  photographer. 

Because  much  of  the  land  in  these  pictures 
was  acquired  by  the  Cook  County  Forest  Pre- 
serve District  manv  vears  ago,  the  Palos  area 
remains  open  land  today.  The  forest  shown  in 
the  old  photos  still  exists  today;  but  we  can  see, 
by  comparing  the  old  with  the  contemporar)', 
how  much  change  has  actually  occurred  during 
the  six  and  a  half  decades  or  more. 

The  absence  of  identifying  landmarks  in 
landscape  photographs  can  make  it  difficult  or 
impossible  to  pinpoint  the  precise  locations  of 
the  photos.  Manv  old  photographs,  then,  must 
be  appreciated  solely  for  their  aesthetic  or  nos- 
talgic appeal.  The  location  of  some  of  these 
photos  was  facilitated  by  notes  on  the  original 
jackets  of  negatives  and  from  information  pro- 
vided by  members  of  the  Palos  Historical 
Society. 


Phil  Hanson  is  head.  Group  Programs  Division, 
Department  of  Education. 


Road  through  Palos  Woodlands. 
Above:  about  65  i/ears  ago,  tracks  of 
interurban  railway  icere  in  regular 
use.  Left:  the  route  is  transformed, 
with  disappearance  of  railroad  tracks 
and  construction  of  hardtop  road- 
way. 


13 


Photos  by 
Division  of  Photography 


Clockwise,  from  top  left  William  G. 
Swartchild.  Jr. ,  chairman  of  the  Field  Museum 
Beard  of  Trustees,  cotij^ratutates  Carol  Kopeck, 
volunteer  in  Public  Relations  (555  hours  in 
1979):  Sue  Carole  DeVale,  visiting  assistant 
curator  of  ethnomusicology  and  a  professional 
harpist,  performs  on  the  harp;  Swartchitd-with 
Field  Museum  President  E.  Leland  Webber  in 
background-congratulates  Sol  Curaoitz,  volun- 
teer in  anthropology  and  photography  (523 
hours):  Swarthchild  congratulates  Roger  Larson, 
volunteer  in  Accounting  (500+  hours):  Miss 
Piggy  (Anthony  Pfeiffer  of  Education)  provider 
some  Ught  entertainment;  Ron  Holdman ,  ofPu  r 
chasifig,  relaxes  between  renditions  on  the 
drums;  Field  Museum  Chorus,  with  Kathy 
Laughlin  (Accounting),  Gordon  Baird  (Geol- 
ogy), Sarah  Derr  (Mammals),  Mari  Mullen  aiui 
Alice  Lewis  (Education),  Roberta  Becker 
(Botany),  Sue  Ann  Harrison  and  Darlene  Peder- 
son  (Education);  Invertebrates  Curator  Alan 
Solem  congratulates  Elizabeth-Louise  Girardi, 
14  volunteer  in  Invertebrates  (30V+  hours). 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 

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ft      . 

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At  10:45  a.m.  on  Tuesday, 
November  27,  Kenneth  Doudt  of  Re- 
edsport  was  attacked  and  bitten  while 
surfing.  The  attack  came  as  Doudt  lay  on 
his  surfboard  facing  seaward,  about  100 
yards  from  the  beach  in  12  to  15  feet  of 
water.  The  shark  seized  the  board  and 
Doudt  in  its  jaws. 

After  a  bit  of  shaking,  in  which 
Doudt  suffered  massive  wounds  to  chest, 
abdomen,  and  left  side,  the  shark  sank 
into  the  water  and  Doudt  came  free.  He 
swam  to  his  board  and  came  to  the  beach 
on  the  next  wave  where  friends  helped 
him  till  emergency  crews  arrived. 

After  surgery,  Doudt  made  a  re- 
markable recovery  and  was  released  from 
a  Portland  hospital  several  weeks  later.  It 
was  reported  he  will  suffer  little  perma- 
nent impairment  from  the  ordeal. 

Following  the  attack,  biologists  took 
measurements  of  the  bite  on  the 
surfboard  which  measured  12%  inches 
across  and  8-''4  inches  in  from  the  board's 
edge.  Shark  experts  confirmed  that  the 
attack  was  made  by  a  great  white  shark 
(the  species  oi  jaws  fame)  and  estimates 
of  its  size  range  from  12V2  to  16  feet. 

The  attack  was  believed  to  be  one  of 
territorial  defense  rather  than  feeding. 
White  sharks  apparently  establish  tem- 
porary territories  covering  a  several-mile 
area  where  they  may  stay  for  several  days 
to  a  week  and  sometimes  longer  before 
moving  on.  They  will  drive  all  other  large 
animals  from  one  of  these  temporary 
homesites. 

Although  not  abundant,  white 
sharks  have  been  reported  as  far  north  as 
Alaska.  Some  may  be  in  the  Oregon 
coastal  area  off  and  on  all  the  time  but 
during  the  summer  many  travel  north- 
ward in  the  warmer  tuna  waters  offshore. 
The  warm  currents  usually  break  up  in 
the  fall,  and  upwelling  of  deeper,  colder 
water  inshore  breaks  down,  leaving 
warmer  water  along  the  beach  from  Sep- 
tember to  December.  This,  combined 
with  fall  salmon  runs  entering  coastal 
rivers  and  the  seal  population  in  the  area, 
may  lure  white  sharks  to  the  coastal  zone. 

Only  one  other  confirmed  shark  at- 
tack is  recorded  off  Oregon's  shores.  It 
occurred  several  years  ago  off  the  mouth 
of  the  Umpqua  River.  In  that  attack  a 
large  shark  bit  away  the  rear  part  of  a 
surfboard,  but  its  rider  was  un- 
harmed— Oregon  Wildlife. 


Aspen  as  Cattle  Feed 

The  package  of  meat  in  the  supermarket 
looks  like  any  other,  except  for  the  label: 
U.S.  prime  aspen-fed  beef. 

"Harrumph,"  the  suspicious  shop- 
per says.  "Probably  need  a  saw  to  cut  it." 

Wrong.  In  fact,  the  beef  cooks  up 
juicier,  more  tender  and  flavorful  than 
traditional  corn-fed  meat. 


You  won't  find  the  wood-fed  beef  in 
the  markets  just  yet.  But  it  may  not  be 
long.  Following  extensive  tests,  the  U.S. 
Food  and  Drug  Administration  has  re- 
cently approved  the  use  of  aspen  as  an 
animal  feed. 

In  Bigfork,  Minnesota,  farmer  Chet 
Cook  shovels  pellets  of  aspen  into  feed 
troughs.  His  beef  cattle  see  it's  dinner 
time,  mosey  across  the  frozen  barnyard, 
and  begin  gobbling  up  the  wood. 

"They  can't  get  enough  of  it,"  Cook 
says  with  a  satisfied  grin. 

The  aspen  has  been  pulverized  into  a 
sawdustlike  consistency,  dried  and 
densified  into  chewable  pellets.  The 
aspen  alone  has  only  a  small  protein 
content — about  2  percent — not  enough  to 
maintain  an  animal.  However,  it  can  be 
combined  with  alfalfa  or  other  grasses  to 
produce  a  higher  protein  feed. 

Steaks  from  beef  cattle  fed  the 
aspen-alfalfa  blend  in  University  of 
South  Dakota  tests  several  years  ago  were 
sampled  by  a  panel,  said  the  university's 
Les  Kamstra,  one  of  the  leading  re- 
searchers in  the  field. 

"Surprisingly  enough,  it  had  a 
higher  rating  than  normal  (corn-fed 
beef),"  he  said.  "It  was  juicier,  more 
tender  and  tasty  than  corn-fed.  The  test 
panel  liked  the  wood  steaks  best." 

Livestocks  like  the  wood  so  well  that 
their  daily  intake  had  to  be  restricted 
during  tests.  This  should  come  as  no  sur- 
prise, say  Kamstra  and  others  who  have 
worked  with  the  aspen. 

"We  should  have  known  this  be- 
cause wild  animals  have  eaten  aspen 
since  the  beginning  of  time,"  said  Cook, 
who  is  also  a  small-scale  logger.  He  noted 
that  deer  and  grouse  both  thrive  on 
aspen  bark  and  buds. 

Ted  Niskanen  of  the  Minnesota  De- 
partment of  Economic  Security  said 
farmers  in  Europe  cut  brush  and  trees  for 
use  as  feed  during  droughts  or  other  hard 
times  when  conventional  feeds  were  un- 
available. 

But  why  would  a  farmer  want  to  feed 
his  cattle  aspen  instead  of  hay  or  other 
conventional  feeds? 

Cost,  the  men  say.  Kamstra  believes 
aspen  pellets  can  be  produced  cheaper 
than  hay  from  material  that,  until  now, 
was  wasted.  Sawdust  from  sawmills  and 
tree  tops  and  branches  left  behind  during 
logging  operations — which  are  30  per- 
cent of  the  tree — have  simply  not  been 
utilized.  Cook  said. 

Niskanen  and  others  admit  the  im- 
mediate future  of  wood  pellets  may  be  as 
a  fuel  rather  than  a  feed.  The  same  pellet 
that  cows  munch  burns  like  coal  in  fur- 
naces. But  if  costs  of  other  feeds  increase, 
or  their  availability  decreases,  say,  from  a 
drought,  aspen  could  be  become  a  lucra- 
tive alternative,  Niskanen  says. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  the  testing 
of  wood  fiber  as  a  feed  began  in  South 
Dakota,  Kamstra  noted.  "There  was  a  ter- 


rible shortage  of  hay  in  1976,"  caused  by 
a  drought,  he  said. 

In  addition,  the  South  Dakota  De- 
partment of  Game,  Fish  and  Parks  began 
extensive  cutting  of  mature  aspen  forests 
in  the  state  to  improve  wild  game 
habitat.  A  use  had  to  be  found  for  all 
wood.  Thus,  Kamstra's  program  began. 

Mature  trees  can  be  ground  up  in 
chippirvg  machines,  then  pulverized, 
Kamstra  said,  utilizing  the  entire  tree. 
However,  tests  have  shown  there  is 
much  more  protein  in  immature  trees 
and  limbs.  Niskanen  believes  farmers 
may  someday  plant  and  harvest  forests  of 
small,  pole-like  aspen  trees. 

"Because  juvenile  growth  has  the 
highest  level  of  nutrients,  we  will  see 
plantations  of  forests  for  cattle  feed," 
Niskanen  predicts. 

"It's  going  to  cause  a  new  use  of  poor 
quality  farmland.  And  there  will  be  a 
more  complete  utilization  of  the  biomass, 
rather  than  leaving  the  tree  tops  out 
there,"  he  said. 

Mechanized  harvesting  equipment 
will  lower  costs  and  facilitate  such  oper- 
ations, he  predicted. 

Meanwhile,  Cook  has  been  feeding 
his  cattle  blends  of  aspen  off  and  on  since 
1976,  and  has  actively  encouraged  devel- 
opment of  the  budding  industry,  despite 
skepticism  and  criticism. 

"We  were  laughed  at.  People  said  we 
were  out  of  our  tree,"  Cook  said, 
straightfaced. 

"It's  no  joke  now." — Doug  Smith, 
Duluth  News-Tribune 


Congress  Considers  Future  of 
Three  Endangered  Species 

Whether  or  not  a  butterfly  species  and 
two  plant  species  will  be  allowed  to  sur- 
vive is  a  question  now  being  considered 
by  Congress.  The  three  species,  classified 
as  endangered  by  the  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service,  receive  protection 
under  the  Endangered  Species  Act  ot 
1973.  All  are  known  only  from  Califor- 
nia's Antioch  Dunes.  The  dunes  repre- 
sent a  unique,  now-decimated  habitat 
which  borders  the  San  Joaquin  River  in 
Contra  Costa  County,  east  of  San  Fran- 
cisco Bay.  Formerly  occupying  an  area  of 
about  500  acres,  only  about  80  acres  re- 
main, and  much  of  this  has  been  sub- 
stantially altered. 

The  endangered  Antioch  Dunes 
buttertly,  known  as  Lange's  metalmark 
{Apodcmia  mormo  hitigei),  is  a  small, 
multi-colored  species,  belonging  to  the 
Riodinidae  family,  which  flies  during  the 
late  summer  months.  As  a  caterpillar,  it 
feeds  on  only  one  species  of  plant,  a 
buckwheat  {Eriogonum  Intifolium  var.  ai4- 
riculatum).  The  total  Lange's  metalmark 
population  has  recently  been  estimated 
at  about  400.  Sand  excavation  and 
rototilling  has   reduced   the   butterfly  17 


k\:  "i  ^ 


Ph. 


ii-niM  Hii"«ii'  Uiiiiia). 


pt>pul.ilion  diri'vlly  .ind  through  destruc- 
tion o<  the  bucKwhcJt  pl.int 

The  two  endangered  Antioch  Dunes 
plants  are  the  Contra  Costa  wallflower 
(f  r-,  -iliilum  var  iiny"'''''''""'  •'f' 

jh.-  [lunr-i  evening  primrose 

1  Both  were 
■pecies  List  in 
iv/S  Approxim.itelv  IMH)  plants  of  the 
cream-colored  primrose  survive.  The 
condition  of  the  yellow-blossomed 
wallflower,  with  only  about  250  individ- 
uals left.  IS  even  more  precarious.  Both 
plants  received  publicity  in  l''7'J  when 
they  were  portrayed  on  the  "endangered 
flora  ■  U.S.  commemorative  postage 
stamp  series. 

These  endangered  organisms  can 
survive  only  if  the  undeveloped  dune 
remnants  are  preserved,  say  con- 
servationists. The  Fish  and  Wildlife  Ser- 
vice has  secured  options  to  purchase  the 
two  remaining  parcels,  which  total  56 
acres.  Purchase  price  is  approximately 
$2.2  million  The  area  is  prime  industrial 
land,  accounting  for  the  high  purchase 
price  Once  obtained,  the  remnenls 
would  become  a  national  wildlife  refuge. 
Conservationists  point  out  that  attempts 
could  then  be  made  to  increase  popula- 
tions of  the  three  species  so  they  could 
eventually  be  removed  from  the  En- 
dangered Species  List. 

Acquisition  of  the  Antioch  Dunes 
cannot  proceed,  however,  without  Con- 

•mI.  Monies  must  be  ap- 

le  U.S.  Land  and  Wafer 
t  und.  In  view  of  the  con- 
ine  of  both   butterfly  and 
nservationists 
.ir.  '-•ill  to  .ippro- 

pnate  lund>  is  v  ress 

and  IS  passed  pr:  ^  n  of 

the  purchase  options.  It  the  purchase  is 
not  .ii^t^r,iv>-,1  .-l-iim  conservationists,  the 
du  almost  certainly  be  de- 

vfu  ,,,,  ,  ■■    'Itered,  resulting  in 

extinction  t.  inpcred  species. 

The  Langr  ^  -'vvr^ark  is  only  one  of 
)l  eight  protected  Unitecl  States  endangered 


gressior  ■ 
propn.r 
Co: 
tin 

w  ' 


or  threatened  butterflies.  Six  of  these  in- 
habit California,  a  region  of  increasing 
human  population  and  diverse  habitat. 
All  these  butterflies  generally  inhabit 
unique  and  deminishing  habitats  which 
.111'  homo  for  other  very  rare  species. 

One  such  butterfly,  the  El  Segundo 
blue  {liipliilotfS'  /'iiffciifi'.'i  iiUyni),  is  a  Los 
.•\ngelos  resident,  it  survives  at  only  two 
locations.  One  is  a  2-acre  parcel  owned 
and  protected  by  Standard  Oil  of  Califor- 
nia. The  species  flies  in  greater  abun- 
dance at  the  second  site,  part  of  the  Los 
Angeles  International  Airport. 

Motors  Banned  in  Grand  Canyon 

\ttcr  10  years  of  public  involvement  and 
three  of  research,  the  National  Park  Ser- 
vice (NTS)  has  issued  its  management 
plan  lor  the  Grand  Canyon  section  of  the 
Colorado  River.  The  plan,  which  begins  a 
five-year  phase-out  of  motorized  craft 
this  year,  has  brought  strong  opposition 
from  concessionaires  and  applause  from 
conservation  groups,  nps  Director  Wil- 
liam Whalen  stated  that  a  trip  down  the 
Whitewater  section  through  the  Canyon 
should  be  "the  epitome  of  a  wilderness 
experience  on  a  river  in  America."  The 
plan  hopes  to  protect  the  wilderness  by 
spreading  out  use  over  a  longer  running 
season,  instituting  environmental 
safeguards  (limiting  boatload  size,  car- 
rying out  waste),  and  increasing  the 
number  of  private  permits  (as  opposed  to 
commercial). 

The  Boating  Industry  Association,  a 
trade  association  of  marine  manufactur- 
ers, charges  that  nps  is  "limiting  the  river 
whitewhater  experience  to  those  with  the 
time,  money,  and  endurance  to  take  a 
float  trip."  adding  that  the  running  time 
will  double  and  cost  increase  60-70  per- 
cent on  the  235-mile  trip.  However,  the 
new  plan  will  permit  trips  from  one  to  20 
days'  duration. 


Ice  Conditioners? 

Researchers  at  the  University  of  Dela- 
ware are  studying  a  new  version  of  an  old 
way  to  keep  cool.  Old  way:  put  a  block  of 
ice  in  front  of  a  fan  to  cool  the  air.  New 
way:  freeze  a  special  salt  water  gel  at 
night  when  energy  rates  and  demand  are 
lower,  then  use  it  during  the  day  for 
cooling.  Because  the  chemical  involved 
freezes  at  approximately  55  degrees  F.,  a 
home  central  air  conditioning  system  can 
be  used  to  freeze  it,  then  to  fan  air  across 
the  frozen  gel.  Wide  use  of  such 
"storage-assisted  air  conditioning  sys- 
tems" could  reduce  utility  companies'  oil 
consumption  and  investment  in 
generators  to  meet  peak  loads.  The 
estimated  initial  cost  of  $680  could^save 
about  $230  a  year  on  electricity  bills. 
Marketing  is  three  years  away,  say  re- 
searchers. 


Wildlife  Imports  Increase 

U.S.  imports  of  wildlife  items  skyroc- 
keted more  than  9,000  percent  between 
1972  and  1977,  reports  traffic  (Trade 
Records  Analysis  of  Flora  and  Fauna  in 
Commerce),  the  trade  monitor  for  World 
Wildlife  Fund-US.  Game  trophy  imports 
rose  589  percent;  skin  and  hides,  2b  per- 
cent; live  animals,  2  percent;  and  plants 
446  percent,  to  total  164.6  million  items  in 
1977. 

Although  the  U.S.  was  the  first  of  51 
countries  to  ratify  the  Convention  of 
International  Trade  in  Endangered 
Species  (cites),  the  federal  government  is 
having  a  difficult  time  monitoring  trade 
increases  at  the  nation's  8  wildlife  and  14 
plant  ports  of  entry.  For  example,  the 
Miami  airport  only  has  one  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  inspector  at  any  one  time 
to  check  hundreds  of  incoming  ship- 
ments. TRAFFIC  hopes  to  serve  as  a 
privately-operated  data  source  to  support 
and  improve  government  efforts  to  re- 
gulate the  boom.  Initial  efforts  will  focus 
on  species,  such  as  sea  turtles,  macaws, 
cacti,  orchids,  elephants  (ivory),  and 
crocodilians  (leather),  hardest  hit  by  the 
international  trade. 


Environmental  Protection  Agency 

Announces  "Seek  and  Find" 

Hazardous  Waste  Hot  Line 

The  Midwest  Regional  Office  of  the  U.S. 
Environmental  Protection  Agency  (epa) 
recently  announced  a  new  program, 
"Seek  and  Find,"  to  uncover  improperly 
managed  hazardous  waste  disposal  sites 
throughout  Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan, 
Minnesota,  Ohio,  and  Wisconsin.  By 
calling  the  toll-free  Hazardous  Waste 
Hotline,  citizens  can  report  known  or 
suspected  sites  where  hazardous  waste 
material  has  been  improperly  disposed  of 
or  stored. 

"Hazardous  waste  generation  in  the 
United  States  has  increased  dramatically 
since  the  end  of  World  War  II,  "  said  )ohn 
McGuire,  U.S.  epa  regional  adminis- 
trator, "but  the  impacts  of  improperly 
managed  hazardous  wastes  have  only  re- 
cently been  recognized  by  the  public  as  « 
critical  issue.  Until  all  such  waste  sites 
are  located,  potential  threats  to  our  health 
and  the  environment  may  sit  unattended 
in  fields  and  warehouses  like  ticking  time 
bombs.  The  potential  danger  is  too  great 
to  ignore." 

The  "Seek  and  Find  "  program  will 
enable  citizens  to  report  suspected  dis- 
posal sites  in  their  community  via  the 
Hazardous  Waste  Hotline,  a  toll-free 
number.  Illinois  residents  may  call  800 
972-3170,  and  residents  outside  Illinois 
may  call  800  621-3191,  Monday  through 
Friday,  8:30  a.m.  to  4:30  p.m. 


ijardous  wastes  may  be  found  in 

Ids,  abandoned  buildings,  along 

;s,   or  near  wooded   areas  and 

ands.    Warning   signs   include 

pes  of  55-gallon  drums,   strong 

I  odors,   oil  or  sludge  spills  on 

waterways,  and  dead  or  dying 

on  in  fields  and  woodlands. 

igle  sign  or  combination  of  signs 

be  reported,"  said  McGuire. 

zjis   should   not   attempt   to  in- 

4'  on  their  own,  as  toxic  fumes, 

le  chemicals,  or  explosive  mate- 

i  be  present." 

ardous   wastes   are   discarded 

i<    substances,   usually  stored  in 

rm  in  55-gallon  steel  drums,  and 

alimable,   reactive,  corrosive  or 

I    nature.   Improper  disposal  of 

ngerous  wastes  can  cause  con- 

Dn  of  drinking  water  supplies, 

s^is,   fires  and  air  pollution,  and 

a  people  and  property  through 

i  indirect  contact. 

h|  EPA  estimates  that  of  the  30-40 

nions  of  hazardous  wastes  gener- 

iriually  in  the  U.S.,  only  10  percent 

jj    properly    managed.     Major 

airs  include  the  primary  metals, 

iiland   inorganic  chemicals,   elec- 

itig,   textiles,   petroleum  refining, 

.ilj'er  and  plastics  industries.  Ohio, 

1,  Illinois  and  Indiana  are  among 

n's  top  ten  states  in  the  genera- 

azardous  wastes. 

ee  brochure  on  the  "Seek  and 

ogram  is  available  in  single  or 

0  'ies  through  the  Office  of  Public 
n'ion,  U.S.   epa.  Region  V,  230 

1  l>arbom  St.,  Chicago,  111.  60604, 
cling  (312)  353-2072. 


3f 


w  ves,  much  like  loners  in  society, 

ave  little  to  howl  about.  Wolves 

io  lot  belong  to  a  pack  rarely  re- 

i 

n 


ts  Howl  at  Minnesota  Wolves 


howling  from  other  wolves, 
esting  aspect  of  wolf  behavior 

leleasons  why  wolves  howl  or  re- 
■nt  were  investigated  over  a 
period  by  research  biologists 
wolf  howls  in  the  Superior  Na- 
est  of  northern  Minnesota, 
d  Mech,  a  research  biologist 
I  J.  S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 

re  H.  Harrington,  a  biologist  with 
on  of  Biological  Sciences,  State 

rs  <i  of  New  York,  conducted  the 
t«  determine  what  role  howling 
he  maintenance  of  wolf  terri- 
biologists  imitated  wolf  howls 
esponses  from  radio-collared 
at  could  be  located, 
s  office  in  St.  Paul,  Mech,  re- 
intemationally  as  a  wolf  expert, 
al  replies  and  behavior  of 
solves — in  response  to  human 
were  analyzed  from  eight  wolf 
ai.  ten  lone  wolves.  He  said  pre- 


,t 
ze 

V( 

?d 


vious  work  by  other  researchers  showed 
that  free-ranging  wolves  respond  to 
human  imitations  of  howling  as  well  as 
or  better  than  playbacks  of  recorded 
howling  by  real  wolves.  Wolves  appar- 
ently have  the  ability  to  distinguish  indi- 
vidual voices.  Agonistic  responses  from 
Cams  lupus  indicates,  in  the  opinion  of 
Mech,  that  wolves  regard  the  human  im- 
itated call  as  howling  from  alien  wolves. 

During  the  experimental  howling 
sessions,  the  biologists  noted  that  wolves 
remained  near  their  original  site  after 
howling,  or  retreated  if  they  remained 
silent.  The  difference  apparently  was  re- 
lated to  the  problems  of  avoiding  both 
accidental  and  eliberate  encounters,  and 
to  "cost/benefit  considerations"  related  to 
resources  at  the  wolves'  locations,  ac- 
cording to  Mech. 

He  said  howling  enables  packs  to 
avoid  one  another.  The  major  benefit  of 
replying  to  howling  of  alien  wolves  is  the 
avoidance  of  an  "accidental"  encounter. 
The  biologist  reports  that  accidental  en- 
counters have  been  observed  among  wolf 
packs  in  Minnesota.  Wolves  are  keenly 
defensive  of  and  sensitive  to  territorial 
rights  established  by  packs.  Conflicts  can 
arise  when  alien  wolves  enter  a  territory. 
"By  howling,"  Mech  said,  "resident 
wolves  advertise  their  position,  allowing 
both  resident  and  intruder  to  modify 
their  movements  to  minimize  the  pro- 
bability of  an  accidental  meeting."  The 
potential  cost  of  replying,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  be  much  greater  than  the  en- 
ergy required  to  howl  because  "adver- 
tisement announces  the  so-called  adver- 
tisers' location  and  may  subject  them  to 
attack,  even  by  intruding  wolves,"  he 
said. 

Observations  have  been  made  in 
which  intruding  wolves  located  and  at- 
tacked other  wolves  by  following  their 
adversaries'  tracks  in  snow.  Howling  also 
could  be  used  this  way  by  wolves.  Thus 
an  important  potential  cost  of  replying  to 
howling  is  the  possibility  of  attack. 

During  the  Minnesota  study,  the 
howling  rate  varied  significantly 
throughout  the  year.  A  midwinter  in- 
crease was  correlated  with  the  breeding 
season,  especially  for  groups  containing 
breeding  animals.  A  second,  larger  in- 
crease in  reply  rate  started  in  midsum- 
mer, peaked  about  August,  and  declined 
to  a  low  in  early  winter.  The  decline  in 
autumn  howling  response  occurred 
sooner  in  a  pack  whose  pups  developed 
faster,  Mech  reports. 

Study  findings  indicate  the  howling 
reply  rate  was  significantly  higher  among 
all  packs  and  lone  wolves  attending  prey 
kills.  The  more  food  remaining  at  a  kill, 
the  higher  the  reply  rate  was. 

Kills  are  valuable  resources  to 
wolves — resources  not  easily  replaced, 
according  to  the  biologists.  Capturing 
and  killing  prey  is  a  difficult  and  danger- 
ous task.  Most  encounters  between  wolf 


packs  and  prey  are  unsuccessful.  In  other 
words,  wolves  generally  must  work  hard 
when  hunting  for  their  dinners.  A  de- 
cline in  the  deer  population  in  the  area 
where  the  study  was  conducted  reduced 
the  number  of  available  prey,  so  most 
kills  were  fully  utilized  by  wolves.  (De- 
fense of  a  kill  would  be  expected,  Mech 
said,  for  even  subordinate  captive  wolves 
can  successfully  defend  their  food  from 
other  more  dominant  wolves.) 

During  the  study,  larger  wolf  packs 
replied  more  often  than  did  smaller 
packs.  Howling  enables  a  strung-out 
pack  to  reassemble,  the  biologists  said. 
For  wolves  separated  from  their  pack,  the 
howling  rate  was  dependent  on  the  age 
and  social  role  of  pack  members.  Specific 
behaviors  noted  during  howling 
sessions — including  movements  away 
from  the  howler — indicated  that  howling 
was  related  to  interpack  agonism,  Mech 
said.  Moreover,  three  of  the  major  factors 
influencing  the  reply  rate  also  sig- 
nificantly affect  the  level  of  agonism  to- 
ward strangers,  namely:  pack  size,  social 
role,  and  breeding  season. 

Two  other  factors,  kills  and  pups,  are 
both  important  pack  resources  neces- 
sitating exclusive  occupancy  of  a  site, 
Mech  said.  The  high  reply  rates  at  sites 
containing  kills — or  pups — constitute 
strong  circumstantial  evidence  that 
howling  is  important  in  the  maintenance 
of  a  territory. 

Howling  was  considered  most  effec- 
tive in  mediating  avoidance  in  two  situ- 
ations: (1)  when  two  packs  approached  a 
common  area  of  overlap;  (2)  when  a  pack 
returned  to  an  area  that  was  little  used  for 
weeks  in  which  scent  posts  (spoor) 
would  have  lost  effectiveness  in  deter- 
ring strangers  (alien  wolves). 

Both  scent  marking  and  howling  ap- 
parently are  important  in  spacing.  How- 
ever, scent  marking  and  howling  differ  in 
their  roles  and  are  complementary;  scent 
marking  being  long  term  and  site- 
specific;  howling  being  immediate  and 
long  range,  in  the  words  of  Mech. 

Lone  wolves  which  do  not  possess 
territories  rarely  replied  to  human 
howling  during  the  study,  Mech  said. 
Lone  wolves  shared  the  "low  profile"  be- 
havior of  surplus  animals  in  a  territorial 
population.  Interpack  howling  sessions 
may  continue  for  hours,  he  said.  In  Min- 
nesota, three  adjacent  packs  were  heard 
howling,  apparently  to  each  other,  each 
from  within  its  own  territory.  After  such 
sessions  packs  moved  apart,  suggesting 
their  interpack  howling  occurs  in  an 
agonistic  context,  and  thus  may  be  in- 
volved in  territorial  maintenance. 

The  study  answered  questions  about 
the  role  and  importance  of  howling  in 
territory  maintenance.  Radioed  wolves 
replied  to  494  of  1,783  trials  during  which 
biologists  imitated  wolf  howls.  Of  the 
replies,  390  were  recorded  and  349  were 
of  adequate  quality  for  analysis.  19 


FIELD  MUSEUM /ram  the  ground  up 


V/£fV  FROM    THE  M!CHIGAH  AVEHUE  APPROACH 


Architect's  drawings,  rendered  in  1908,  of  the  Grant  Park  quarters  proposed  for  the 
Museum.  Note  that  the  frorU  of  the  building  here  faces  west.  The  ctt\/  subsequently 
rejected  a  proposal  to  construct  the  building  at  the  north  end  of  Grant  Park.  When  it  urns 
finally  built,  at  the  park's  south  end,  the  building  was  turned  90  degrees,  to  face  north. 


On  August  27,  1915,  construction  of  the 
building  is  ivell  underway.  (It  had 
begun  a  month  earlier,  July  26.)  Plainly 
visible  are  buildmgs  still  to  be  seen  65 
years  later  along  Michigan  Avenue, 
notably  the  Blackstone  Hotel  (opened 
1910),'at  the  right.  The  lllmois  Central 
Station,  'with  the  peaked  tozver,  left,  ivas 
demolished  in  1974. 


May  4,  1917.  Twenty  months  have  elapsed  since  the 

above  photo  was  taken.  The  foundation  now  appears 

20  complete. 


FiFTV-NiNE  Years  Ago,  on  May  2, 1921,  Field 
Museum  celebrated  a  kind  of  housewarming — 
the  opening  of  its  superb  new  quarters  in  Grant 
Park,  it  had  been  just  27  years — less  a  month — 
since  the  Museum's  original  building  had 
opened  itf  doors  in  Jackson  Park,  just  four  miles 
south  of  the  new  Grant  Park  location. 
But  the  original  building,  c]uickly  con- 
structed for  use  during  the  World's  Columbian 
Expcisition,  was  doomed  to  self-destruct  in  a 
very  short  space  of  time.  In  little  more  than  a 
decade,  for  example,  the  building's  exterior  was 
sloughing  off,  creating  an  eyesore  that  was  im- 
practical and  too  costly  to  correct.  The  floor  space 
in  the  Jackson  Park  building  also  soon  proved  to 
be  inadequate  for  the  rapidh'  expanding  collec- 
tions. The  only  sensible  solution,  the  trustees 
decided,  was  to  find  new  quarters.  The  result 
was  the  construction  of  the  present  building, 
begun  on  July  26, 1915.  The  photos  reproduced 
here  tell  part  of  the  story  of  its  construction  and 
of  the  relocation  of  the  collections. 


June  5,  1919.  The  main  structure  of  the 
Museum  huildinsy  (behind  the  camera)  is  nmc 
essentialh/  complete.  Shown  here  is  the 
uniier^rounii  raihcay,  subsequently  covered  by 
landfill,  used  to  convex/  coal  to,  and  ashes  from, 
the  Museum's  original  furnaces.  The  railway 
connected  with  a  much  larger  system,  many 
miles  in  length,  that  still  underlies  much  of 
downtozon  Chicago. 


August  21,  1917.  Two  years  since  ground  loas 
broken:  the  building  is  taking  shapv. 


About  1920.  What  must  have  been  a  sea 

of  mud  surrounds  the  completed  Museum. 

The  undergrou)id  railway  (shown  above) 

has  been  covered.  Landfill  extending  into 

Lake  Michigan  is  still  to  be  added  on 

three  sides  of  tin'  building. 


'  "^ ; ^" i\s A  """ 

clcphantf,  s/iof  by  Carl 
Akclc}/  in  1906  and  put 
on  display  in  1909,  ride 
i^nominioush/  on 
railroad  flatcar  from  the 
lackson  Park  buildins; 
to  the  neiv  quarters  in 
Grant  Park,  four  miles 
north.  The  taller  of  the 
tzvo  elephants  has  been 
temporarily  decapitated 
for  the  journe\/. 


Specimens  and  cases  not  carried  by 

rail  ivere  transported  /n/  truck. 

Shown  leaving  the  Jackson 

Park  building. 


hiiililiii^-though  scarcely  25  yearn  old-h  clcmly 
visible  behind  the  locomotive.  Alxmt  1920. 


Cornerstone  ceremonies  at  the  neiv  Museum 
building,  September  28,  1917.  Those  present 
included  (1)  paleontology  curator  Elmer  S. 
Riggs,  (2)  anthropology  curator  A.  B.  Lewis, 

(3)  anthropolog}/  curator  Bertlwld  Laufer, 

(4)  botany  curator  Charles  L.  Millspaugh,  (5) 
geology  curator  Henry  W.  Nuiiols,  (6)  insects 
curator  William  j.  Gerhardt,  (7)  director 
Frederick  I.  V.  Skiff,  (8)  director  David  C. 
Davies,  (9)  zoology  curator  Wilfred  H.  Osgood, 
(W)  accountant  Benjamin  Bridge,  (11)  director 
S.  C.  Siinms,  (12)  anthropology  curator 

Fay  Cooper  Cole,  (13)  botany  curator  B.  E. 
Dahlgren,  (14)  security  chief  Charles  L.  Owen. 


Op>ening  day  of  the  new  Grant  Park  quarters  of 
Field  Museum,  May  2,  1921. 


•^^^■V: 


Why  Not 
Eat  Insects?* 

By  Vincent  M.  Holt 


In  entering  upon  this  work  I  am  fully 
conscious  of  the  difficulty  of  battling 
against  a  long-existing  and  deep-rooted 
public  prejudice,  lonly  askof  my  readers  a 
fair  hearing,  an  impartial  consideration  of 
mv  arguments,  and  an  unbiassed  judg- 
ment. If  these  be  granted,  I  feel  sure  that 
many  will  be  persuaded  to  make  practical 
proof  of  the  expediency  of  using  insects  as 
food.  There  are  insects  and  insects.  Mi/ 
insects  are  all  vegetable  feeders,  clean, 
palatable,  wholesome,  and  decidedly 
more  particular  in  their  feeding  than  our- 
selves. While  1  am  confident  that  thev  will 
never  condescend  to  eat  iif,  I  am  equally 
confident  that,  on  finding  out  ho\s'  good 
they  are,  we  shall  some  day  right  gladly 
cook  and  eat  them. 


Insects  That  Are  Good  to  Eat;  and  Some- 
thing about  Their  Cooking. 

We  have  seen  that,  from  the  time  of  Moses 
down  to  the  present  day,  various  mem- 
bers of  the  insect  family  oiOrthoptera, 
which  includes  the  locusts,  crickets,  and 
grasshoppers,  have  been  and  are  eaten 
and  appreciated  in  many  parts  of  the 
world.  Now  let  us  look  at  home,  and  con- 
sider whv  we  should  not  do  likewise,  add- 
ing to  our  tables  that  clean  meat,  "the 
grasshopper  after  his  kind."  We  are  not 
without  precedent.  The  example  of  the 
Church  has  backed  up  the  written  permis- 
sion of  the  Bible.  The  Rev.  R.  Sheppard, 
many  years  ago,  had  some  of  our  common 
large  grasshoppers  served  up  at  his  table, 
according  to  the  recipe  used  by  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Morocco  in  the  cooking  of  their 
favourite  locusts.  Here  it  is.  "Having 
plucked  off  their  heads,  legs,  and  wings, 
sprinkle  them  with  pepper  and  salt  and 
chopped  parsley,  fry  in  butter,  and  add 
some  vinegar."  He  found  them  excellent. 
From  personal  experiment  I  can  fully  en- 
dorse his  opinion;  and  there  are  few  who 
would  not,  if  they  would  but  try  this  dish. 
I  have  eaten  them  raw,  and  I  have  eaten 
them  cooked.  Raw,  they  are  pleasant  to 
the  taste;  cooked,  they  are  delicious.  The 
above  recipe  is  simple;  but  any  one  with  a 
knowledge  of  cookery  would  know  how 
to  improve  upon  it,  producing  from  this 
source  such  dishes,  say,  as  "Grasshoppers 
au  gratin,"  or  "Acridae  sautes  a  la  Maitre 
d'Hotel." 

Among  the  ColeopHera,  or  Beetles,  we 
find  many  which  might  well  serve  as  food; 
some  in  their  larval,  some  in  their  com- 
plete state,  and  some  in  both.  Here,  again, 
there  is  no  need  to  recruit  from  among  the 
ranks  of  the  carnivorous  or  foul  feeders. 
There  are,  without  those,  plenty  of  strict 
24  vegetarians. 


The  grub  of  the  Stag  Beetle  (Lucninis 
ccnnis)  is  said  by  many,  as  before  men- 
tioned, to  be  identical  with  the  Cossus, 
which  the  Romans  used  to  fatten  for  the 
table  upon  tlour  and  wine.  As  this  destruc- 
tive grub,  before  turning  to  its  beetle  stage 
of  life,  spends  some  years  gnawing  at  the 
hearts  of  our  oak  treas,  it  would  be  a  boon 
to  timber  growers  if  this  taste  of  the  Ro- 
mans were  revived.  There  are  many  varie- 
ties of  these  timber-borers  which  might 
well  be  used  for  food,  as  are  the  Grugru 
and  the  Moutac  grub  in  the  East  and  West 
Indies.  I  have  especially  noticed  a  plump 
white  grub  which  infests  our  young  sallow 
trees  in  great  numbers,  boring  upwards 
from  the  foot  of  the  stem.  When  the  plan- 
tations are  cut  down,  why  should  this  del- 
icacy be  wasted?  If  foolishly  rejected  at  the 
tables  of  the  rich,  these  larvae  should  be  a 
joy  to  the  woodman's  family,  and  a  reward 
for  the  toil  of  the  breadwinner.  If  this  were 
so,  it  would  be  the  means  of  keeping  down 
the  number  of  these  destructive  pests, 
which  are  not  now  considered  worth  col- 
lecting. 

What  valid  objection  can  there  be  to 
eating  these  insects,  when  the  larvae  of 
similar  beetles  are  eaten  all  o\'er  the  world, 
both  by  natives  and  by  whites  and  when 
such  larvae  are  unanimously  pronounced 
to  be  wholesome  and  palatable? 

The  Meal-worm,  the  larva  of  a  small 
beetle  (Tenebrio),  is  generally  looked  upon 
with  disgust,  as  only  fit  food  for  tame 
birds.  Even  the  strong-stomached  and 
hungry  sailor  will  rap  his  sea-biscuit  on 
the  table  to  shake  out  the  worms  before 
eating  it.  Let  him  shake  out  the  worms,  by 
all  means;  but  let  him  collect  them,  fry  in 
lard,  and  spread  the  dainty  upon  his  dry 
biscuit.  He  will  not  again  throw  Meal- 
worms away. 

In  the  common  Cockchafer 
{Melolontha  vulgaris)  we  find  an  inveterate 
enemy,  which,  after  spending  three  years 
in  gnawing  the  roots  of  our  clover  and 
grasses  as  a  huge  white  grub,  turns  to  its 
beetle  state,  only  to  continue  its  ravages 
upon  the  foliage  of  our  fruit  or  forest  trees. 
Literally  tooth  and  nail  we  ought  to  battle 
with  this  enemy,  for  in  both  its  stages  it  is  a 
most  dainty  morsel  for  the  table.  The  birds 
are  more  sensible  than  we.  They  know 
well  the  value  of  the  fat  chafer  as  food. 
With  what  joy  the  jaunty  rooks,  following 
the  plough  with  long  strides  over  the  up- 
turned clover  lea,  pounce  upon  the  lus- 
cious grubs!  What  a  feast  the  birds  have 
among  the  swarms  of  chafers  in  the  tall 
tree-tops! 

Erasmus  Darwin,  in  his 
"Phytologia,"  says:  "I  have  observed  the 
house  sparrow  destroy  the  Maychafer, 
eating  out  the  central  part  of  it,  and  am 
told  that  turkeys  and  rooks  do  the  same; 
which  I  thence  conclude  might  be  grateful 
food,  if  properly  cooked,  as  the  locusts  or 
termites  of  the  East.  And  probably  the 
large  grub,  or  larva  of  it,  which  the  rooks 
pick  up  in  following  the  plough,  is  as  de- 


licious as  the  grub  called  Grugru,  and  a 
large  caterpillar  which  feeds  on  the  palm, 
both  of  which  are  roasted  and  eaten  in  the 
West  Indies."  Here  is  the  openly  ex- 
pressed opinion  of  one  of  our  greatest 
philosophers  and  deepest  thinkers;  and 
there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  it  is 
correct. 

Again  I  endorse  from  personal  ex- 
perience. Try  them,  as  I  have;  they  are 
delicious.  Cockchafers  are  not  only  com- 
mon, but  of  a  most  serviceable  size  and 
plumpness,  while  their  grubs  are,  when 
full  grown,  at  least  two  inches  in  length, 
and  fat  in  proportion. 

What  a  godsend  to  housekeepers  to 
discover  a  new  cntr'cc  to  vary  the 
monotony  of  the  present  round!  Why 
should  invention,  which  makes  such 
gigantic  strides  in  other  directions,  stand 
still  in  cookery?  Here  then,  mistresses, 
who  thirst  to  place  new  and  dainty  dishes 
before  your  guests,  what  better  could  you 
have  than  "Curried  Maychafers" — or,  if 
you  want  a  more  mysterious  title,  "Larvae 
Melolonthae  a  la  Grugru"?  Landowning 
guests  ought  to  welcome  the  opportunity 
of  retaliating,  at  your  table,  under  the  "lex 
talionis,"  upon  this,  one  of  the  worst  of 
their  insect  tormentors.  Another  dish, 
which  should  take  with  the  farmer,  would 
be  "Fried  Chafers  with  Wireworm  sauce." 
Perhaps,  however,  the  little  word  "worm" 
might  be  objected  to.  So  let  us  pander  to 
the  refined  senses  of  the  delicately  fastidi- 
ous by  writing  it  upon  our  menu  as  "Fried 
Melolontha  with  Elater  sauce."  I  know 
that  wireworms  are  an  excellent  substitute 
for  shrimps.  There  are,  also,  thousands  of 
members  of  the  same  family  as  the  shrimp 
(Crustaceans)  in  every  garden,  namely,  the 
common  Wood-lice  [Oniscus  munarius) .  I 
have  eaten  these,  and  found  that,  when 
chewed,  a  flavour  is  developed  remark- 
ably akin  to  that  so  much  appreciated  in 
their  sea  cousins.  Wood-louse  sauce  is 
equal,  if  not  distinctly  superior  to,  shrimp. 

The  following  is  the  recipe:  Collect  a 
quantity  of  the  finest  wood-lice  to  be 
found  (no  difficult  task,  as  they  swarm 
under  the  bark  of  every  rotten  tree),  and 
drop  them  into  boiling  water,  which  will 
kill  them  instantly,  but  not  turn  them  red, 
as  might  be  expected.  At  the  same  time 
put  into  a  saucepan  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of 
fresh  butter,  a  teaspoonful  of  flour,  a  small 
glass  of  water,  a  little  milk,  some  pepper 
and  salt,  and  place  it  on  the  stove.  As  soon 
as  the  sauce  is  thick,  take  it  off  and  put  in 
the  wood-lice.  This  is  an  excellent  sauce 
for  fish.  Try  it. 

Passing  on  to  the  order  Hymenoptera, 
the  Sawfly  at  once  strikes  us  as  a  very 
familiar  insect,  which  in  its  larval  stage 
plays  sad  havoc  among  the  gooseberry 
bushes,   often  stripping  them  bare  of 


*OriginaIly  published  in  England  in  1885.  The 
material  reproduced  here  is  an  excerpt  from  the 
paperback  edition  of  the  book  now  in  print. 


leaves,  and  thus  spoiling  all  chance  of 
fruit.  We  all  know  in  what  myriads  the 
grub  swarms  upon  the  trees,  and  how 
hard  it  is  to  induce  our  gardener,  or  anv 
one  else,  to  take  timely  steps  for  its  de- 
struction. If  it  were  known  to  be  nice  to 
eat,  there  would  be  little  fear  of  this  vo- 
racious feeder  carrving  on  its  destruction 
uninterrupted.  It  would  be  a  race  between 
the  cook  and  the  gardener's  wife,  who 
should  first  arrive  at  the  poor  gooseberrv 
bush.  There  is  also  the  Turnip  Sawfly,  bet- 
ter known  to  farmers  as  "the  Black," 
which  sometimes  devours  whole  fields  of 
roots,  leaving  not  a  leaf  to  be  seen.  In  this 
order  are  included  Bees  and  Wasps.  From 
the  former  we  alread\'  derive  a  delicious 
s\seet  in  the  t\>rm  of  golden  honey.  From 
the  latter  we  might,  if  we  chose,  derive  an 
equalh'  delicious  savourv.  What  disciple 
of  old  Izaak  Walton,  when  he  has  been  all 
the  morning  enticing  the  wily  trout  with 
luscious  wasp  grubs  baked  to  a  turn,  has 
not  suspected  a  new  and  appetizing  taste 
imparted  to  his  middav  meal  of  bread  and 
cheese  or  sandwich?  Perhaps  his  own 
meal  has  travelled  to  the  scene  of  action  in 
the  same  basket  as  the  rich  cakes  of  grubs; 
or  it  mav  be  that  the  fish  are  biting  too  well 
to  allow  time  for  a  thorough  hand- 
washing, and  rapid  bits  are  taken  from  the 
lunch  in  the  intervals  between  the  bob- 
bing of  the  float  and  the  replacing  of  the 
nibbled  grubs.  At  any  rate,  it  will,  some- 
times, so  happen  to  every  fisherman  to  get 
the  taste  and  smell  of  cooked  wasp  grubs 
with  his  meal,  and  1  have  never  noticed 
that  it  in  any  way  spoilt  his  appetite.  At- 
tracted by  the  said  taste  and  smell,  and 
having  no  prejudices  against  insect  food,  I 
have  myself  spread  the  baked  grubs  upon 
my  bread,  and  found  their  excellent 
flavour  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
fondness  of  the  trout  for  this  particular 
bait.  I  will  admit  that  wasps  are  occasion- 
ally carnivorous,  but  it  is  the  exception 
and  not  the  rule.  Moreover,  the  saccharine 
fluid  with  which  they  feed  their  infant 
grubs  is,  1  believe,  entirely  composed  of 
vegetable  juices,  drawn  from  ripe  fruits 
and  flowers.  Their  babes,  like  our  own,  are 
fed  only  upon  what  are  called  "spoon 
victuals."  Let  us,  then,  welcome  among 
our  new  insect  dishes  "Wasp  grubs  baked 
in  the  comb."  The  number  of  wasps'  nests 
taken  and  destroyed,  in  a  prolific  season, 
is  something  extraordinary.  I  have  known 
as  many  as  sixteen  or  twenty  nests  to  be 
taken  by  a  gardener  within  a  very  short 
radius  round  his  house.  What  a  waste  of 
good  wholesome  food  takes  place  then, 
when  cake  after  cake,  loaded  with  fat 
grubs,  is  stamped  under  foot!  The  next 
order,  the  Lepidoptcra  (butterflies  and 
moths),  is  rich  in  material  for  practical  ex- 
periment and  demonstration  of  my  theory 
of  insect  food  for  omnivorous  man.  The 
usual  stock  terms  for  insects,  "hideous," 
"loathsome,"  etc.,  cannot  be  applied  with 
any  justice  to  this  class,  which,  in  its  per- 
fect state  is  renowned  for  its  elegant 


beauty,  and  in  its  lar\al  or  caterpillar  state 
is  almost  in\'ariably  pleasingly  coloured 
and  by  no  means  repulsive  to  the  eye. 
Their  diet,  too,  is  of  the  most  purely  veg- 
etarian description,  consisting,  as  it  does, 
in  the  first  stage  of  leaves,  and  the  sweet 
nectar  of  flowers  in  the  second.  The  tiny 
ant  knows  and  appreciates  the  sweetness 
of  insects  which  feed  upon  the  juices  of 
plants  or  flowers,  for  it  keeps  and  tends 
with  care  numerous  milch  herds  of 
aphides  or  green  flies,  to  coax  from  their 
plump  bodies  the  pearly  drops  of  the 
honey  dew  it  loves  so  well.  We  have  al- 
ways been  taught  that  in  many  points  the 
ant  is  to  be  imitated.  In  its  just  apprecia- 
tion of  insects  as  a  sweet  source  of  food  it  is 
to  be  imitated  too.  1  think  it  is  in  "Swiss 
FamiK'  Robinson"  that  there  is  a  clever 
account  of  some  travellers,  wandering  at 
night  through  a  forest  by  torchlight,  being 
greatly  annoyed  by  huge  moths,  which 
repeatedly  extinguished  the  torches  by 
their  suicidal  love  of  light.  However,  an- 
noyance was  turned  to  joy  when,  tempted 
by  the  appetizing  smell  of  the  toasted 
moths,  the  hungry  travellers  ventured  to 
satisfy  in  part  their  hunger  with  the 
suicides,  which  thev  found  as  excellent  in 
flavour  as  in  smell.  From  what  I  recollect  of 
the  tale,  1  believe  this  was  quite  a  fancy 
description,  probably  founded  on  the  real 
habits  of  the  natives  which  had  been  ob- 
served by  the  travelled  author  of  the  book. 
1  well  remember  that,  on  reading  that  ac- 
count, my  youthful  imagination  repro- 
duced without  effort  the  appetizing  smell 
of  a  plump  baked  moth;  but  it  did  not 
occur  to  me  then  to  try  such  a  tid-bit. 
Lately,  however,  I  have  done  so,  to  find 
the  dream  of  my  childhood  fully  realized 
as  to  the  delights,  both  in  taste  and  smell, 
of  a  fat  moth  nicely  baked.  Try  them,  ye 
epicures!  What  possible  argument  can  be 
advanced  against  eating  a  creature  beauti- 
ful without  and  sweet  within;  a  creature 
nourished  on  nectar,  the  fabled  food  of 
the  gods? 

In  attempting  to  reconcile  the  popular 
taste  to  the  consumption  of  this  same 
order  in  its  larval  stage  as  "caterpillars,"  a 
more  difficult  task  perhaps  awaits  me.  But 
why?  I  never  could  thoroughly  under- 
stand the  intense  disgust  with  which  the 
appearance  at  the  dinner-table  of  a  well- 
boiled  caterpillar,  accidentally  served  with 
cabbage,  is  always  greeted.  The  feeling  is 
purely  one  of  habit,  and  the  outcome  of 
unjust  prejudice.  These  delicate,  shudder- 
ing people,  who  now,  with  appetites 
gone,  push  away  their  plates  upon  the 
appearance  of  a  well-cooked  vegetable- 
fed  caterpillar,  have  probably  just  swal- 
lowed a  dozen  live  oysters;  or  they  may 
have  partaken  of  the  foul-feeding  lobster, 
and  are  perh^ips  pleasantly  anticipating 
the  arrival  of  a  dish  of  ungutted  wood- 
cock! I  have  pointed  out  before  that  we 
have  Dr.  Darwin's  authority  that  the 
caterpillars  of  the  sphinx  moths,  as  eaten 
by  the  Chinese,  are  very  palatable;  and 


another  traveller  has  told  us  that  he  found 
the  caterpillars  eaten  by  the  Hottentots 
tasted  like  almond  paste.  Of  course,  in 
choosing  caterpillars  for  eating,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  discriminate  between  those  feed- 
ing on  poisonous  and  non-poisonous 
plants;  but  there  is  no  more  difficulty  in 
this  than  in  distinguishing  between  the 
edible  and  poisonous  in  berries  or  fungi. 

The  caterpillar  pests  swarming  in  our 
kitchen  gardens,  which  might  with  advan- 
tage be  collected  for  food,  are  really  too 
numerous  to  be  fully  described  here,  but  I 
will  point  out  a  few  of  the  best;  at  the  same 
time  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  they 
all  feed  upon  the  wholesome  vegetables 
which  we  cultivate  for  t)ur  own  eating.  To 
begin,  the  large  white  cabbage  butterfly 
{Poutiii  brnssiaie)  is  one  of  our  most  familiar 
butterflies.  Its  caterpillar,  when  full- 
grown,  is  one  and  a  half  inches  in  length, 
and,  owning  to  its  unpleasant  habit  of  liv- 
ing upon  his  cabbages,  of  which  it  usually 
leaves  nothing  but  skeleton  leaves,  is  too 
well  known  to  every  gardener.  It  is  of  a 
greenish  colour  upon  the  back,  yellow 
underneath,  striped  with  vellow  along  the 
back  and  sides,  spotted  all  o\er  with 
black,  and  covered  more  or  less  with  tiny 
hairs.  Miss  Eleanor  Ormerod  says,  with 
reference  to  these  pests,  "Hand-picking 
the  caterpillars  is  a  tedious  remedy,  but 
where  thereisnogreatextent  of  ground,  it 
is  advisable  as  a  certain  cure." 

This  effectual  remedy  would  no 
longer  be  looked  upon  as  tedious  if  the 
fruits  of  the  picking  were  to  form  a  dish  for 
the  gardener's  dinner,  or  appear  in  the 
niciiti  of  his  mistress  as  "Larvae  Pontiae  a 
THottentot."  Again  she  says,  "When  the 
first  brood  of  caterpillars  are  full-grown, 
and  have  disappeared  from  the  cabbages 
in  early  summer,  they  have  left  them  to 
turn  to  chrysalids  in  any  sheltered  nook 
near,  and  may  be  collected  in  large  num- 
bers by  children  for  a  trifle  per  hundred. 
They  may  be  chiefly  found  in  outhouses, 
potting-sheds,  and  the  like  places,  in 
every  neglected  corner,  under  rough 
stairs,  step-ladders,  cir  beams  or  shelves, 
or  fastened  against  rough  stone  walls  or 
mt)rtar."  Why  should  we  not  imitate  the 
Chinese,  who,  as  I  have  stated,  eat  the 
chrysalids  of  silkworms? 

Silkworms  feed  on  the  mulberry,  let- 
tuce, etc.;  these  caterpillars  upon  the 
homely  cabbage.  Let  us,  then,  cast  aside 
our  foolish  prejudice,  and  delight  in 
chrysalids  fried  in  butter,  with  vt>lkofeggs 
and  seasoning,  or  "Chrysalids  a  la 
Chinoise." 

The  foregoing  remarks  apply  equally 
to  the  small  white  cabbage  butterfly  {Poii- 
tia  rapac),  whose  caterpillars  are  smaller,  of 
a  green  colour,  and  velvety,  having  a 
stripe  of  yellow  along  the  back,  and  spots 
of  the  same  colour  along  the  sides. 

Sticking  still  to  cabbage,  we  next  have 
the  cabbage  moth  {Mnmcftni  brmsicae), 
whose  caterpillar  is  perhaps  more  gener- 
allv  known  as  a  forward  intruder  at  table  25 


than  (iny  other.  The  larva  is  alxuit  an  inch 
and  a  half  in  length,  varies  a  great  deal  in 
colour,  from  dirty  flesh  to  green,  and  is 
smooth  and  naked-looking.  Its  constant 
habitof  gnawing  right  down  into  the  heart 
of  any  cabbage  or  cauliflower  attacked 
renders  it  a  great  nuisance  in  the  garden, 
and  also  accounts  for  its  frequent,  and  at 
present  uninvited,  appearance  in  a  boiled 
state  at  the  dinner-table. . . . 

Continuing  the  list,  I  will  next  men- 
tion the  large  yellow  underwing  moth, 
whose  caterpillar  feeds  upon  turnip  and 
cabbage  leaves.  The  moth  itself  is  a  very 
familiar  sight,  its  size  and  yellow  under- 
wings  rendering  it  a  conspicuous  object 
when,  disturbed  from  its  day  retreat,  it 
rises  with  sluggish  flight  before  us.  In  sea- 
sons when  this  moth  is  numerous  great 
numbers  might  be  caught,  both  in  the  day- 
time and  at  night,  with  the  net  and  by 
sugaring  trees  as  practised  by  moth- 
collectors.  When  nicely  fried  in  butter, 
their  plump  bodies  rival  the  torch-cooked 
delicacies  of  the  traveller's  tale.  Again, 
there  is  the  common  Buff-tip,  a  handsome 
moth,  with  forewings  of  a  beautiful  grey 
colour,  marked  with  ruddy  and  black 
patches,  and  tipped,  as  its  name  imports, 
with  light  buff.  It  is  handsome.  What  is 
more,  let  me  whisper  the  ogreish  sugges- 
tion that  its  body,  an  inch  in  length,  is 
plump,  round,  and  sweet.  Its  caterpillars 
are  well  known  to  every  one,  whether 
Londoner  or  countryman,  for  they  swarm, 
at  the  end  of  June,  in  town  and  country 
alike  upon  their  favourite  lime  trees.  Their 
yellow  forms,  striped  and  ringed  with 
black,  are  often  to  be  seen  crawling  across 
the  arid  desert  of  the  London  pavements 
in  search  of  some  congenial  sdil  wherein 
they  bury  themselves  for  the  term  of  insect 
purgatory.  Looking  up  then  at  the  tree 
from  which  these  wanderers  have  de- 
scended, one  may  see  branches,  perhaps 
many,  perhaps  few,  stripped  of  their 
foliage  and  down  the  stem  other  caterpil- 
lars hurriedly  crawling,  knowing  that 
their  time  has  come;  that  nature  calls  them 
to  throw  off  their  gay  garments  and  hum- 
ble themselves  beneath  the  soil,  before 
bursting  out  into  rollicking  Buff-tips.  It 
never  strikes  the  Londoner,  as  he  hurries 
along  beneath  the  shady  trees,  that  these 
caterpillars  are  good  to  eat.  He  either 
stamps  upon  or  carefully  avoids  them,  ac- 
cording to  his  nature.  The  street  boy  picks 
up,  plays  with,  and  finally  squashes  them; 
but  the  extraordinary  part  of  it  is  that  it 
never  strikes  him  to  taste  them.  Boys  taste 
almost  everything.  But  this  prejudice 
against  insects  seems  rooted  in  them  from 
the  earliest  age,  for  I  have  never  seen  a 
child  experiment  upon  the  unknown 
sweets  of  insect  food.  These  Buff-tip 
caterpillars  swarm  upon  the  trees  in  such 
numbers,  in  favourable  seasons,  that 
many  a  dish  can  be  obtained  with  a  little 
trouble,  which  is  amply  repaid  not  only  by 
their  favour,  but  also  by  the  saving  of  the 
26  tender  foliage  of  the  limes.  Most  of  the 


commoner  moths  which  flit  in  thousands 
by  night,  around  our  fields  and  gardens, 
have  nice  fat  carcases,  and  ought  certainly 
to  be  used  as  food.  Why,  they  are  the  very 
incarnescence  of  sweetness,  beauty,  and 
deliciousness;  living  storehouses  of  nectar 
gathered  from  the  most  fragrant  flowers! 
They,  too,  voluntarily  and  suggestively 
sacrifice  themselves  upon  the  altar  of  our 
lamps,  as  we  sit,  with  open  windows,  in 
the  balmy  summer  nights.  They  fry  and 
grill  themselves  before  our  eyes,  saying, 
"Does  not  the  sweet  scent  of  our  cooked 
bodies  tempt  you?  Fry  us  with  butter;  we 
are  delicious.  Boil  us,  grill  us,  stew  us;  we 
are  good  all  ways!". . . 

We  do  not  find  many  instances  of 
slugs  being  generally  eaten,  unless  as  a 
remedy  for  lung  diseases;  but  1  fail  to  see 
why,  seeing  how  nearly  they  are  allied  to 
snails,  they  should  be  so  generally  ne- 
glected. 

The  great  grey  slug  (Umax  maxlmus), 
the  red  slug  (Liinnx  rufus),  the  black  slug 
(Umax  ater),  and  the  small  grey  slug  are  all 
to  be  found  in  great  numbers  in  most  parts 
of  England,  and  when  properly  cooked 
are  all  equally  good .... 

Why  should  not  these  be  gathered  in 
hundreds  and  thciusands  by  the  poor  for 
food?  The  larger  varieties  might  be  treated 
like  the  Chinese  delicacies,  the  sea-slugs, 
cut  open  and  dried  for  keeping .... 

Let  not  the  labourer  say,  "We  starve. 
Meat  is  too  dear;  bread  is  almost  as  dear 
because  the  wire-worm,  the  leather- 
jacket,  and  the  May-bug  worm  have  thin- 
ned the  crop;  our  little  stock  of  flour  is 
rendered  useless  by  meal-worms.  The 
caterpillars  swarm  upon  our  cabbages;  the 
sawfly  has  spoilt  all  chance  of  the 
gooseberries  we  hoped  to  sell:  hosts  of 
great  slugs  and  snails  have  devoured  what 
the  others  left.  Upon  our  fruit  trees  the 
cockchafers  are  gnawing  the  leaves  to 
bareness." 

Yes,  meat  is  dear;  but  the  wheat  crop 
would  have  been  twice  as  thick  if  the 
wireworms,  the  leather-jackets,  and  the 
luscious  white  chafer  grubs  had  been  dili- 
gently collected  by  you  for  food.  Meal- 
worms are  fattening.  You  should  have 
hand-picked  your  cabbages  and  goose- 
berry trees,  so  that  you  might  enjoy  and 
profit  by  their  would-be  destroyers.  The 
snails  and  slugs  ought  to  be  welcome,  and 
sought  for,  to  be  placed  in  your  little 
snail-preserve.  As  for  cockchafers,  you 
ought  to  get  sixpence  a  score  for  them 
from  the  squire's  housekeeper.  They  are, 
like  mushrooms,  to  be  gathered  and  sold 
as  delicacies;  or  you  could  fry  them  for 
your  own  suppers,  before  they  have  a 
chance  of  baring  your  poor  fruit  trees. 
Thus  you  would  not  only  save  all  the  pro- 
duce of  the  little  garden,  but  also  pleas- 
antly vary  your  monotonous  meal  with 
vvholesome  and  savoury  dishes. 

Nature,  if  undisturbed,  balances  all 
her  creatures  against  each  other  so  that  no 
one  individual  kind  shall,  increase  and 


multiph-  to  an  undue  extent. . . . 

When  not  interfered  with.  Nature's 
whole  machinery  works  with  perfect  regu- 
larity, and  her  balance  is  exactly  poised.  If, 
however,  we  presume  to  intermeddle,  the 
whole  system  soon  becomes  deranged.  By 
importing  or  cultivating  fancy  fruits  un- 
natural to  the  soil,  we  have  interfered  with 
the  machinery;  by  killing  the  birds  to  pro- 
tect these  fancy  fruits,  we  destroy  Nature's 
balance  of  her  creatures — for  birds  are  the 
natural  counterpoise  to  insects.  In  conse- 
quence we  have,  to  the  great  detriment  of 
our  crops,  an  overweight  and  undue  in- 
crease of  insects.  To  save  them  from  their 
devourers,  we  must  throw  some  extra 
weight  into  the  opposite  scale  to  compen- 
sate for  the  loss  of  the  birds  we  kill.  I  have 
done  my  best  to  show  how  this  weight 
may  be  added,  and  how  the  balance  may 
be  restored. . . . 


Suggested  menus 

I 

French 

Potage  aux  Limaces  a  la  Chinoise. 
Morue  bouillie  a  I'Anglaise,  Sauce 

aux  Limafons. 

Larves  de  Guepes  frites  au  Rayon. 

Phalenesa  I'Hottentot. 

Boeuf  aux  Chenilles. 

Petites  Carottes,  Sauce  blanche  aux 

Rougets. 

Creme  de  Groseilles  aux  Nemates. 

Larves  de  Hanneton  Grillees. 

Cerfs  Volants  a  la  Gru  Gru. 

En^lhh 

Slug  Soup. 

Boiled  Cod  with  Snail  Sauce. 

Wasp  Grubs  fried  in  the  Comb. 

Moths  sautes  in  Butter. 

Braized  Beef  with  Caterpillars. 

New  Carrots  with  Wireworm  Sauce. 

Gooseberry  Cream  with  Sawflies. 

Devilled  Chafer  Grubs. 

Stag  Beetle  Larvae  on  Toast. 

II 

French 

Potage  aux  Limafons  a  la  Franfaise. 

Soles  frites.  Sauce  aux  Cloportes. 
Hannetons  a  la  Sauterelle  des  Index. 
Fricassee  de  Poulets  aux  Chrysa- 
lides. 
Carre  de  Mouton,  Sauce  aux  Rou- 
gets. 
Canetons  aux  Petits  Pois. 
Choufleurs  garnies  de  Chenilles. 
Phalenes  au  Parmesan. 
Enfi^iish 

Snail  Soup. 
Fried  soles,  with  Woodlouse  Sauce. 

Curried  Cockchafers. 
Fricassee  of  Chicken  with  Chr\'salids. 
Boiled  Neck  of  Mutton  with  Wire- 
worm  Sauce. 
Ducklings,  with  Green  Peas. 
Cauliflowers  garnished  with  Cater- 
pillars. 
Moths  on  Toast. 


May  and  June  at  Field  Museum 


(May  15  through  June  15) 


New  Exhibits 

"Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia."  This  is  your 
chance  to  view  hundreds  of  the  glittering  gold  treasures  that 
inspired  the  legend  of  El  Dorado.  Jewelry,  musical  instruments, 
hunting  and  fishing  gear,  and  cooking  utensils — ail  crafted 
from  the  valuable  metal — acquaint  us  with  a  lost  civilization. 
This  exhibit  is  the  largest  display  of  Colombian  archeology  ever 
seen  in  the  United  States.  Exhibit  curator;  Michael  Moseley; 
designer:  David  Edquist.  Through  July  6:  Hall  27,  2nd  Floor. 

"Patterns  of  Paradise"  explores  the  history  and  cultures  of  the 
South  Sea  islanders  through  one  of  their  most  important  surviv- 
ing handicrafts — the  art  of  creating  tapa,  or  decorated  bark 
cloth.  More  than  200  objects,  nearly  all  of  them  from  Field 
Museum's  own  magnificent  collections,  are  on  display — dance 
masks,  fine  mats,  wood  carvings,  costume  accessories,  and 
tools.  Exhibit  curator:  John  Terrell;  research  specialist:  Anne 
Leonard;  designer:  Donald  Skinner.  Through  June  8;  Hall  26, 
2nd  floor. 


Continuing  Exhibits 

"Cash,  Cannon  and  Cowrie  Shells:  The  Nonmodem  Moneys  of 
the  World"  contains  over  80  varieties  of  money  used  by  ancient 
cultures.  The  exhibit  explores  the  origins,  values,  and  meaning 
of  nonmodem  money  in  terms  of  buying  power  for  50  Old 
World  civilizations.  Ground  floor,  between  Halls  K  and  L. 

"Pawnee  Earth  Lodge."  Hall  5  contains  a  full-scale  replica  of  a 
Pawnee  earth  lodge,  the  home  and  ceremonial  center  of  Paw- 
nee Indians  in  the  mid-1800s.  Daily  public  programs  provide 
opportunities  to  learn  about  Pawnee  culture:  Monday-Friday 
12:30  p.m.;  Saturdays  11  a.m.,  12:15  p,m,,  and  1:15  p.m.  Open 
House  on  Sunday  from  1 1  a.m.  to  3  p.m. 

"The  Place  for  Wonder."  This  gallery  provides  a  "hands-on" 
approach  to  natural  history.  Feel  the  skin  of  a  rattlesnake,  try  on 
a  bamboo  backpack  from  China,  examine  a  dinosaur  bone,  and 
more — this  room  is  full  of  touchable  exhibits.  Trained  volun- 
teers help  guide  exploration  and  answer  questions.  Open  week- 
days 1  to  3  p.m.;  weekends  10  a.m.  to  noon  and  1  to  3  p.m. 
Ground  Floor,  near  cafeteria. 


New  Programs 

Gold  of  El  Dorado  Film  Series:  "The  People  of  Colombia."  Free 
films  of  the  heritage  and  civilizations  of  Colombia  are  offered  in 
Lecture  Hall  1  each  Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  at  1 1  a.m.  and  2 
p.m.  These  films  will  be  shown  for  the  duration  of  the  "Gold  of  El 
Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia"  exhibit.  Film  notes  are 
available  in  braille,  as  well  as  in  regular  and  large  print.  The 
series  is  made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endow- 
ment for  the  Humanities,  a  federal  agency. 

Gold  of  El  Dorado  Lecture  Series.  Planned  in  conjunction  with 
the  "Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia"  exhibition, 
this  series  features  experts  on  Colombian  art,  technology,  and 


archeology.  Two  lectures  remain  in  the  series,  held  on  Fridays,  8 
p.m.  in  the  Simpson  Theatre.  Tickets  for  each  lecture  (Members 
$2.00,  nonmembers  $3.50)  are  available  at  the  West  Door 
before  the  program.  The  lectures  are  accompanied  by  a  signer 
for  the  deaf;  program  notes  are  in  braille  as  well  as  in  regular  and 
large  print.  The  series  is  made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the 
National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities,  a  federal  agency.  May 
16:  "Technology  of  Goldworking  in  Pre-Columbian  South 
America,"  with  Dr.  Heather  Lechtman  of  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology.  May  23:  "Gold  in  Pre-Columbian  Cul- 
tures,"  with  Dr.  Donald  Thompson  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

Gamelan  Mini-Concerts.  Hear  Field  Museum's  magnificent 
gamelan,  a  24-piece  Sudanese  (West  Javanese)  ensemble  of 
wood  and  bronze  instruments.  The  music,  with  its  clear  sweet 
tones,  has  been  compared  to  the  sound  of  a  cascading  wa- 
terfall. These  free  concerts  are  presented  by  the  Museum's 
gamelan  classes,  under  the  direction  of  Sue  Carole  DeVale. 
Sunday,  June  8,  2  p,m.;  Sunday,  June  15,  2  p.m.  Hall  K,  ground 
floor. 

Indian  Classical  Dance  Demonstration.  Indian  classical  dance 
is  a  combination  of  art,  religion,  and  philosophy.  The  leading 
exponent  of  the  Odissi  style  of  classical  dance,  Priyambada 
Mohanty,  will  give  a  lecture/demonstration  of  this  graceful  and 
lyrical  art.  Together  with  her  14-year-old  daughter,  Mohanty  will 
explain  and  perform  the  movements,  postures,  and  emotions  of 
the  dance.  Saturday,  June  14,  2:30  p.m.  For  ticket  information, 
call  922-3136. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Each  Saturday  and  Sunday,  the 
Museum  offers  a  variety  of  free  tours,  demonstrations,  and 
films.  Check  the  "Weekend  Sheet"  available  at  Museum  en- 
trances for  additional  programs  and  locations. 

•  "The  Tribal  Eye "  Film  Features:  "The  Crooked  Beak  of 
Heaven. "  A  Northwest  Coast  Indian  chief  bestows  gifts  on  his 
tribesmen  and  then  smashes  his  own  valuable  possessions 
during  the  potlatch  ceremony.  Saturday,  May  17, 1  p.m. 

•  "Indians  of  North  America. "  Half-hour  tour  focuses  on  the 
daily  life  of  six  tribes.  Saturday,  May  17,  2:30  p.m. 

•  "Napoleon  in  Egypt — III. "  This  slide  presentation  examines 
how  early  expeditions  laid  the  foundations  for  modern  Egyptol- 
ogy. Sunday,  May  18, 1:30  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt."  Learn  aboutthe  traditions  of  ancient  Egypt 
in  this  45-minute  tour.  Saturday,  May  24,  1 1 :30  a.m. 

•  "The  Tribal  Eye"  Film  Features:  "Man  Blong  Custom. "  This 
BBC  documentary  explores  virtually  unknown  villages  in  the 
jungles  of  New  Hebrides.  Saturday,  May  24,  1  p.m. 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt. "  This  45-minute  tour 
focuses  on  the  ancient  Egyptian  artifacts  in  the  Museum.  Sun- 
day May  25, 1  p.m. 

•  "The  Tribal  Eye"  Film  Features:  "Across  the  Frontiers. "  This 
film  offers  a  summary  of  tribal  ways,  and  contrasts  them  with 
the  ever-changing  modem  world.  Saturday,  May  31, 1  p.m. 

•  "Animal  Adaptations"  Film  Features:  "Adaptations  to 
Ocean  Environments"  features  animals  living  in  the  oceans  of 
the  world.  "Saga  of  the  Sea  Otter"  focuses  on  this  animal 

(Continued  on  back  couer)  27 


SURV:.Y  LI-i  RM  196 
NATURAL  RlSOURClS 
URBANA  ILL  61801 


BUILDING 


May  and  June  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cooer) 


population  off  the  coast  of  California.  Sunday,  June  1, 1  p.m. 

•  "The  World  of  Gold."  This  30-minute  tour  surveys  gold's 
physical  properties,  and  gold-mining  procedures.  Saturday, 
June  7, 12:30  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt"  Saturday,  June  14, 1  p.m. 

•  "Animal  Adaptations"  Film  Features:  "Adaptations  of  In- 
sects" reveals  four  methods  by  which  insects  adapt  to  unfavor- 
able conditions.  "The  Mayfly:  The  Ecology  of  an  Aquatic  Insect" 
shows  the  life  history  of  mayflies.  Sunday,  June  15, 1  p.m. 

Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Field  Trips.  Spaces  are  still  avail- 
able for  selected  one-day  field  trips  in  May  and  June.  Call 
922-3136  for  more  information. 


Continuing  Programs 

Spring  Journey:  "Pacific  Isles:  A  Voyage  to  the  South  Seas." 
Learn  about  the  cultures  of  Micronesia,  Polynesia,  and 
Melanesia  through  this  self-guided  tour.  Free  Joumey  pam- 
phlets available  at  Museum  entrances. 

Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  here  is  to 
determine  which  one  of  a  pair  of  apparently  similar  specimens  is 
harmful  and  which  is  not  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire 


bat  a  headhunter's  axe,  a  poisonous  mineral,  or  a  deadly  mush- 
room for  its  benign  look-alike.  Ground  floor,  no  closing  date. 

On  Your  Own  at  Field  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets, 
adult-  and  family-oriented,  are  available  for  25''  each  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  scientific  interests 
and  backgrounds  are  needed  to  work  in  the  various  depart- 
ments. For  more  information  call  Volunteer  Coordinator,  922- 
9410,  ext  360. 

"The  Ancient  Art  of  Weaving."  Leam  about  age-old  weaving 
techniques  and  textile  development  during  these  free  demon- 
strations. Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Friday  from  10:00  a.m.  to 
noon.  South  Lounge,  2nd  floor. 

May  and  June  hours.  The  Museum  is  open  daily  9  a.m.  to  6 
p.m.,  except  Fridays.  On  Fridays  the  Museum  is  open  9  a.m.  to  9 
p.m. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Obtain  a 
pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor.  Closed  Memorial  Day, 
Monday,  May  26.  Obtain  a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor. 

Museum  telephone:  (312)922-9410 


Patterns  of  Paradise  exhibit,  featuring  tapa  cloth,  will  be  on  uiew  in  Hall  26  through  June  8.  Exhibit  design  by  Don  Skinner 


RonlisU 


June 
11980 


FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BULLETIN 


Field  Museum 

of  Natural  History 

Bulletin 

June  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  6 


Editor/ Designer:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mar>'  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President  and  Director:  E.  Leland  Webber 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chairman 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R    Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr. 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy,  Jr. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H    Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Mrs.  Edward  F.  Swift 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
loseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clittord  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr. 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 

4  Project  Antarctica:  1980 

B\f  Edward  Olsen,  curator  of  mineralogy 

10  Our  Environment 

11  The  Jeanetta  and  Karl  Menninger 
Collection  of  Indian  Rugs 

By  David  M.  Walsten 

Color  photography  by  Ron  Testa 

20  Through  Chinese  Eyes 

NEH  Learning  Museum  Program 

Bi/  Anthony  Pfeiffer,  project  coordinator 

24  Quseir  al-Qadim,  1980 

By  Donald  Wliitcomb,  assistant  curator  of  Middle  East- 
ern archeology  and  ethnology,  and  ]a\iet  Johnson 

T7  June  and  July  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


COVER 

The  camera  of  David  Muench,  of  Santa  Barbara,  CA,  captures 
the  surreal  effect  of  sand  wavelets  in  Mofuiment  Valley,  Arizona- 
the  heart  of  Navajo  country.  Featured  in  this  issue  (see  pp.  11-18) 
is  the  remarkable  Navajo  rug  collection  of  Dr  Karl  A.  Menninger 
and  Mrs.  Menninger 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  Hislori/  Bullclin  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly,  except 
combined  (uly'.-Xugusl  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago.  11.  6060.S.  Subscriptions:  S6.00  annually,  S3.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription.  Opinions  expressed  bv  authors  are 
their  o^vn  and  do  not  necessarilv  reflect  the  poiicv  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scnpt.-.  are  welcome.  Museum  phone  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  U. 
60605   ISSN:  0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II 


FIELD  MUSEUM  TOURS 

1980  Touii\ickciges  Exclusively  for  Members 


The  Classical  Lands: 

Greece  and  the  Grecian  Isles 

September  7-26 

Jndcr  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Donald  Whitcomb,  Field 
Vluseum  assistant  curator  ot  Near  Eastern  archeology  and 
rthnology,  this  tour  will  visit  Athens,  the  sites  of  ancient 
L2orinth  and  Mycenae,  Delphi,  Olynipia,  Knossos,  Santorini, 
he  island  ot  Rhodes,  Miletus,  Skiros,  Piraeus,  and  numerous 
jther  sites  of  interest  in  the  history  of  western  civilization 
ind  art. 

Following  six  days  and  five  nights  in  Athens,  the  sleek 
uxury  motor  yacht  Cava  D'Oro,  with  30  passenger  cabins, 
.vill  take  tour  members  across  the  shimmering  waters  of 
he  Aegean  to  some  of  the  loveliest  and  most  historically 
nteresting  of  the  Greek  Isles. 

Cost  of  the  tour — $3,425  (plus  a  $300  donation  to 
-ield  Museum) — is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and 
ncludes  round  trip  air  fare  via  American  Airlines  between 
Chicago  and  Greece.  First  class  accommodations  will  be  used 
hroughout.  The  package  includes  almost  all  meals  (all  meals 
\hile  aboard  the  Cai'o  D'Oro),  motorcoach  fares,  baggage 
landling,  all  transfers,  taxes  (except  airport  tax),  and  tips 
except  to  tour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges  and  admissions 
:o  special  events.  Advance  deposit:  $300  per  person. 


Wisconsin's  Baraboo  Range 
June  21-22 

Dr.  Edward  Olsen,  curator  ot  mineralogy,  will  lead  tour 
members  through  the  Baraboo  Range  and  along  the  shores 
and  hinterland  of  beautiful  Devil's  Lake.  The  Baraboo  Range 
is  of  special  interest  as  a  nwtiadtwck — what  is  left  of  an  ancient 
mountain  range  and  which  now  stands  out  above  the  younger 
rocks  and  sediments.  The  range  consists  of  quartzite — more 
than  one  billion  years  old — which,  although  compressed  in 
places  into  vertical  folds,  retains  the  original  sedimentary 
structures.  The  mountains  were  further  modified  by  glaciers, 
forming  the  lake  and  the  picturesque  glens,  and  changing 
the  course  ot  rivers. 

Overnight  accommodations  and  meals  will  be  at  the 
Dell  View  Motel,  located  in  a  lovely  pine  grove  on  Lake 
Delton,  at  Wisconsin  Dells.  Hiking  clothes  are  strongly 
recommended  tor  the  scheduled  hikes.  The  trip  is  not  suitable 
tor  children,  but  younger  people  interested  in  natural  history 
are  welcome.  The  cost  of  the  Baraboo  trip  is  $95  per  person 
(double  occupancy). 

Below:  Site  ojaneient  M\/eeiiae  will  be  visited  by  members  of  September 
tour  to  Greece  and  Grecian  isles. 


X.;*' 


% 


■'■*■ 


Harbor  of  Argentine 

rc'iearch  itaiion, 

Almirante  Brown,  on 

Antarctic  Peninsula, 

slioii'ing  the  cruiw 

ship,  M.S.  World  ,        .  •     n       •  i 

Discoverer,  at  left.     Field  Museums  January  Tour  for  Members  to  the  Antarctic  Peninsula 


Project  Antarctica:  1980 


TEXT  AND  PHOTOS  BY  EDWARD  OLSEN 


There  was  a  time,  not  long  ago,  that  the  Antarctic 
continent  was  seen  only  by  a  select  few.  Transport 
there  was  first  a  matter  of  ships  —  ships  with  sails, 
then  steam,  finally  diesel.  Airplanes  have,  in  the 
past  25  years  only,  opened  the  continent  to  explora- 
tion and  relatively  easy  access.  Nevertheless,  it 
remains  the  largest  unexplored  land  area  on  this 
planet.  It  is  SVi  million  square  miles,  the  size  of 
the  whole  United  States  plus  all  of  Mexico;  but 
only  a  few  thousands  of  square  miles  have  been 
seen,  first  hand,  on  the  ground,  by  anyone. 

The  list  of  early  explorers  who  entered 
this  southernmost  region — some  of  them  never 
seeing  the  actual  Antarctic  continent  itself,  some 
making  sightings  and  landings,  some  trekking 


into  the  bitter,  hostile  interior — is  long:  Cook, 
Bellingshausen,  Palmer,  Amundsen,  Scott,  Wil- 
son, Mawson,  Shackleton,  Ross,  Ronne,  Byrd. . . 
Most  of  these  men  came,  made  their  observa- 
tions, and  left.  Some,  like  Shackleton,  suffered 
overwhelming  hardships  and  retreated.  Some, 
like  Scott,  succumbed  to  the  bitterly  harsh  con- 
ditions and  perished  there. 

The  Antarctic  conHnent  today  remains 
largely  in  the  hands  of  individuals  of  the  same 
cut.  Each  Antarctic  summer,  November  through 
February,  teams  of  geologists,  biologists,  and 


Edward  Olsen  is  curator  of  mineralogy. 


physicists  from  a  dozen  different  nations  enter 
the  continent  by  plane  and  ship  to  examine,  map, 
and  collect.  Some  of  these  scientists  remain  during 
the  fierce  winter  months  to  continue  gathering 
data.  The  Antarctic  Treats',  signed  by  seventeen 
nations  and  ratified  in  1961,  has  set  aside  the  con- 
tinent, and  the  islands  that  surround  it,  for  scien- 
tific study  until  the  year  1991.  In  the  meantime, 
no  one  may  exploit  the  region  for  commercial, 
political,  or  military  advantage.  Like  the  open 
ocean,  it  is  trul\'  international. 

Tourism  to  Antarctica  is  a  relatively 
recent  phenomenon.  From  time  to  time,  over 
the  past  40  years,  individuals  with  a  strong  desire 
for  adventure  ha\'e  endured  journeys  there  in 
small  sailing  yachts,  touched  the  continent,  and 
then  returned.  Over  the  past  decade,  however, 
tours  aboard  modest-sized  passenger  ships  have 
come  into  being.  The  first  of  these  vessels  was 
the  motorship  Lindblad  Explorer,  which  has  made 
many  annual  voyages  from  the  tip  of  South 
America  to  the  Antarctic  Peninsula  —  that  long 
mountainous  projection  of  the  Antarctic  conti- 
nent which  points  northward  towards  Cape 
Horn.  And,  on  at  least  one  occasion,  the  Lindblad 
Explorer  has  skirted  the  coast  of  the  Antarctic  con- 
tinent, making  landings  at  points  immediately 
south  of  New  Zealand. 

About  three  or  four  years  ago  a  somewhat 
different  form  of  tourism  came  into  being:  Com- 
mercial airlines  from  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
began  to  offer  overflights  of  the  continent  that  do 
not  land,  but  view  the  South  Pole,  the  Transant- 
arctic  Mountains,  and  several  of  the  scientific  re- 
search stations  from  the  air  (One  of  these  flights 
ended  in  a  disastrous  crash  late  last  year,  and  this 
form  of  tourism,  it  is  hoped,  will  end. ) 

For  the  past  two  Antarctic  summers  a 
second  motorship  has  entered  the  scene,  the 
World  Discoverer.  Capable  of  carrying  some  200 
passengers  and  crew,  in  great  comfort,  it  is  out- 
fitted to  travel  into  Antarctic  seas,  anchor,  and  per- 
form landings  at  points  of  interest.  Along  with 
the  Lindblad  Explorer,  it  has  opened  the  coastal 
regions  of  this  remote  continent  to  the  eyes  of 
those  with  a  special  taste  for  adventure.  This 
seemed  to  be  the  kind  of  voyage  that  would  fit 
into  the  Field  Museum's  tour  program  for  its 
members.  It  offered  a  real  adventure  as  well  as 
an  opportunity  to  see  natural  history  in  a  part 
of  the  world  that  is  virtually  unspoiled. 

Tra\'elling  with  the  ship  are  a  group  of 
lecturers,  expert  in  various  areas  of  natural  his- 
tory. Dr  George  Llano  was  chief  scientist  for  the 
Office  of  Polar  Programs  of  the  National  Science 
Foundation  for  25  years.  During  that  time  he 
visited  Antarctica  and  the  Antarctic  Islands  on 
numerous  occasions  and  was  involved  adminis- 
tratively with  most  of  the  scientific  research  pro- 
grams that  continue  there  today.  Commander 


■f. 


Angus  Erskine  (Royal  Navy,  retired)  spent  years 
in  Antarctic  regions  as  well  as  the  arctic.  He  was 
attached  to  the  British  Antarctic  Survey  and  did 
some  of  the  first  accurate  mapping  in  the  Antarc- 
tic Peninsula.  Erskine  is  an  expert  on  the  history 
and  techniques  of  Antarctic  exploration.  Mr 
Frank  Todd  is  an  authority  on  penguins  and 
other  birds  of  Antarctica,  and  has  a  good  deal  of 
general  expertise  on  seals,  whales,  and  the  other 
wildlife  forms  found  there.  Mr  John  Green,  for 
over  twenty  years  with  the  British  Antarctic  Sur- 
vey, knows  the  waters,  harbors,  weather,  and 
sea  signs  of  the  region;  he  is  in  charge  of  logistics. 
Finally,  for  the  January  tour  this  year,  1  covered 
the  geology  of  Antarctica,  how  it  evolved,  and 
how  it  is  related  to  adjacent  continents. 

On  board  the  World  Discoverer  is  a  lecture 
room  that  can  accommodate  all  the  passengers. 


In  Stanley,  capital 
of  Falkla)hl  hlamh, 
Irmvlerf.  may  rest  and 
ictrcsh  Ihenisehvs  at 
the  Upland  Goose 
llotctaiid  Pnh.  Bris;ht 
lupins  enibellisli 
ei'en/  yard. 


On  Neiv  Island, 
Falkland  Islands, 
Mack-browed  alba- 
tross poses  u'ith  chick 
ui  neatly  sculptured 
nest  of  hardeiu'd 
6  mud. 


and  there  we  five  lecturers  offered  illustrated 
talks  that  provided  the  passengers  with  back- 
grounds for  better  understanding  the  features 
they  were  seeing,  day  by  day,  first  hand. 

A  group  of  15  Field  Museum  members, 
in  addition  to  myself,  departed  from  Chicago  on 
January  6,  flying  to  Santiago,  Chile,  where  we 
joined  groups  from  other  parts  of  the  world — 139 
travelers  in  all.  Then  on  January  9  we  all  flew 
south  to  the  Straits  of  Magellan  region  to  the 
small  Chilean  city  of  Punta  Arenas.  There  we  met 
the  World  Discoverer,  which  was  taking  on  fuel, 
water,  and  supplies.  The  next  morning  we  de- 
parted eastward  down  the  Magellan  Straits  —  the 
seas  calm,  the  day  overcast.  Every  now  and  then 
we  saw  an  oil-drilling  platform  in  the  distance. 
The  land  on  either  side  of  the  Straits  was  low, 
broken  only  by  occasional  smooth  hills. 

The  next  morning  we  were  out  at  sea, 
and  by  late  afternoon  New  Island,  one  of  the  wes- 
ternmost of  the  Falkland  Islands,  came  into  view. 
The  ship  anchored  and  we  made  the  first  of  16 
landings  that  occurred  during  the  whole  voyage. 
The  ship  carried  a  group  of  rubber  rafts,  called 
zodiacs,  driven  by  outboard  motors  and  capable  of 
carrying  up  to  a  dozen  passengers  each. 

Ashore  we  hiked  about  a  mile  to  a  rookery 
of  rockhopper  penguins  —  handsome  little  birds 
with  jaunty  yellow  markings  over  their  eyes.  They 
go  from  rock  to  rock,  hopping  like  kangaroos. 
There  was  a  large  group  of  young  birds  in  the 
rookery,  and  the  adults  were  in  constant  move- 
ment—  down  to  the  shore,  where  they  would  go 
into  the  sea  to  eat  fish,  and  back  again  to  the 
rookery,  each  parent  seeking  out  its  own  young 
and  feeding  them  by  regurgitation.  Altogether 


Gravestone  of  mtrcpul  Ajitarctic  explorer  Sir  Ernest  Shackle- 
Ion,  who  died  here  on  South  Georgia  Island  at  a;^^e  47. 


there  were  about  a  thousand  birds  in  the  rookery, 
and  mixed  among  these  sober  little  rockhoppers 
were  a  few  macaroni  penguins  as  well  as  nesting 
black-browed  albatrosses  with  young  in  their 
nests.  All  these  birds  are  so  unused  to  people 
that  one  could  almost  touch  them. 

The  next  day  another  landing  was  made 
on  West  Point  Island  (West  Falklands),  also  pop- 
ulated by  rockhoppers.  The  Falklands  are  islands 
of  moderate  hills  that  are  grass-covered  and 
completely  treeless.  They  are  treeless  not  because 
of  overcutting  by  man,  as  in  Scotland,  Norway, 
and  Iceland;  the  Falklands  never  did  have  trees. 
The  small  population  of  the  islands  (about  2,000) 
raises  sheep;  they  heat  their  houses  with  peat. 
Another  day  of  sailing  and  we  were  on  the  far 
eastern  side  of  the  Falklands,  visiting  the  capital 
city  of  Stanley. 


iJiJiiiai' 


Geologically,  the  Falklands  are  a  part  of 
the  South  American  continent  —  above-water 
projections  at  the  eastern  edge  of  the  South 
American  continental  shelf.  Politically,  however, 
the  Falklands  are  a  little  bit  of  England,  and  about 
97  percent  of  the  inhabitants  are  of  British  extrac- 
tion. Every  house  in  Stanlev  has  a  little  garden  of 
lupins  and  rose  bushes,  all  carefully  tended  like 
those  fine  gardens  you  see  in  Britain.  The  people 
have  accents  rather  like  New  Zealanders,  are 
ruddy-faced,  drive  on  the  "wrong  side"  of  the 
street,  and  one  frequently  sees  small  posters  in 
the  windows  of  homes  that  say  "Keep  the 
Falklands  British." 

For  decades  Argentina  has  claimed  these 
islands,  and  Britain  has  resisted  those  claims.  At 
present  it's  a  standoff;  however,  if  the  stakes  get 
higher— oil  drilling  and  fishing  rights  on  the  con- 
tinental shelf — the  controversy  could  get  hotter. 

Stanley  is  a  delightful  town.  The  inhabit- 
ants were  sincerely  friendly,  and  a  number  of  the 
World  Discoverer  passengers  were  invited  to  step 
into  private  homes  to  "have  a  nice  cup  of  tea."  The 
woolens  cooperative  store  opened  just  for  us,  in 
spite  of  it  being  Sunday.  The  woolens  are  well 
made  and  inexpensive  —  a  rarity  in  these  times. 

The  following  two  days  were  spent  at 
sea,  part  of  the  time  in  fog.  The  ship  was  to  trace 
down  to  the  Antarctic  Peninsula  part  of  the  Scotia 
Arc,  a  series  of  islands  and  island  groups  that  are 
projections  of  the  Andes  Mountains  above  sea 
level.  At  the  tip  of  South  America  the  mountains 
don't  stop.  Instead,  they  swing  eastward  to  the 
far  south  Atlantic,  then  curve  back  westward  to 
meet  the  mountainous  Antarctic  Peninsula,  itself 
a  further  continuation  of  them  into  the  heart  of 
the  Antarctic  continent.  The  islands  (peaks)  of 
the  Scotia  Arc  are,  principally.  South  Georgia, 
the  South  Sandwich  Islands,  the  South  Orkneys, 
and  the  South  Shetlands.  We  visited  all  but  the 
South  Sandwich  Islands,  which  lie  far  east  of  our 
route  and  have  no  harbors. 

On  Wednesday,  January  16,  we  entered 
Cumberland  Bay  on  South  Georgia  Island.  It  was 
a  sunny  day,  with  small,  bright,  white  cumulus 
clouds.  The  scenery  was  unbelievable.  Picture 
the  Alps  sitting  in  the  sea!  From  sea  level,  snow- 
covered,  jagged  alpine  peaks  rose  almost  10,000 
feet  straight  up!  Icebergs  floated  in  the  bay,  and 
broad  glaciers  streamed  down  to  the  shores.  It 
was  overwhelming. 

We  landed  at  Grytviken,  an  abandoned 
whaling  stahon  that  is  now  in  semi-ruins.  When 
Captain  Cook  made  his  voyages  of  exploration  in 
the  18th  century  he  wrote,  in  his  journals,  of  the 
wealth  of  seals  and  whales  he  saw  in  Antarctic 
waters.  That  was  a  mistake.  In  the  200  years  that 
followed,  British,  American,  and  Argentine  com- 
panies set  up  stations  on  many  of  the  Antarctic 
island  groups,  using  them  as  bases  for  uncon- 


trolled  slaughter.  The  southern  fur  seals  were 
almost  wiped  out.  Most  all  of  the  great  whales 
were  reduced  to  a  point  where  they  are  now  near 
extinction.  Although  these  island  stations  have 
ceased  to  be  commercially  viable,  the  slaughter 
continues.  Today  the  Russians  and  Japanese 
maintain  large  whaling  fleets  in  these  regions, 
though,  for  the  want  of  whales,  they  too  may 
prove  to  be  uneconomic. 

We  landed  at  this  place,  explored  the 
ghost  town,  rambled  over  the  foothills  among 
the  idyllic  scenery,  and  dodged  huge  elephant 
seals  on  the  beaches — wallowing  in  mud  and 
bellowing  at  us  as  we  passed.  At  one  end  of  the 
ghost  town  is  the  graveyard.  Here  the  grave- 
stones are  mostly  Norwegian,  for,  in  the  past 
centuries,  no  matter  what  the  nationality  of  a 
whaling  company  —  British,  American,  or 
Argentine — the  world's  cadre  of  experienced 
whalers  came  from  Norway.  Among  the  graves 
of  Johanssens,  Erikssens,  Olssens,  andjenssens 
are  occasional  English  names — and  one  that 
reads  Ernest  Shackleton,  Antarctic  explorer, 
who,  making  one  more  voyage  of  polar  explora- 
tion, died  at  this  place  in  1922. 

For  the  rest  of  the  day  we  coasted  South 
Georgia,  passing  sparkling  peaks,  streamlined 
glaciers,  black  precipitous  cliffs,  and  deep  fjords. 
The  next  morning  we  went  ashore  at  another 
harbor,  the  Bay  of  Isles.  Amidst  the  rugged  scen- 
ery was  another  sight  that  was  difficult  to  believe. 
In  one  view  we  could  take  in  a  hillside  covered 
with  half  a  million  king  penguins!  These  are  the 
second  largest  penguin  species,  up  to  three  feet 
tall,  with  a  beautiful  yellow  wedge  of  color  at  the 
side  of  the  head.  The  beach,  just  below  the  rook- 
ery, was  occupied  by  elephant  seals  as  well  as  by 
a  few  fur  seals. 

Along  one  side  of  the  rookery  an  enormous 
glaciercamedown  tothesea,  and  from  it  poured 
a  deep  roaring  river  of  numbing  cold  meltvvater, 
milky  white  in  color  from  all  the  finely  pulverized 
rock  dust  it  carried — a  characteristic  of  glacial 


Author  Und  tour 
leader  Edxmrd  Olseii 
alop  cinder  cone  on 
the  voiciviic  cahiern, 
Deception  Island, 
part  of  South  Shet- 
land hiands. 


melts  all  over  the  world. 

Across  from  the  penguin  rookery  we 
visited  an  island  that  was  the  nesting  place  of 
wandering  albatrosses.  These  are  the  giant  wan- 
derers of  the  southern  oceans,  with  wingspreads 
up  to  twelve  feet.  Like  the  penguins,  these  nest- 
ing birds  showed  no  fear  and  seemed  to  take 
little  notice  of  us. 

After  departing  South  Georgia  we 
headed  southwestward  towards  the  South  Orkney 
Islands.  At  sea  we  had  marvelous  luck  to  see  one 
of  the  remaining  southern  right  whales  that  has 
survived  the  slaughter  — so  far.  He  was  a  big  one. 
He  repeatedly  dove  and  surfaced,  one  time  al- 
most clearing  the  water  in  a  leap.  It  was  a  fantas- 
tic way  to  leave  the  vicinity  of  South  Georgia  — 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  places  in  the  world. 
Had  the  weather  been  stormy  and  overcast  we 
would  probably  have  thought  it  a  grim  place, 
never  seeing  the  mountains,  glaciers,  or  fjords. 
The  South  Orkneys  were  seen  under  just 
such  weather  — gray,  with  periods  of  fog  — much 
more  the  way  high-latitude  regions  usually  look. 
The  mountains  could  not  be  seen  to  full  advantage, 
and  glaciers  appeared  gray  and  mysterious  rather 
than  brilliantly  white  and  sparkling.  We  made 
only  one  landing,  at  Coronation  Island,  to  see  a 


Sw^artopj  rises  moic 

than  9,000  feet  oil 

South  Georgia  Island. 

Snowfields  and  small 

glaciers  lie  beloir 

The  strata  are 

sedimentary  rocks. 


Group  of  king 

penguins  ciijou 

the  morning  sun 

at  Grytvikcn. 

abandoned  whaluig 

station  on  South 

Georgia  Island. 

M.S.  World 

Discoverer 

in  background 


':^:.->«- 


small  rookery  of  Adelie  penguins,  then  sailed 
westward  to  the  South  Shetlands,  passing  into 
seas  more  and  more  filled  with  icebergs.  They 
were  generally  flat,  but  occasionally  bizarre 
shapes  were  seen,  riddled  with  caves  that  were 
a  scintillating,  almost  electric  blue.  Now  and 
then  a  cluster  of  penguins  could  be  seen  taking 
a  ride  nprthward  by  iceberg. 

On  January  22  we  made  a  landing  on 
King  George  Island,  one  of  the  South  Shetlands. 
On  this  island  the  Polish  government  maintains  a 
modern,  well  equipped  research  station,  making 
studies  in  marine  biology  and  geophysics.  We  vi- 
sited a  rookery  that  was  populated  by  three  pen- 
guin species:  Adelie,  chinstrap,  and  gentoo.  We 
then  plowed  on  to  the  Antarctic  Peninsula  to  take 
full  advantage  of  a  high  pressure  weather  system 
that  promised  clear  weather. 

Two  of  our  staff  lecturers,  Cmdn  Erskine 
and  John  Green,  had,  during  their  professional 
careers,  worked  for  many  years  in  this  region. 
They  both  agreed  they  had  never  seen  such 
remarkably  calm,  clear  weather  for  such  a  long 
period  of  time  in  this  part  of  the  world.  For  three 
days,  under  brilliant  skies  and  gentle  breezes,  we 
explored  the  Antarctic  Peninsula,  its  islands,  and 
channels  amid  the  most  glorious  scenery  yet  seen: 
mountains  that  ranged  up  to  11,000  feet,  glaciers 
with  streamlined,  smooth,  sinuous  curves  that 
swung  between  the  peaks  down  the  valleys  to 
the  sea,  towering  vertical  cliffs,  deep  fjords,  and 
icebergs  in  bright  whites,  electric  blues,  and  pale 
greens,  packed  in  so  close  that  the  ship  had  to 
edge  slowly  through  them,  cautiously  pushing 
them  aside.  Some  bergs  carried  groups  of  pen- 
guins; some  carried  single  crabeater  seals,  with 
lustrous  silvery  coats  and  enormous  brown,  soul- 
ful eyes.  They  would  stare  at  us  and  roll  over  or, 
in  fright,  lunge  into  the  water. 

We  made  a  series  of  stops  at  rookeries  and 
at  research  stations  of  the  United  States  (Palmer 
Station),  and  Argentina  (Almirante  Brown).  We 
visited  Deception  Island,  an  enormous  volcanic 
caldera  that  last  erupted  in  1976.  It  was  utterly 
barren,  with  steaming  waters  in  several  places. 
Cmdr.  Erskine  declared  he  had  never  seen  the 
sun  shine  on  Deception  Island  —  but  that  day  it 
shone  brilliantly. 

This  part  of  the  trip  was  the  most  memor- 
able, and  yet  we  were  still  to  enjoy  a  "dessert": 
After  two  days  crossing  the  Drake  Strait  north- 
ward—under unusually  gentle  seas  for  that 
part  of  the  world  —  we  saw  Cape  Horn  and,  next 
day,  entered  still  more  superb  scenery  —  we 
cruised  the  Beagle  Channel,  again  in  beautiful 
weather.  This  is  the  channel  that  Charles  Darwin 
traversed  when  he  made  his  famous  voyage  on 
the  Beagle.  We  sailed  northwestward  along  the 
channel,  passing  a  series  of  spectacular  views  — 
a  succession  of  glaciers  and  high  mountains. 


F' 


whose  lower  flanks  were  covered  with  a  kind 
of  low  false-beech  forest.  Sweet  smells  of  vege- 
tation, so  long  absent  from  the  air,  came  to  us 
on  breezes  from  the  shores.  Now  and  then  a 
streaming  waterfall  was  passed  and,  in  one 
place,  we  could  see  nine  falls  in  a  single  view. 

Finally  we  turned  northeastward  to  Punta 
Arenas,  and  the  nervous  clutter  of  civilization  again. 

Although  we  visited  penguin  and  albatross 
rookeries  during  this  voyage,  and  saw  many  seals 
ashore,  this  was  not  all  the  wildlife.  At  sea  we  saw 
a  constant  stream  of  birds.  Some  of  these,  like  the 
giant  petrels  and  snowy  petrels,  would  follow  us 
for  days  at  a  time  —  swooping  over  the  stern  of 
the  ship.  Most  others  stayed  for  awhile,  usually 
near  land,  and  passed  on:  wandering  albatrosses, 
skuas,  terns,  shearwaters,  fulmars,  cormorants, 
ducks,  geese,  herons.  Besides  sighting  the 
southern  right  whale,  we  also  sighted  Minke 
whales,  and  dolphins  at  sea.  It  was  a  constant 
stream  of  wildlife  of  this  part  of  the  world. 

Though  most  of  our  participants  were 
experienced  world  travellers,  this  successful  jour- 
ney was  counted  unique  by  everyone.  Some  will 
return  in  a  future  year  to  repeat  the  experience. 
There  are  few  places  left  on  this  planet  where  one 
can  feel  a  real  sense  of  primitive  earth.  Standing 
on  a  hilltop  on  the  Antarctic  Peninsula,  viewing 
an  expanse  of  jagged  mountains,  glaciers,  and 
sparkling  sea  below,  in  utter  silence  —  broken 
now  and  then  by  the  low  rumble  of  a  distant 
avalanche — is  an  experience  that  is  profound.  It 
will  not  be  forgotten  by  any  of  us. 


Vk'ZL'cd  from  deck 
of  M.S.  World 
Discoverer,  moun- 
tniii  peak  juts  dramat- 
ically from  the  placid 
Antarctic  waters. 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Poison  Ivy  Rash  Control? 

The  effect  of  poisonous  plants  on  man  may 
be  brought  under  control  if  compounds 
developed  bv  scientists  at  the  Universits'  of 
Mississippi  prove  as  effective  on  human 
beings  as  thev  have  on  guinea  pigs. 

Researchers  have  developed  deriva- 
tives of  urushiol  —  those  compounds 
found  in  poison  ivy,  poison  oak,  and 
poison  sumac — that  cause  allergic  skin 
reactions. 

In  one  strategem,  urushiol  is  hooked 
onto  the  membranes  of  red  blood  cells  to 
form  a  molecule  large  enough  to  trigger  the 
bodv's  immune  system  to  react  against  the 
intruder,  (n  another,  simple  com- 
pounds are  injected  into  the  body,  where 
they  spontaneously  form  internal  urushiol 
derivatives;  these,  in  turn,  produce  pro- 
found tolerance  to  the  urushiols  of  the 
poisonous  plants. 

Acid  Dust 

You've  heard  of  acid  rain  —  how  about  acid 
dust?  That  is  how  sulfur  oxides  and  nitro- 
gen oxides  come  down  in  Los  Angeles, 
where  rain  is  irregular.  Two  scientists  at  the 
California  Institute  of  Technology  collected 
dust  on  flat  plates  covered  with  a  stickv 
substance  and  exposed  to  Los  Angeles  air 
Thev  found  that  twenty  times  more  aciditv' 
reached  the  ground  as  solid  particles  than 
as  rain.  They  also  discovered  that  the  con- 
centrated aciditTt'  of  smog  particles  could 
burn  holes  in  a  leaf's  surface.  And,  unlike 
rain,  acid  dust  tlows  into  buildings,  where 
it  can  damage  plastic  and  rubber 


New  Protection  for  Pandas 

The  People's  Republic  of  China  has  dis- 
closed a  plan  to  save  pandas  from  extinc- 
tion bv  making  protected  zones  of  their 
habitats  and  planting  more  food  for  them. 

The  Communist  Party  newspaper 
People's  Daily  said  authorities  in  northern 
Sichaun  Province,  where  pandas  live,  have 
designated  13  protective  zones. 

No  hunting  will  be  allowed  in  such 
areas  and  no  trees  can  be  cut  in  an  effort  to 
preserve  bamboo,  the  panda's  principal 
food. 

Carbon  Dioxide  Absorption  by 
Temperate  Zone  Forests 

The  world's  temperate  zone  forests  are 
doing  a  better  job  of  absorbing  carbon 
wastes  from  fossil  fuel  burning  than  some 
scientists  give  them  credit  for  That's  the 
conclusion  of  studies  done  by  a  Duke 
10  University  researcher  and  a  colleague  in 


Indiana. 

Over  the  last  30  years,  says  Charles 
Ralston,  professor  of  forest  soils  at  Duke, 
there  are  indications  the  temperate  forests 
may  have  been  accumulating  up  to  1.2  bil- 
lion tons  of  carbon  a  year  "This  is  about  20 
percent  of  the  annual  carbon  release  from 
combustion  of  fossil  fuels  over  the  period," 
savs  Ralston.  This  is  strong  evidence,  he 
believes,  that  the  temperate  zone  forests 
"have  been  partially  dampening  the  in- 
crease in  atmospheric  carbon  dioxide"  from 
fossil  fuels,  as  well  as  tropical  forest  clear- 
ance and  burning. 

Ralston  and  Thomas  V.  Armentano,  of 
the  Institute  of  Ecologv,  in  Indianapolis, 
noted  in  a  recent  paper  that  the  role  of 
temperate  zone  forests  in  carbon  recycling 
hasn't  been  fullv  explored.  Thev  say  that 
analysis,  however,  points  to  underestima- 
tion of  the  growth  rates  and  size  changes  of 
the  forests.  Thus,  they  say,  the  temperate 
zone  forests  are  accumulating  more  waste 
carbon  than  some  scientists  had  thought. 
Ralston  says  some  ecologists  have  claimed 
that  clearing  of  forests,  mainly  in  the 
tropics,  is  responsible  for  carbon  dioxide 
release  of  "great  magnitude." 

He  and  Armentano  decided  to  look 
into  such  assertions  because  carbon  re- 
leases claimed  for  tropical  forests  haven't 
raised  atmospheric  carbon  dioxide  above 
levels  expected  from  burning  of  fossil  fuels. 
Ralston  says  net  forest  growth  is  actually 
occurring  throughout  the  temperate  zone. 
The  principal  carbon  "sinks"  formed  bv 
temperate  zone  forests  are  in  North 
America  and  Siberia.  Limited  data  show 
that  Siberia  has  a  large  stock  of  slowlv 
growing  conifers  that  are  underexploited 
—  forming  a  sink  equivalent  to  that  of 
North  America. 

Western  Europe's  forests,  he  says, 
have  expanded  by  7  percent  since  World 
War  II,  and  similar  recovery  may  be  occur- 
ring in  temperate  Asia. 

Trees  and  other  plants  absorb  carbon 
dioxide  during  photosynthesis.  Research- 
ers in  the  United  States  and  other  industri- 
alized nations  are  becoming  worried  that 
too  much  carbon  dioxide  from  fossil  fuel 
combustion  will  affect  global  weather 
through  a  "greenhouse  effect"  that  traps 
solar  heat.  This  could  result  in  a  rise  of  the 
global  temperature  and  cause  partial  melt- 
ing of  the  polar  ice  caps,  some  scientists 
think. 

Other  researchers,  mainly  botanists, 
fear  higher  carbon  dioxide  levels  will  ad- 
versely affect  the  growth  characteristics  of 
commercially  valuable  plants  such  as  cot- 
ton. The  worldwide  carbon  dioxide  level  is 
about  330  parts  per  million.  It  has  been  ris- 
ing since  the  onset  of  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion in  the  18th  century.  If  the  rise  continues 


at  the  present  rate,  some  studies  suggest 
that  atmospheric  carbon  dioxide  will  dou- 
ble in  about  30  years. 

Ralston  says  current  forest  manage- 
ment trends  indicate  net  forest  growth  wiU 
continue  through  the  rest  of  this  century. 
Many  of  the  trees  in  the  temperate  forests 
were  cut  over  the  last  200  years  in  North 
America. 

Improved  management,  says  Ralston, 
has  turned  the  situation  around,  and  there 
has  been  a  net  growth  in  the  United  States 
for  the  past  25  years.  Even  so,  he  adds, 
forest  growth  in  this  country  is  only  half 
what  it  could  be  with  more  widespread 
forest  management  techniques.  Not  only 
would  there  be  more  wood  available,  but 
the  expanded  forests  would  serve  to  ac- 
cumulate even  more  waste  carbon  from 
power  plants  and  other  sources. 


The  Demise  of  Bald  Eagle  PR-1727 

The  file  on  bald  eagle  number  PR-1727  is 
trim  by  government  report  standards. 
Three  uncrowded  pages  of  numbers  and  a 
few  words  summarize  the  death  of  eagle 
number  PR-1727  The  dead  eagle  was  found 
by  citizen  Wendell  Adams  on  May  12, 1979, 
near  Togo,  Minnesota.  Citizen  Adams 
turned  the  carcass  over  to  Ken  Schlueter,  a 
Minnesota  state  conservahen  officer.  The 
routine  that  follows  is  methodical,  precise. 

Officer  Schlueter  confers  with  David 
Duncan,  special  agent  with  the  U.S.  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service  (Fws)  in  Duluth.  Agent 
Duncan  initiates  action  to  determine  the 
cause  of  death.  It  will  take  time  but  there 
will  be  an  answer  from  technical  people  in 
the  FWS  laboratories. 

He  sends  the  carcass  to  the  National 
Wildlife  Health  Laboratory  in  Madison, 
Wisconsin,  for  necropsy  to  determine  if  the 
eagle  died  of  disease  or  injur\'.  Louis  Locke 
files  a  necropsy  report  and  leaves  the 
diagnosis  open.  Tissues  from  bald  eagle 
PR-1727  are  sent  to  the  Patuxent  WildUfe 
Research  Center  in  Laurel,  Map,'land,  for 
chemical  analysis.  The  one-page  report 
from  Patuxent  shows  a  list  of  chemical 
compounds  with  decimals  in  parts  per  mil- 
lion listed  alongside  each  compound. 
These  are  the  small  amounts  of  each  chemi- 
cal found  in  the  dead  eagle. 

The  complete  report  is  sent  to  Agent 
Duncan.  A  copy  goes  to  the  Service's 
Regional  Office  in  Minneapolis,  where 
James  Elder,  a  specialist  who  deals  with. 
environmental  contaminants  attaches  a 
note  to  the  tidy  file.   His  comments  are 


brief,  but  disturbing: 


Continued  on  p.  19 


The  Jeanetta  and  Karl  Menninger 
Collection  of  Indian  Rugs 


By  David  M.  Walsten 
Color  Photography  by  Ron  Testa 


Though  Unmarked  by  Ceremony,  Dec- 
ember 21, 1979,  was  a  very  special  date  at 
Field  Museum.  For  it  was  then  that  15 
superb  specimens  of  Navajo  textile  art 
were  accessioned  by  the  Department  of 
Anthropology.  The  15  rugs  and  blankets 
represented  the  first  gift  of  a  total  of 
some  75  in  the  collection  built  by  Dr.  Karl 
A.  Menninger  and  Mrs.  Menninger,  of 
Topeka,  Kansas. 

The  Menninger  Collection  is  the 
result  of  several  decades  of  discrimi- 
nating selection  by  the  world  famed  psy- 
chiatrist and  his  wife,  who  have  had  a 
life-long  interest  in  the  art  and  culture  of 
the  Native  Americans  of  our  Southwest. 

Most  of  the  specimens  already  to 
be  found  in  the  Museum's  collection  of 
Navajo  textile  art  (about  100  in  all)  were 
acquired  shortly  after  the  Museum's 
founding;  these  materials,  then,  are 
largely  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  Menninger  Collection,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  particularly  strong  in 
twentieth-century  weavings,  effectively 
documenting  transitions  in  style,  de- 
sign, weaving  technique,  and  color  from 
the  turn  of  the  century  up  to  the  present. 
Thus,  in  a  most  significant  way,  the 
Menninger  specimens  complement  the 
earlier  holdings. 

The  Field  Museum  is  permanent- 
ly indebted  to  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Menninger 


for  their  gracious  and  generous  gift.  It 
further  reinforces  the  Field  Museum's 
position  as  one  of  the  world's  great  re- 
positories of  Native  American  Art.  In 
due  course,  the  Jeanetta  and  Karl  Men- 
ninger Collection  of  Indian  Rugs  will  be 
placed  on  exhibit  at  the  Museum  for  its 
Members  as  well  as  the  general  public 
to  enjoy. 

Several  of  the  specimens  already 
received  are  shown  on  the  following 
pages. 


Dr.  and  Mrs.  Karl  Menninger  examine  one  of  the 
Navajo  blankets  in  their  collection. 


12 


Wide  Ruins:  64"x87"  (16ix22lcm).  This  large  rug  is  representative  of  the 
"Rei'ii'al"  style,  apparently  started  bxi  the  National  Association  on  Indian  Affairs 
in  Boston  in  1920.  Association  members  undertook  to  rei'ive  the  high  standards  of 
the  old  Indian  blankets,  and  sent  photos  and  drawings  of  fine  old  Indian  rugs  to 
traders  and  schools.  They  also  sok'cd  problems  in  dye  use  and  dnnonstrated  these  to 
the  Indians.  But  the  neic-old  style  put  fresh  life  into  the  rug  business,  and  today 
these  muted,  striped,  natural-color  rugs  are  in  popular  demand. 


Ji 


Above:  Canado;  44"x69"  (112.xl75cm).  A  rccfiil  rug,  with  gooii  lii/fi  niui  excellent 
diamond  design  with  serrated  cutlmes.  Siicli  outlining  requires  great  weaving  skill. 


Below:  Navajo  Pictorial,  Yeihechei;  58Vi"x9V'  (H9x231cm).  Yeibechei  rugs  depict 
Savajo  divinities  as  seen  in  the  masked  dancers  of  the  sacred  dances.  They  are  rather 
similar  to  the  Hopi  kachmas.  It  loas  taboo  to  depict  them  excei't  in  the  sacred  sand 
paintings,  lohich  were  made  for  healing  ceremonies  and  ahoai/s  destroyed  after- 


ward. When  this  taboo  was  broken  by  a  'weaver  depicting  such  divinities  on  a  rug, 
the  weaver  was  believed  to  be  cursed  forever.  The  taboo  and  the  fear  have  now  greatly 
subsided,  and  many  Yeibechei  rugs  are  today  woven  to  sell. 

The  spvcinien  shown  here  is  exceptional  for  its  great  size  and  the  number  of  yei 
(W) -elongated,  stylized  figures.  The  rainbow  god,  on  the  right,  extends  around 
three  sides  of  the  rug.  Each  figure  wears  the  traditional  square,  U'oman's  mask  (the 
men's  are  oval),  and  their  legs  are  shown,  indicating  that  the  figures  are  dancing. 
They  carry  long  sprays  of  spruce. 


['"'^TMj'^TWj^/i^mMF^^aMy'^i 


IfrWl 


Above:  Tum-of-the-century  photo  of 
Navajo  weaver  outside  her  hogan. 

Left:  Navajo  loom  with  partially 
completed  blanket  in  Field  Museum 
collection . 


Teec  Nos  Pos;  74"x84"  (ISSxltScm).  "Eye-Dazzler. "  So-named  for  the  desif;n  and 
vivid  colors.  Teec  Nos  I'os  is  Navajo  for  "circle  of  cottonwoods. "  The  design  of 
these  pieces  often  includes  zigzags,  lightning  and  rhythmic  movement  that  may 
hai'e  a  rather  eerie  effect.  A  Navajo  legend  tells  of  a  Teec  Nos  Pos  weaivr  who  urns  so 
frightened  by  his  own  rug  ivhen  the  sun  shone  on  it,  that  he  took  it  to  the  trader  and 
asked  him  to  hide  it. 


ii 


Above:  Two  Gnn/  Hills:  35"x70"  (S9xl78cm).  Tim  Crai/  Hills  is  a  community 
about  50  miles  from  Shii^wck,  in  the  Ntic  Mexico  side  of  the  Navajo  reservation.  It 
has  long  had  a  repndalion  for  the  finest  modern  Navajo  weaving,  althougli  at 
present  matiy  other  weavers  and  regions  compete  luith  them  successfully.  The 
reputation  is  traced  to  the  influence  ofj.B.  Moore,  who  had  a  store  at  Crystal,  Nezo 
Mexico,  until  1912.  He  supervised  the  cleaning  of  the  zoool  and  chose  the  best 
weai'ers  to  make  rugs  after  his  own  patterns.  This  type  originally  had  no  dyed 
colors,  only  lohite,  black,  and  a  combination  of  the  two  in  gray,  which  was  an 


innoz'ation.  The  above  example  is  a  finely  woven  modern  rug  showing  an  unusual 
departure  from  the  conventional  style.  In  this  optical  illusion  design  the  elements 
shift  back  and  forth,  depending  on  hoic  it  is  viewed. 

Below:  Tiro  Gray  Hills:  54"x77"  (137xl96an).  Some  mild  tan  color  is  used  in  this 
example,  but  the  involved,  rather  solemn  pattern  and  elaborate  border,  and  the 
perfection  of  the  weaving  are  characteristic.  This  rug  has  the  so-called  spirit  line, 
an  aristocratic  touch.  Note  hcnv  skillfully  the  weaver  carries  the  border  around 
the  corners. 


16 


!.aV.\V%v.v;,Vv\'.'.'//.vaI'* ' i;a«.^ '  I    ni v,,,^ 


/a  &  •  k  ^  w  ♦  •  ^»W»»»^  " 


.V\Jk^M 


Giinado;  4S"x78"  (122x198cm).  Gaimdo  is  nil  liuiian  anninuiiil}/  blown  for  lis 
liidinii  school  and  for  its  hospilal  cslablishcd  In/  the  Presbyterian  Church  hut  now 
Mon^m^  to  tlie  Navajo  tribe.  Gaiiado  is  also  known  for  its  relation  to  Lorenzo 
Hiibbell  who,  as  an  early  trader  living  anton^^  the  Indians,  worked  to  maintain  and 
dei'elop  hi;,;h  standards  anion;^  the  weavers  and  to  );et  orders  and  \;ood  iirices  for 
their  work.  He  and  the  Fred  Harvey  Company  were  strong;  and  constriictizv  iiijlu- 
eiices  upon  the  weavers.  The  Navajo  weavers  had  been  exploited  and  without  market 
guidance,  and  were  carried  away  with  the  neze  aniline  dyes  which  reached  the  tribe 


about  ISSO.  Harvey  contracted  with  Hubbell  to  take  Ins  entire  intake  oj  ffood  qualily 
rugs  at  premium  prices  for  high  standards  of  weave,  wool,  colors,  and  designs.  The 
rugs  were  often  made  to  order  in  very  large  sizes  for  wealthy  customers.  They 
required  many  months  to  complete  on  the  Indian  looms  zrhich  had  been  intended  for 
weaving  blankets,  not  large,  heavy  rugs.  Navajo  women  have  always  woven  in 
one  piece,  nei'cr  in  separate  strips  sewn  together  as  loas  done  in  Mexico  and  many 
other  countries. 


18 


Above:  Canada:  5V'xS5"  (130x216cm).  A  later  rug  with  good  dyes  and  an  excellent 
design  of  diamonds  with  serrated  outlines,  which  were,  and  remain  today,  quite 
popular.  The  outlining  technique  requires  great  weaving  skill . 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 

Continued  from  p.  It) 


"Dieldrin  has  been  outlawed  tor  from 
five  to  eight  years,  depending  on  location, 
but  it's  still  showing  up  in  the  environment 
and  clobbering  eagles." 

The  Patuxent  analysis  disclosed  a 
concentration  of  5.1  parts  per  million  of 
dieldrin  in  the  brain  of  the  dead  eagle. 
Former  laboratory  studies  revealed  that  the 
lower  end  of  the  curve  for  death  due  to 
poisoning  is  at  about  five  parts  per  million 
in  the  brain.  Bald  eagle  PR-1727  may  have 
died  from  the  concentration  of  dieldrin, 
Patuxent  researchers  say. 

Dieldren  is  a  highly  toxic  organo- 
chlorine  insecticide  in  the  class  v\ith  DDT, 
heptachlor  epoxide,  chlordane  isomers, 
mirex,  toxaphene  and  hexachlorobenzene. 
Elder  explained. 

Even  though  dieldrin  has  been  banned 
from  most  use,  evidence  indicates  the  in- 
secticide is  apparently  present  in  the  envi- 
ronment of  the  Great  Lakes.  Fish-eaHng 
birds  are  especially  vulnerable  to  dieldrin 
because  it  accumulates  in  the  aquatic  food 
chain.  Thus,  eagles  that  feed  on  fish  can  be 
affected.  The  demise  of  bald  eagle  PR-1727 
is  a  reminder  of  earlier  mistakes  made 
with  toxic  insecticides.  When  asked  how 
long  dieldrin  might  hang  on  in  the  en- 
vironment. Elder  answered,  "No  one 
really  knows." 


The  Beleaguered  Desert  Bighorn 

Lanny  Wilson  has  a  philosophy  he  thinks 
may  help  save  the  beleaguered  desert 
bighorn  sheep.  "Think  like  a  sheep,"  he 
advises.  "You've  got  to  put  yourself  in  the 
old  sheep's  place." 

Wilson,  a  sheep  biologist  with  the  U.S. 
Bureau  of  Land  Management  in  Idaho, 
makes  this  recommendation  after  years  of 
experience  with  bighorn  research  and 
transplant  efforts.  Because  transplant  ef- 
forts are  so  new,  no  one  can  say  whether 
any  have  really  been  successful.  Wilson  is 
"scared  to  death"  for  the  future  of  the 
sheep.  "I  think  we  could  damn  near  lose 
them  in  the  next  100  years." 

In  1974,  the  total  U.S.  desert  bighorn 
population  numbered  13,000-14,000.  Some 
states  have  since  reported  updated  figures 
that  indicate  more  sheep  than  originally 
thought,  mainly  from  improved  survey 
techniques  and  wet  years  that  allowed 
good  vegetation  growth  for  foraging  sheep. 
Despite  these  ophmistic  indicators,  Wilson 
and  others  see  the  road  to  salvation  for 
these  high-strung,  handsome  animals 
strung  with  complexiHes,  aggravated  by 
the  same  factors  facing  biologists  and 
sportspeople  during  their  frustrating,  often 
futile  attempts  to  save  a  small  corner  of  the 
countr\'  for  wildlife. 

On  a  western  map,   the  desert  big- 


horn's distribution  is  spotty.  This  unique 
aspect,  which  Wilson  terms  the  "island 
concept,"  arises  from  a  drastic  reduction  in 
Ovis  ca)iadensis  iwhcmi'i  historic  range. 
Roads,  dams,  off-road-vehicles,  sub- 
divisions, mining,  fences,  wild  horses  and 
burros,  and  livestock,  plus  overhunting 
and  disease,  have  edged  the  bighorn  to  this 
discouraging  point,  where  the  only  hope 
may  be  the  success  of  delicate  transplant 
activities  and  curtailment  of  the  human  en- 
croachment contributing  to  their  demise. 

In  Nevada,  New  Mexico,  Arizona, 
Utah,  and  California,  the  story  is  the  same. 
Early  explorers,  mainly  Spaniards  search- 
ing for  the  Seven  Cities  of  Cibola,  wrote  in 
their  journals  of  great  numbers  of  bighorn 
sheep  living  in  the  rugged  canyon  country, 
providing  juicy  meat  for  hungry  travelers. 
In  Texas,  where  introductions  are  under- 
way to  restore  extirpated  populations, 
bighorn  meat  fed  railroad  workers  and 
miners,  and  was  also  shipped  East.  Settlers 
and  more  "progess"  ate  into  their  habitat. 
Now,  remnant  herds  cling  to  tenuous  exis- 
tence on  the  isolated,  precipitous  terrain 
they  must  have  to  survive. 

Bighorn  need  space.  Although  the 
other  three  essential  habitat  requirements 
—  food,  water,  cover — must  be  present, 
space  can't  be  forgotten,  Wilson  warns. 
Sheep  thrive  on  grass,  cactus  pulp,  and 
paloverde  beans.  They  also  need  escape 
terrain  within  easy  leap  where,  using  their 
keen  eyesight,  they  are  afforded  un- 
obstructed views  of  their  surroundings,  as 
well  as  adjoining  flat  land  for  lambing. 
While  they  have  adapted  to  withstand  long 
dry  periods,  at  some  point  water  becomes  a 
limiting  factor.  But  space,  says  Wilson, 
is  probably  the  "most  important  and 
least  understood  habitat  requirement"  of 
wild  sheep. 

With  few  exceptions,  bighorn  simply 
do  not  tolerate  competition.  They  will 
abandon  otherwise  suitable  areas  after  cat- 
tle, goats,  feral  horses  or  burros,  or  other 
ungulates  enter.  National  Park  Service  offi- 
cials in  the  Grand  Canyon  and  Death  Val- 
ley are  currently  struggling  to  decide  how 
to  eliminate  the  threat  wild  horses  and  bur- 
ros pose  for  bighorn.  Wilson  reports  that 
during  his  research  in  Utah,  a  sheep  herd 
reoccupied  an  area  as  soon  as  domestic  cat- 
tle were  removed.  While  other  animals  are 
of  serious  concern,  say  biologists,  human 
intruders  unquestionably  exert  the  strong- 
est negative  pressure  on  bighorn. 

As  Bill  Montoya  of  the  New  Mexico 
Department  of  Game  and  Fish  puts  it:  "You 
can't  grow  sheep  in  a  housing  develop- 
ment." To  give  sheep  the  isolation  they 
need,  a  sizable  buffer  must  be  provided. 
Introduce  a  road  into  sheep  range  and  "you 
might  as  well  write  off  that  herd,"  Montoya 
says.  Off-road-vehicles,  roaring  through 
prime  bighorn  territory,  may  also  force  the 
wary  animals  to  forsake  their  homes.  If  20 
sheep  are  crowded  onto  an  area  with  a  car- 
rying capacity  of  only  10,  the  population 
will  certainly  drop,  Montoya  points  out. 


Even  less  active  recreational  pursuits 
must  be  regulated.  Campers  and  hikerscan 
disturb  the  bighorn,  unused  as  it  i  *o 
human  activities.  All  these  disturbai 
create  barriers  to  migration  the  lead  to 
further  isolation  of  the  bighorn.  Altiioueh 
he  lacks  documentation  (and  cons 
quently,  the  support  of  other  biologists), 
Wilson  has  a  hunch  that  this  isolation 
precipitates  inbreeding  and  possibly  less 
healthy  populations.  Rams  move  great 
distances  to  reach  ewes,  and  if  their 
movements  are  hindered  by  a  highway  or  a 
new  lake,  the  gene  pools  of  separate  herds 
cannot  mix,  suggesting  to  Wilson  that  in- 
breeding "might  have  been  an  impor- 
tant factor  in  the  extinction  of  some 
historically-isolated  populations."  Other 
genetic  factors  he  thinks  deserve  more  re- 
search are  reproduction,  harvesting  of  less 
cautious  animals,  and  susceptibility  to  dis- 
ease and  parasites. 

Bighorn  research  needs  are  many.  In 
Arizona,  utility-funded  research  is  being 
done  on  effects  of  a  local  electrical  trans- 
mission line  on  bighorn.  Five-hundred- 
kilovolt  lines  under  construction  from 
a  nuclear  power  plant  near  Phoenix  will 
dissect  some  of  the  best  range  for  the  state's 
estimated  3,000  bighorn.  Robert  Weaver  of 
the  Arizona  Game  and  Fish  Department 
explains  that  the  study  is  giving  good  in- 
formation on  "things  we  only  had  an  inkl- 
ing of  before."  The  transmission  line  itself  is 
not  of  as  much  concern  as  the  increased 
vehicular  access  it  will  permit.  He  believes 
the  sheep  probably  could  adapt  to  the  lines, 
but  increased  human  presence  at  certain 
times  of  the  year,  particularly  during 
lambing  and  rutting  seasons,  is  beyond 
their  powers  of  adjustment. 

Weaver  hopes  two  relocation  efforts 
on  the  drawing  board  will  take.  This  fall, 
young  sheep  captured  from  the  Black 
Mountains  west  of  Kingman  will  be  en- 
closed on  public  land  in  northwestern 
Arizona's  Virgin  Mountains.  Similar  re- 
leases are  underway  or  planned  in  Utah, 
Nevada,  and  New  Mexico. 

Bighorn  reintroductions  generall) 
follow  a  standard  procedure.  Once  habitat 
is  located  and  rated  for  suitability,  an  area  is 
enclosed  to  hold  new  sheep.  In  this  pad- 
dock, young  sheep  can  acclimate  to  un- 
familiar surroundings.  They  have  just  been 
loaded  off  a  dark  truck  after  being  "shot" 
with  "cocktails"  to  immobilize  and  tran- 
quiliz.e  them,  relieving  stress  from  contact 
and  commotion. 

Two-  or  three-year-old  sheep  from  the 
same  herd  are  ideal  transplant  candidates, 
because  they  can  better  adjust  to  new  sur- 
roundings, says  Wilson.  This  is  the  time  to 
remember  his  adage  "Think  like  a  sheep." 
They  are  looking  for  someone  to  talk  to," 
he  says,  and  are  going  to  stay  together  if 
they  know  each  other.  These  younger 
animals  have  not  yet  had  a  home  range 
thoroughU'  imprinted  on  them  through  the 
learning  process  passed  from  older  to 
younger  animals.  '' 


LEARMING  MUSEUM  CONTINUES  WITH: 

THROUGH 

CHINESE 

EYES 

By  ANTHONY  PFEIFFER 
Project  Coordinator 


Made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment 
for  the  htumanities,  a  federal  agency. 


Represeiitntioii  of  Cliiiiese  re/i\'/oi/s  drama,  s/;c>i('n;\;  Toi 
Civirt-i  of  Purs;aton/.  On  i'l'crr  in  Hall  i2 


Jesuit  missionaries  were  shocked  cind  the  faitlis 
ot  sttme  were  severeh'  shaken  b\'  what  thev 
encountered  in  sixteenth-century  China.  The 
news  thev  sent  back  to  the  West  caused  a  furor 
amoni;  the  educated  public.  Highh'  complex  and 
sophisticated  s\'stems  ot  philosophy  and  religion 
were  not  supposed  to  exist  outside  the  western 
world.  Today,  although  the  news  is  four  centuries 
old,  a  fascination  for  unique!}'  Chinese  perspec- 
tives remains. 

The  aphorisms  of  Confucius,  the  1-Ch'ing, 
the  practice  of  holistic  medicine  and  acupuncture, 
and  the  concept  of  enlightenment  are  a  few  as- 
pects of  Chinese  world  view  that  command  atten- 
tion today.  These  belief  systems  express  a  blend  of 
mysticism  and  practicality.  They  combine  sen- 
sitivity, vision,  discipline,  and  strength  in  a  way 
that  many  Americans  find  either  strange  or  curi- 
ously compelling.  Images  of  inscrutable  Orien- 
tals, virtually  superhuman  martial  artists,  or  wise 
old  men  with  stringy  beards  who  say  much  with 
few  words  are  all  manifestations  of  western  in- 
trigue with  the  mind  and  style  of  China. 

Through   Chinese   Eyes,    the   fourth   in   Field 
Museum's  NEH  Learning  Museum  Courses  of 


Study  series,  offers  the  opportunit\-  to  explore 
Chinese  concepts  of  belief  and  behax'ion  It  fea- 
tures ways  of  perceiving  and  reacting  to  life's  ups 
and  downs  that  are  ver\'  different  from  our  own. 

We  naturally  impose  our  own  categories  of 
experience  on  something  unusual.  Confucianism, 
for  example,  is  generalh'  listed  as  a  religion  in 
most  texts.  For  more  than  2,000  years,  however, 
Confucian  teaching  was  not  a  religion,  but  a  set  of 
uni\'ersall\'  accepted  rules  regulating  society. 
Many  of  us  merely  associate  Confucius  with 
short,  punchy  savings  such  as,  "Real  knowledge 
is  to  know  the  extent  of  one's  ignorance." 
(Analects,  II,  17.)  Confucianism  was  a  moral  and 
ethical  system  shaped  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  cen- 
turies B.C.,  formalized  in  the  first  two  centuries 
A.D.,  reworked  by  twelfth-century  philoso- 
phers, and  still  vigorous  in  the  late  eighteenth 
century  —  an  astonishing  record. 

According  to  Confucius,  the  center  of 
human  existence  is  the  family  —  by  which  he 
meant  a  number  of  generations  living  together. 
Confucius  asked,  "Are  not  filial  devotion  and  re- 
spect for  the  elders  in  the  family  the  very  founda- 
tion of  human-heartedness?"  Veneration  for  the 
family  pervaded  daily  life  in  traditional  China  and 
even  extended  to  the  spirits  of  dead  ancestors  who 
were  invited  to  all  family  occasions.  So  strong  was 
the  sense  of  family  that  an  unruly  child  could  be 
legally  put  to  death.  One  nineteenth-century 
Chinese  picture,  for  example,  shows  members  of 
a  family  drowning  an  "unfilial"  son  in  a  well. 

This  seeming  harshness  and  the  dedication 
to  family  virtues  made  sense  in  an  agricultural 
society.  It  took  much  manpower  to  work  the 
fields.  The  collapse  of  a  family  not  only  violated 
tradition  and  belief;  it  could  mean  the  loss  of  a 
labor  force  and  starvation.  A  sense  of  family,  then, 
was  not  only  a  spiritual  matter;  it  was  a  way  of 
survival. 

In  different  ways,  Taoists  and  Buddhists 
denied  the  importance  of  the  Confucian  concept 

NEH  Learning  Museum  at  Field  Museum 

The  NEH  Learning  Museum  program  is  a  three-year 
sequence  of  learning  opportunities  focused  on  the 
Museum's  outstanding  exhibits  and  coUections  and 
designed  to  give  participants  an  opportunity  to  ex- 
plore a  subject  in  depth.  Each  unit  of  study  consists 
of  one  or  more  special  events,  a  lecture  course,  and 
a  seminar  for  advanced  work.  Spcaal  ei'ents  are  lec- 
tures by  renoumed  authorities  or  interpretive  perfor- 
mances and  deryionstrations.  Course  members  receive 
an  annotated  bibliography,  a  speaally  developed  guide 
to  pertmerit  museum  exhibits,  study  notes  for  related 
special  ei'ents,  and  access  to  select  materials  from 
Field  Museum's  excellent  research  library.  In-depth, 
small  group  seminars  allow  more  direct  contact  with 
faculty  and  Museum  collections. 


of  family.  Taoism  spoke  of  a  god  within  the  per- 
son, of  looking  within  to  find  this  god,  and  of 
cherishing  the  body  because  it  contains  the  god. 
Buddhism  teaches  that  the  body  ties  one  down  to 
this  world  and  that  one  should  transcend  the 
body  for  a  higher  plane  of  existence.  Both  reli- 
gions were  individual  or  otherwordly  rather  than 
social.  Conflicts  between  the  various  schools  of 
thought  were  often  more  theoretical  than  real. 
Priests  might  do  battle  and  enlist  others  to  the  fray, 
but,  at  the  village  level,  Confucian  family  life  went 
on  as  it  had  for  thousands  of  years. 

Through  Chinese  Eyes  is  not  simply  a  matter 
of  looking  at  conflicting  "isms" — whether  Con- 
fucianism, Taoism,  Buddhism,  or  others  not  yet 
mentioned  such  as  Legalism,  Neo-Confucianism, 
or  Maoism.  Concepts  representative  of  each  of 
these  schools  of  thought  were  graphically  ex- 
pressed in  arts  and  crafts.  Buddhists  were  con- 
cerned with  nirvana,  or  enlightenment — a  mysti- 
cal state  of  consciousness  in  which  one  achieves 
unity  with  the  universe.  Artists  reflected  this  con- 


Portrait  of  Confucius, 

ca.  1734,  from  Confu- 
cian temple  of  Hsi-ivi, 
Shensi  provijice. 


Stnliie  of  Goddeff  of 
Mem,  ca.  1736-95 


cern  by  portraying  essences  rather  than  strict  ap- 
pearances. Attention  to  detail  was  subservient  to 
a  sparse  depiction  of  reality.  Graceful  lines  might 
suggest  the  majesty  of  a  mountain  but  the  features 
of  the  mountain  —  its  slopes,  ridges,  etc. — were 
just  not  shown.  The  Buddhists  also  drew  with  as 
few  lines  as  possible,  believing  that  to  show  some- 
thing with  rigorous  aesthetic  economy  was  part  of 


understanding  its  essence.  A  drawing  was  meant 
to  capture  the  true  spirit  or  meaning  of  what  was 
drawn  and  nothing  more. 

To  Buddhist  philosophers  daily  experience 
was  not  parcelled  out  in  discrete  packages.  Con- 
sider, for  example,  the  experience  of  a  student  in 
the  martial  arts: 

A  young  boy  named  Ming  wanted  to  study  martial 
arts  with  the  master  Ch'i.  For  many  iveeks  Ch'i 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  Ming.  But 
Ming  persisted  and ,  finally,  Ch'i  told  him,  "You 
may  study  with  me  but  first  go  to  work  in  my 
kitchen."  Ming  dutifully  prepared  the  master's 
meals  and  kept  the  kitchen  clean  for  eight  months. 
He  came  to  Ch'i  and  in  frustration  complained, 
"Master,  I  have  worked  in  your  home  and  still  I 
know  nothing  about  fighting. "  Ch'i  responded  by 
hitting  Ming  with  a  stick.  From  that  day  on,  sev- 
eral times  a  day,  Ch'i  surprised  Ming  with  power- 
ful blows  of  his  stick.  Even  while  asleep  Ming  was 
not  safe  from  his  master's  attacks.  His  body  became 
a  mass  ofiuelts  ami  bntises.  Months  passed.  Early 
one  morning  as  Ming  stirred  soup  in  the  kitchen, 
he  sensed  Ch'i  moving  toivard  him.  Just  as  the 
blou'  ivas  delivered  to  his  head  and  without  turn- 
ing around,  Ming  raised  the  soup  spoon  and 
blocked  the  stick  at  the  last  second.  Ming  turned  to 
face  the  master.  Ch'i  bowed  curtly  to  him  and  said, 
"You  are  nozv  a  martial  artist,  leave  my  home." 

—  paraphrase  of  a  Ch'an  Buddhist  tale 

This  form  of  apprenticeship,  indeed  the 
very  process  of  teaching  and  learning,  is  foreign  to 
us.  Ch'i  did  not  grade  Ming  and  there  was  no  clear 
cut  moment  when  instruction  began.  Ming's 
graduation,  such  as  it  was,  was  abrupt  and  infor- 
mal. Most  Americans  learning  the  martial  arts 
have  to  pass  tests  of  proficiency.  Their  ranks  are 
signified  by  varied  colored  belts,  with  the  black 
belt  standing  for  highest  accomplishment.  All  be- 
ginners wear  white  belts.  In  traditional  China  the 
white  belt  was  also  worn  and,  as  the  student  pro- 
gressed, working  harder  and  harder,  the  belt  got 
dirtier  and  dirtier,  eventually  turning  black.  The 
emphasis  was  not  on  distinct  steps  each  leading 
closer  to  mastery,  but  rather  on  a  learning  process 
culminating  in  mastery.  Chinese  martial  art  was 
not  taught,  as  it  usually  is  in  this  country,  as  a  way 
to  fight.  It  was  part  of  philosophical  training  and  a 
way  of  life.  The  same  kind  of  training  was  typical 
of  learning  to  paint,  to  write,  and  to  worship.  It 
was  essential  to  higher  learning. 

Traditional  Chinese  thinking  can  be  bewil- 


Details  on  THROUGH  CHINESE  EYES  are  available 
in  the  Summer  Courses  for  Adults  brochure  and  the 
July/August  Calendar  of  Events.  All  Chicago  area 
members  are  on  the  mailing  list  for  both  publications. 


I  •  >.■.■&• 


deringlv  holistic.  Participants  in  Thnni^^li  Chinese 
Ei/es  encounter  this  philosophy  again  and  again. 
The  T'ang  emperors  {.\.D.  618-907)  were  simulta- 
neously sons  of  men,  with  ancient  and  superb 
pedigrees,  and  sons  of  heaven,  descendants  of  the 
highest  levels  of  the  spirit  world.  Our  religions 
distinguish  sharply  between  this  world  and 
others.  Another  manifestation  of  Chinese  concern 
with  wholeness  is  seen  in  the  contrast  between 
Puritan  expressions  of  guilt  and  sin  and  tradi- 
tional ways  of  handling  the  same  feelings  in 
China.  In  Chinese  philosophy  there  was  no  di- 
vided self.  The  sinner  did  not  hear  the  accusing 
voice  of  God  or  have  a  conscience  that  was  some- 
how separate  from  the  rest  of  the  psyche. 

Through  Chinese  Eyes  begins  at  Field  Mu- 
seum on  June  19  with  a  six-week  lecture  course 
on  Thursday  evenings.  Perspectives  of  philoso- 


phy,  sociology,  art  history,  and  theology  are  inter- 
woven by  some  of  Chicago's  finest  scholars  to  give 
a  rich  view  of  Chinese  traditions  of  behavior  and 
belief.  Explore  some  of  the  major  aspects  of 
Chinese  thought  and  perception  through  a 
stimulating  series  of  lecture,  discussion,  and  film. 
An  all  day  CHINA  FESTIVAL  is  sched- 
uled on  July  20.  While  learning  about  Chinese 
philosophy  and  religion,  you  can  see  and  experi- 
ence them  as  expressed  in  cultural  activites. 
CHINA  FESTIVAL  presents  a  lively  celebration  of 
Chinese  culture  through  the  performing  arts, 
films,  calligraphy,  workshops,  demonstrations  of 
martial  art  and  fine  art,  traditional  games  for  the 
whole  family,  and  authentic  cuisine.  Admission  to 
the  entire  day's  activities  is  free  with  Museum 
admission.  An  in-depth  seminar,  open  only  to 
class  participants,  completes  the  Course  of  Study. 


Ei^litli-caitiiry 
Tnolst  poet  Li  Po. 
hiscriplioji  reads, 
"A  thousand  days  of 
intoxication  won 
him  ^lori/  for  lO.OOV 
years." 


23 


University  ofCliicngo 
graduate  student 
Carol  Meifer,  excava- 
tion site  supervisor, 
vieivs  parthi  excavated 
storage  vessels  in  the 
Romau  I'illa.  Photo  In/ 
Do)i  Whitcomb. 


The  Port  of 
Quseir  al-Qadim 

1980 


BY  DONALD  WHITCOMB 
AND  JANET  JOHNSON 


Tl  ho  coast  of  the  Red  Sea  was  the  setting 
for  exciting  changes  and  new  discoveries 
during  our  second  seasonof  exca\'ations  this 
winter.  Our  first  impression  was  not  the  hot  and 
desolate  ruins  which  we  described  in  "Roman 
Bottle  Caps"  in  the  January,  1980,  Bulletin.  Last 
October,  Egypt's  Eastern  Desert  received  very 
heav\'  rains  and  flooding  occurred  in  many  places, 
including  the  remains  of  the  ancient  Roman 
harbor  at  Quseir  al-Qadim  (our  excavation  site), 
which  were  covered  with  a  fresh  layer  of  silt.  A 
more  pleasant  result  of  the  rains  was  literally  the 
blooming  of  the  desert;  On  the  site  as  well  as  in 
the  mountains,  the  normal  reds  and  browns  of 
the  desert  were  now  relieved  b\'  spots  of  green  in 
depressions  and  drainages. 

Besides  being  an  unexpected  and  almost 
miraculous  pleasure  to  the  eye,  the  sprouting  of 
these  desert  plants  was  especially  exciting  for  the 
palaeoethncibotanist  on  our  expedition,  whose 
collections  of  this  natural,  although  rare,  vege- 
tation include  wild  flowers  and  even  some  little 
wild  melons.  These  are  especially  useful  for 
comparison  with  the  seeds  and  plant  remains 
recovered  from  the  excavations,  although  the 
edible  seeds  most  frequently  found  in  both  the 
Roman  and  Islamic  occupations  are  standard 
foods  and  fodder  such  as  wheat,  barley,  and 
even  alfalfa.  Other  common  Egyptian  foods  are 
present,  such  as  dates,  lentils,  and  chickpeas, 
along  with  more  exotic  plants,  such  as  almonds, 
walnuts,  grapes,  and  peppercorns.  Normally 
such  remains  are  only  rarely  preserved  when 
accidentally  burned;  at  Quseir  al-Qadim  most 
of  the  excavated  areas  have  produced,  with 
careful  sieving,  botanical  remains  that  are  not 
only  abundant  but  almost  modern  in  degree  of 
preservation. 

In  a  sense  about  half  of  our  excavations 
are  "modern"  by  archeological  standards,  for  one 
of  the  two  aspects  we  are  studying  is  the  Islamic 
port.  These  Islamic  remains  are  located  on  low 
bluffs  where  it  is  difficult  not  to  be  distracted  by 
the  blue  and  turquoise  of  the  sea,  just  beyond  the 
trenches.  "Trenches"  is  perhaps  a  misnomer  for 
the  large  shallow  excavations  with  wall  founda- 
tions delimiting  rooms  and  courtvards.    As 
was  true  of  the  Islamic  houses  excavated  during 
the  1978  season,  these  Islamic  houses  were  easily 
and  quickly  uncovered.  Some  court\'ards  had 
almost  a  meter  of  organic  debris,  matting,  bas- 
ketry, and  rope.  Mixed  with  this  material  were 
ceramics  which  indicated  a  15th-  or  16th-century 


24 


Donald  Whitcomb  is  assistant  curator  of  Middle  Eastern  ar- 
cheology and  ethnology.  Janet  Johnson  (Mrs.  Donald  Whit- 
comb) is  associate  professor  of  Egyptology  at  the  Oriental  In- 
stitute, University  of  Chicago. 


Above:  Seclioi  of  the  cxravnlioii  ■-i/c  ol  the  hliiiiiic  town  til 
Qu^cir  al-Qadim.  Plioto  by  Don  Wliitcoiub. 

Right;  Textile  fni;^iiient  with  batik  desi\^u  from  the  Qusen 
iil-Qndiw  excaviitioii^i.  Photo  by  Steve  Sidebotluwi,  expedituvi 
pltoto;,;riiplier. 

date,  including  Chinese  celadons  and  porcelains 
(with  Near  Eastern  blue  and  white  imitations) 
and  even  some  Italian  majolica  sherds. 

Beneath  one  wall  we  found  a  large 
painted  wooden  box  with  its  lid  still  in  place. 
With  some  excitement  we  opened  the  box  to  find 
a  woman's  personal  treasure — a  comb,  lumps  of 
henna  (for  her  hair),  a  cloth  bag  of  leaves  (tea?), 
little  parcels  of  other  herbs,  jewelry  including 
cowry  shells  and  a  tiny  metal  talisman  intended 
to  protect  the  whole  collection.  We  have  found 
great  numbers  of  glass  beads  and  bangles,  as 
well  as  jewelry.  Whereas  in  1978  we  found  a  great 
variety  of  textiles,  this  season  we  uncovered  arti- 
cles of  clothing  from  shoes,  to  tunics  and  caps. 
The  textiles  also  included  beautiful  examples  of 
batik  decoration. 

The  rubbish  left  by  this  medieval  popula- 
tion also  included  masses  of  bones  (as  well  as 
seeds),  especially  fish  bones  and,  more  rarely, 
bones  of  goats  and  sea  turtles,  indicating  a 
heavy  dietary  reliance  on  the  sea.  Our  zoologist 
has  encountered  unexpected  problems  of 
preservation  —  there  is  occasionally  too  much 
meat  left  on  the  bones  for  easy  identification! 
Problems  of  indentification  of  fish  are  partially 
remedied  by  the  discovery  of  fish  heads,  tails. 


.■\rcheoU\^ifts  po<L' 
with  Egi/pt'im  H'''"' 
assisted  in  excava- 
tion. Wbitcowh  ;- 
fifth  from  left,  fr 
row:  johusoii  !>  to  iii> 
left.  Phr'o  by  Cathy 
Va  leu  tour. 


j^wrr\ 


26 


fins,  and  scales.  Eventually  a  whole  parrot  fish 
and  half  a  shark  (nicknamed  "Jaws")  were  ex- 
cavated. The  latter,  naturally,  was  labelled  on 
the  site  plan  as  a  "creature  feature." 

As  rich  in  architecture  and  artifacts  as 
the  Islamic  remains  at  Quseir  al-Qadim  may  be, 
they  are  only  half  of  the  excavations  —  the  half 
east  of  the  coastal  road  through  the  site.  On  the 
western  side  we  have  been  investigating  the 
Roman  occupation,  at  which  time  the  port  was 
named  Leukos  Limen.  We  began  where  our  ex- 
cavations in  1978  uncovered  a  room  with  an 
iron-working  furnace. 

Across  a  narrov\-  street,  we  excavated 
a  large  Roman  house  which  we  called  the  villa. 
Whatever  the  status  of  its  Roman  occupants, 
they  (or,  their  house)  are  now  definitely  "below 
the  salt."  Nearly  two  thousand  years  of  even 
infrequent  rainfalls  have  turned  the  decayed 
mudbrick  walls  into  solid  caliche,  or  rock  salt, 
from  20  cm.  (8  in.)  to  over  a  meter  (39.4  in.)  thick. 
After  breaking  several  pick  handles  and  a  steel 
pick,  we  borrowed  a  pneumatic  drill  from  the 
phosphate  company  nearby.  This  experiment  in 
mechanized  excavation  failed  and  we  settled 
on  sledge  hammers  and  chisels.  We  often  felt 
more  like  miners  than  archeologists. 

Once  the  salt  crust  had  been  removed, 
however,  the  contents  of  the  villa  were  a  pleas- 
ant surprise.  In  1978  we  found  many  artifacts  but 
only  a  few  complete  vessels.  Suddenly  this  sea- 
son we  have  a  series  of  rooms  filled  with  whole 
pots.  For  example,  a  corner  room  next  to  the  nar- 
row street  held  about  15  small  round  jars  with 
tiny  spouts,  which  probably  contained  a  semi- 
precious liquid  such  as  olive  oil.  These  jars  had 
rolled  around  the  floor  like  so  many  marbles 
among  other  stored  objects  such  as  a  small  mill 
for  grinding  flour  (complete  with  wooden  han- 
dle), a  large  wooden  bowl  not  unlike  a  modern 
salad  bowl,  and  an  assortment  of  wooden  pul- 
leys and  mechanical  parts.  The  most  puzzling 
feature  was  below  these  objects — a  complete  in- 
tact roof  with  beams,  wooden  stringers,  matting, 
and  mud.  This  paradox  of  fallen  objects  heavy 
and  fragile,  mostly  unbroken,  was  solved  when 


we  found  a  trap  door  leading  to  a  cellar  or  crypt. 
With  mounting  excitement  we  slowly  excavated 
into  the  cellar  only  to  find  it  empty;  when  the 
Romans  decided  to  leave  Quseir  they  incon- 
siderately took  all  their  hidden  valuables;  only 
a  few  coins  were  left  behind. 

Adjoining  this  small  room  was  a  larger 
storeroom  filled  with  large  amphorae  and  stor- 
age jars,  all  smashed  but  reconstructable.  Also  in 
this  room  were  several  large  baskets  and  a  large 
grinding  stone  from  a  Theban  mill.  This  Roman 
villa  was  probably  one  of  several  residences  of 
merchants  grouped  along  the  main  street  of  the 
town.  In  the  center  of  Quseir  was  a  large  public 
building  which  we  also  partially  excavated. 
This  structure  consisted  of  large  rooms  grouped 
around  a  central  courtyard.  To  our  surprise  we 
discovered  the  corner  of  an  extremely  well-built 
structure  next  to  the  central  building  during  the 
last  days  of  digging.  Terra  cotta  figurines  in  the 
vicinitA'  made  us  immediately  think  of  temples, 
but  the  solution  must  wait  for  our  next  season 
of  excavations. 

As  part  of  our  research  into  the  history 
and  functioning  of  ancient  Quseir,  we  intended 
to  study  the  ruins  at  Bir  Kareim.  The  wells  at  Bir 
Kareim,  some  25  km  (15.5  miles)  southwest  of 
Quseir,  are  the  nearest  reliable  source  of  fresh 
water;  also  near  these  wells  were  gold  mines 
which  the  Romans  worked.  Unfortunately  the 
same  rains  which  made  the  desert  so  beautiful 
also  completely  destroyed  the  roads  into  these 
mountains.  Nevertheless,  we  visited  Bir  Kareim 
and  briefly  investigated  the  Roman  mining 
encampment.  In  the  center  of  the  numerous  bar- 
rackslike  buildings  was  a  temple,  of  which  we 
made  a  careful  plan.  Our  very  hasty  excavation 
into  the  central  room  revealed  fragments  of  stone 
relief,  part  of  the  uraeus  (sacred  cobra)  and  sun 
disk  which  would  have  surmounted  the  shrine 
niche.  It  is,  of  course,  a  hallowed  tradition  in 
archeology  for  the  most  exciting  find  to  be  made 
on  the  last  day;  the  temple  at  Bir  Kareim,  as  well 
as  the  Roman  and  Islamic  discoveries  at  Quseir, 
will  only  increase  our  impatience  to  return  •for 
future  work  on  this  coast  of  the  Red  Sea.  D 


June  and  July  at  Field  Museum 


(June  15  through  Julij  15) 


New  Exhibit 

"Gold  of  El  Dorado:  The  Heritage  of  Colombia."  Don't  miss  this  ex- 
traordinary exhibition  of  gold  artifacts  and  ceramic  pieces  from  Col- 
ombia, South  America.  Jewelry,  musical  instruments,  hunting  and 
fishing  gear,  and  cool<ing  utensils — all  crafted  from  the  valuable 
metal  —  acquaint  us  with  a  lost  civilization.  Exhibit  curator:  Michael 
Moseley;  designer:  David  Edquist.  Through  July  6,  Hall  27,  2nd  floor. 

Continuing  Exhibits 

"American  Indian  Halls."  The  history  and  cultural  development  of  the 
original  Americans  is  shown  from  their  arrival  on  the  North  American 
continent  before  20,000  B.C.  to  the  present.  A  visit  to  Hall  9's  collec- 
tions from  the  ancient  cultures  of  South  America  will  enhance  your 
appreciation  of  the  "Gold  of  El  Dorado  "  exhibit.  Halls  4  through  9, 
main  floor 

"Ancient  Chinese  Culture."  The  important  exhibit,  "The  Great  Bronze 
Age  of  China,"  coming  to  Field  Museum  in  August,  intensifies  interest 
in  the  Museums  own  collections.  Artifacts  are  arranged  chronologi- 


cally in  the  hall  to  show  development  of  Chinese  culture  from  10,000 
B.C.  to  A.D.  1644.  A  simple  iron  stove  in  one  of  the  cases  is 
thought  to  be  the  earliest  known  example  of  complex  iron  casting. 
Hall  24,  2nd  floor. 

"Gems."  The  central  cases  display  raw  and  cut  gemstones.  while  the 
cases  along  the  walls  display  ancient  and  modem  jewelry  from  many 
parts  of  the  world.  The  Agusan  Gold  Image,  opposite  the  entrance,  is 
the  most  famous  of  the  ancient  Indian-influenced  artifacts  known  from 
the  Philippine  Islands.  Notice  also  the  excellent  Romano-Egyptian  and 
Etruscan  goldwork.  Hall  31,  2nd  floor 

New  Programs 

Gamelan  Mini-Concert.  Hear  Field  Museum's  magnificent  gamelan,  a 
24-piece  Sudanese  (West  Javanese)  ensemble  of  hand-carved  drums, 
gongs,  and  xylophones.  The  Museum's  gamelan  classes,  under  the 


(Continued  on  back  couer) 


Six  Beautiful  Books  on  Recent,  Current,  and  Coming  Exhibits 

Available  at  Your  Field  Museum  Shops 


Feather  Arts:  Beauty,  Wealth,  and  Spirit  from  Five  Continents, 

b\  F^h\llis  Rtilaineau,  published  b\  Field  Museum;  $9.yS; 
88  pp.,  8V2"xl1",  24  color  plates.  The  catalog  of  the  1979 
exhibit,  now  on  national  tour.  Rabineau  is  custodian  of  the 
anthropology  collections. 

Treasures  from  the  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from 
the  People's  Republic  of  China,  by  Robert  W.  Baglev,  Jenny  F. 
So,  and  Maxwell  K.  Hearn;  published  by  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  and  Ballantine  Books;  $9,95;  192  pp,,8y2"xH", 
125  color  plates,  13  halftones. 

The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China,  An  Exhibition  from  the 
People's  Republic  (jt  China,  edited  by  Wen  Fong,  published  by 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  and  Alfred  A.  Knopf;  $40.00; 
38fi  pp.,  9"x12",  121  color  plates.  Contains  essays  by  leading 


authorities  on  Chinese  art  and  recent  excavations  of  artifacts  on 
view  at  Field  Museum  from  August  20  to  October  29. 

Gold  of  El  Dorado,  text  by  Warwick  Bray,  a  striking  'coffee- 
table'  edition  published  bv  The  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  and  Harry  N.  Abrams;  $9.95;  72  pp.,  30  full-bleed 
color  plates,  11V2"xl6".  "The  Gold  of  El  Dorado"  exhibit  will 
remain  on  view  until  July  5. 

Patterns  of  Paradise,  by  John  Terrell  and  Anne  Leonard, 
published  by  Field  Museum;  $9.95;  76  pp.,  10V2"x10y2", 
53  color  plates,  Thecatalogof  the  exhibit  of  the  same  name, 
concerning  (apa,  or  bark  cloth,  which  opened  al  Field  Museum 
March,  1980,  and  closes  in  June.  Terrell  is  associate  curator 
of  anthropology,  Leonard  is  research  specialist,  Department 
of  Anthropology. 


1 0  percent  discount  for  Members  on  all  Field  Museum  Shop  purchases 

Mail  Orders:  For  orders  shipped  toar)  Illinois  address,  please  add  6  9c  sales  tax  Itax 
Is  not  applied  to  orders  going  out  of  state).  For  all  orders,  please  add  75«  per  book 
tor  shipping  and  handling.  Check  or  money  order  should  be  payable  to  Field 
Museum.  Address  orders  to:  Field  Museum  Shops,  Field  Museum  ot  Natural 
History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  IL  60605. 


27 


ILLTN'iIS  NATURAL  HISTORY 
SURVtV  LIB  Ry  156 
NftTURAL  RESOURCES  BUILDING 
('-Bi^"  ILL  618C1 


June  and  July  at  rieia  i^iu^cum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cover) 


direction  of  ethnomusicologist  Sue  DeVale.  present  tiiese  free 
concerts.  June  15.  2  p.m.  and  3  p.m..  Hall  K.  ground  floor. 

Courses  for  Adults.  Register  now  for  noncredit  courses  in  anthro- 
pology and  the  natural  sciences.  Courses  begin  June  17;  advance 
registration  by  mail  is  requested.  Call  922-0733  for  details. 

"Pawnee  Indians  and  Their  Way  of  Life,"  a  lecture  by  Dr  Gene  Weltfish. 
In  1928.  Dr  Weltfish  began  the  first  complete  study  of  Pawnee  lan- 
guage, life,  and  culture.  Her  bookThe Lost  CJniuerse  details  Pawnee  life 
as  it  would  have  been  in  1867.  Weltfish,  professor  emeritus  of  an- 
thropology at  Fairleigh  Dickinson  University,  will  discuss  the  ethnology 
of  the  Pawnee  based  upon  her  study,  and  relate  this  perspective  to 
contemporary  Pawnee  life.  Tickets  (Members.  ^2.00;  nonmembers. 
53.50)  are  available  at  the  West  Door  before  the  lecture.  Friday  June 
20.  8  p.m..  Lecture  Hall  1. 

"Summer  Fun  1980"  Field  Museum  Workshops.  July  8  through 
August  1.  Young  people  from  ages  5  to  12  can  explore  Field  Museum 
halls  through  films,  tours,  science  workshops,  and  craft  projects.  En- 
rollment is  limited  and  advance  registration  is  required  by  June  30. 
Fees  vary  from  53.50  (54.50  for  nonmembers)  for  a  single  session, 
to  516.00  (518.00  for  nonmembers)  for  double  session  classes. 

Highlights  include  learning  about  animals  through  stories, 
exploring  the  Dinosaur  Halls,  casting  fossils,  and  going  on  a  bug  hunt. 
Craft  projects  include  weaving,  printing  leaves,  pinching  pots,  design- 
ing African-style  textiles  or  masks,  and  creating  musical  instruments. 
Children  may  also  study  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  or  rocks  and  minerals. 
Handicapped  participants  are  welcome,  and  special  arrangements  for 
the  hearing-impaired  have  been  made  for  selected  workshops.  For 
more  details  about  'Summer  Fun  1980  "  call  or  write  Field  Museum's 
Department  of  Education.  922-3136. 

Summer  Journey:  "A  Time  to  Play."  Children's  toys  from  around  the 
world  are  located  in  the  Museum's  exhibit  halls.  Find  the  favorite  toys  of 
the  Cheyenne.  Shoshone.  Melanesian  children  and  many  other  cul- 
tures in  this  self-guiding  tour  Free  Journey  pamphlets  available  at 
Museum  entrances. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Each  Saturday  and  Sunday  free  tours, 
films,  and  slide  programs  invite  you  to  explore  Museum  collections. 
Check  the  "Weekend  Sheet"  available  at  Museum  entrances  for  pro- 
grams and  locations. 

•  "Animal  Adaptations  "  Film  Features:  "Adaptations  of  Insects  " 
reveals  four  methods  by  which  insects  adapt  to  unfavorable  conditions. 
"The  Mayfly"  shows  one  life-cycle  of  this  aquatic  insect.  Sunday  June 
15,  1  p.m. 

•  "Indian  Fishermen  of  the  Northwest  Coast."  This  45-minute  tour 
looks  at  the  importance  of  fish  in  art  and  drama  traditions  as  well  as 
Northwest  Coast  fishing  techniques.  Sunday  June  15.  2  p.m. 

•  "American  Indian  Dress. "  Explore  the  construction,  craft  style, 
and  symbolism  of  Indian  dress  from  six  regions  of  North  America  in 
this  half-hour  tour  Saturday  June  21,  12:30  p.m. 

•  "Hopi  Life."  Examine  the  rich  heritage  of  Hopi  religion,  symbols, 
and  traditions  in  this  20-minute  tour  Saturday  June  21,  1  p.m. 

•  "The  Story  Fossils  Tell."  This  45-minute  tour  focuses  on  the 
underwater  world  of  ancient  invertebrate  animals.  Saturday  June  21, 
1:30  p.m. 

•  "Imagesof  Ancient  Egypt."  This  45-minute  slide  program  com- 
pares Egyptian  collections  found  in  major  museums  across  the  United 
States.  Sunday  June  22.  1  p.m. 


•  ""China  Through  the  Ages."'  Study  traditional  China's  inventions, 
court  life,  and  schools  of  thought  in  this  30-minute  tour  Rare  Chinese 
lantern  slides,  collected  by  Berthold  Laufer  —  Field  Museums  curator 
of  Asian  Anthropology  from  1907-1934  —  will  be  featured  after  the  tour. 
Saturday  June  28.  1:30  p.m. 

•  "Indians  of  North  America.""  This  tour  explores  the  daily  life  of  six 
tribes.  Saturday  June  28.  2:30  p.m. 

•  "A  Curtis  Portfolio  of  North  American  Indians. "  Half-hour  slide 
presentation  of  Edward  Curtis's  photographs  depicts  early  20th- 
century  Indian  life  in  North  America.  Sunday.  June  29.  1:30  p.m. 

•  "In  the  Land  of  War  Canoes. "  Edward  Curtis's  classic  1914  film 
drama  recaptures  the  life  and  spirit  of  British  Columbia's  Kwakiutl 
Indians.  Sunday  June  29.  2:30  p.m. 

•  "Digging  for  Dinosaurs "  Film  Feature:  ""The  Dinosaur  Hunters" 
shows  scientists  at  work  in  the  Badlands  of  Utah.  Saturday,  July  5. 

1  p.m. 

•  "Northwest  Coast  Indian  Costume.""  This  45-minute  slide 
program  explores  the  making  and  use  of  dress,  with  an  emphasis 
on  woven  materials.  Sunday.  July  6.  2  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt. "  Elxplore  the  traditions  of  ancient  Egyptian  life  in 
this  45-minute  tour  Saturday  July  12.  11:30  a.m. 

•  "Digging  for  Dinosaurs"  Film  Feature:  "Hot-Blooded  Dino- 
saurs" examines  the  latest  theory  on  dinosaurs,  which  proposes  that 
these  creatures  did  not  disappear,  but  are  alive  today  as  birds.  Saturday 
July  12.  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  Half-hour  tour  focuses  on  the 
underwater  world  of  ancient  invertebrate  animals.  Saturday.  July  12. 
1:30  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals"  Bones  and 
Teeth."  Look  at  some  changes  in  teeth  and  bones  that  characterize  the 
great  variation  in  todays  mammals  in  this  45-minute  tour  Saturday 
July  12,  2  p.m. 

•  "The  Ancient  Etruscans."  This  35-minute  tour  examines  the 
culture  of  the  Etruscans.  Sunday  July  13,  12:30  p.m. 

•  "A  Curtis  Portfolio  of  North  American  Indians. "  Sunday  July  13, 

2  p.m. 

Continuing  Programs 

On  Your  Own  at  Held  Museum.  Self-guided  tour  booklets,  adult-  and 
family-oriented,  are  available  for  25'  each  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Museum  Shop,  main  floor  north. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  an  interest  in  Chinese  culture 
are  needed  to  assist  with  visitor  services  for  the  duration  of  "The  Great 
Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from  the  Peoples  Republic  of 
China"  (August  20 — October  29).  Please  call  or  write  the  Volunteer 
Coordinator.  922-94 1 0.  ext.  360.  for  details. 

"The  Ancient  Art  of  Weaving."  Learn  about  age-old  weaving  tech- 
niques and  textile  development  during  these  free  demonstrations. 
Monday  Wednesday  and  Friday  from  10:00  a.m.  to  noon.  South 
Lounge.  2nd  floor. 

June  and  July  Hours.  The  Museum  is  open  daily  9  a.m.  to  6  p.m., 
except  Fridays.  On  Fridays  the  Museum  is  open  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m. 


The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  Obtain  a  pass 
at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor.  Closed  Friday  July  4. 


Museum  telephone:  (312)922-9410 


I 


July/August 
1980 

1 


FIELD  MCSEG/vi  OF  NATGRAL  HISTORY  BGLLETIN 


Field  Museum 
of  Natural  History 
Bulletin 


July/ August  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  7 


EditoriDefigiwr:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photo;^raphcr:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

Prc^idoit:  E.  Leland  Webber 


Bo.ARD  OF  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chainium 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 

Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  ]r 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy  Jr 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Snnith 
Robert  H.'Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pine,  Jr 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Briefs 

4  Tifaifai  of  Eastern  Polynesia 

(n/  Joucc  Hammoud 

10  Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 

11  The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China: 

An  Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of  China 

August  20  to  October  29 

18  From  Dust  to  Dignity 

Collection  News  from  Anthropology 
by  Phyllis  Rnbinenu,  custodian  of  the  anthropology  collections 
and  Donald  Collier,  curator  aneritus  of  Middle  and  South 
American  archeology  and  ethnology 

20  Exploring  a  New  Nation's  Ancient  Past: 

Archeology  in  the  Marshall  Islands 

by  Thomas  /.  Riley 

24  Letters  from  Brazil 

by  Timothy  Ploioman,  assistant  curator  of  botany 

26  Book  Shop  News:  Six  Beautiful  Books  on  Recent, 
Current,  and  Coming  Exhibits 

27  July,  August,  and  September  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly,  except 
combined  July'August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II.  60605.  Subscriptions:  S6.00  annually  $3.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  Bu//fiin  subscription.  Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are 
their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scripts are  welcome.  Museum  phone:  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II. 
60605.  ISSN:  0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


COVER 

Gilt-bronze  lamp  (detail)  from  the  Western  Han  period,  second 
cetitury  B.C.,  i$  one  of  the  rarest  and  most  beautiful  objects 
presented  in  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition 
from  the  People's  Republic  of  China."  Height:  18  %  inches 
(48cm).  Photo  by  Wang  Yugui.  See  pp.  11-17. 


FIELD  BRIElFS 


Thomas  R.  Sanders 

Thomas  R.  Sanders  Appointed 
Vice  President  for  Development 

Thomas  R.  Sanders  has  recently  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  newlv  created  post  of  vice 
president  for  development  at  Field 
Museum.  As  vice  president,  he  will  con- 
tinue essentially  the  responsibilities  that 
were  his  as  Field  Museum's  planning  and 
development  officer  over  the  past  ten-vear 
period:  jurisdiction  over  the  divisions  of 
fund-raising,  development,  public  rela- 
tions, and  membership,  with  the  addifion 
of  two  new  divisions:  tours  and  markefing. 
Over  a  three-vear  period,  from  1972  to  1974, 
Sanders  conducted  an  eminently  success- 
ful Capital  Campaign,  which  raised  over 
$25  million  dollars  for  Museum  renovation 
and  improvements.  This  was  the  first  capi- 
tal campaign  in  the  Museum's  history. 
During  his  ten  years  with  Field  Museum, 
the  total  amount  of  unrestricted  and  re- 
stricted contribufions  rose  from  $503,567  in 
1969  to  $2,438,020  in  1979. 


Members'  Preview  for  Chinese  Treasures 

Members  will  have  the  opportunity  to  pre- 
view "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An 
Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of 
China"  on  Monday,  August  18,  and  on 
Tuesday,  August  19,'  from  1:00  p.m.  to  9:00 
p.m.  in  Halls  26  and  27.  Presentation  of  a 
membership  card  or  invitation  will  be 
requested  at  the  entrance  to  Hall  26  for  ad- 
mittance to  the  preview. 


"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An 
Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of 
China,"  features  more  than  100  rare 
bronzes,  jades,  and  terra-cotta  artifacts  and 
is  the  first  showing  in  the  West  of  these 
ancient  works  of  art.  Included  in  the  exhibit 
are  eight  splendid,  individually  crafted  fig- 
ures from  the  imperial  "buried  army"  of  the 
First  Emperor  of  China,  the  ruler  who  built 
the  Great  Wall.  (For  further  details  see 
pages  11-17.) 

Because  of  the  unusual  appeal  of  this 
exhibition  and  our  anticipafion  of  high  at- 
tendance, we  request  Members  to  attend,  it 
possible,  by  this  schedule:  A  through  L  on 
Monday,  August  18,  M  through  Z  on  Tues- 
day, August  19. 

Refreshments  will  be  served  and  the 
cafeteria  will  be  open  both  evenings  unfil 
7:30  p.m.  for  the  convenience  of  Members. 


Lorin  I.  Nevling,  Jr.  Named  Director 

Lorin  I.  Nevling,  Jr.,  who  has  held  the  post 
of  assistant  director,  science  and  educafion, 
since  Jan.  1,  1978,  has  recently  been  ap- 
pointed director  of  Field  Museum.  Nev- 
ling's  appointment  divides  the  posifions  of 
president  and  director,  which  have  been 
held  in  recent  years  bv  E.  Leland  Webber 
Webber  continues  as  the  Museum's  presi- 
dent and  chief  executive  officer 

As  director,  Nevling  will  be  Field 
Museum's  chief  operafing  officer,  respon- 
sible for  managing  the  day-to-day  affairs  of 
the  Museum,  its  staff,  and  its  programs. 

Nevling  came  to  the  Museum  in  1973 
to  serve  as  chairman  of  the  Department  of 


Group  Visits  for  China  Treasures 

Group  Visits  for  the  exhibit  "Tlie  Great 
Bro)izcAs^e  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from 
the  People's  Republic  of  China,"  opening 
August  20  and  closing  October  29,  may 
nozo  be  arranged  for  groups  as  small  as  .30 
persons.  During  public  hours,  daily  ex- 
cept  Friday,  special  groups  of  30  to  120 
persons  can  be  nccommodated.  On  Tues- 
day and  Thursday  evenings  (after  the 
Museum  is  closed  to  the  gmeral  public) 
groups  of  50  or  more  can  be  accommo- 
dated. Supplemental  lectures  for  such 
groups,  as  well  as  private  di)iing  ar- 
rangements, are  also  available.  For  rates 
and  other  information  call  Can/n  Fried- 
man at  786-9570. 


Lorui  I.  Nei'liug,  jr. 

Botany,  and  he  held  that  post  until  his  ap- 
ptiintment  to  the  assistant  directorship. 

From  1959  to  1973,  Nevling  served  on 
the  staff  of  several  of  the  botanical  institu- 
Hons  of  Harvard  University,  including  the 
.Arnold  Arboretum,  Gra\-  Herbarium,  and 
Farlow  Herbarium.  During  this  period  he 
was  active  in  research  and  administrarton, 
serving  as  curator  and  coordinator  of  sys- 
tematic botanical  collechons. 

In  addition  to  his  duties  at  Field 
Museum,  Director  Nevling  holds  several 
adjunct  appointments  at  Northwestern 
University,  Northern  Illinois  University, 
and  the  Universit\'  of  Chicago. 

New  Women's  Board  Officers 

The  new  president  of  Field  Museum's  Wo- 
men's Board  is  Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton, 
elected  at  the  board's  annual  meeting  on 
May  15.  Mrs.  Carton  succeeds  Mrs.  Ed- 
ward F.  Swift,  who  was  elected  in  1978. 
Other  new  officers  elected  at  the  meeting 
were  Mrs.  Charles  S.  Potter,  vice  president; 
Mrs.  William  H.  Hartz,  Jr,  lecording  sec- 
retary; and  Mrs.  Gerald  A.  Sivage,  corre- 
sponding secretary. 

Continuing  in  their  respecfive  offices 
are  Mrs.  Roger  O.  Brown,  vice  president; 
Mrs.  Hammond  E.  Chaffetz,  vice  presi- 
dent; Mrs.  Charles  F.  Nadler,  treasurer;  and 
Mrs.  Philip  C.  Williams,  assistant  treasurer 

Newly  elected  members-at-large  are 
Mrs.  Philip  D.  Block  111,  Mrs.  James  R. 
Coulter,  and  Mrs.  Ben  W.  Heineman.  Mrs. 
Jt)hn  H.  Leslie  and  Mrs.  John  W.  Sullivan 
are  confinuing  as  members-at-large.         3 


Tifaifai  of  Eastern  Polynesia 


By  JOYCE  HAMMOND 


At  the  same  time  that  the  early  missionaries 
to  the  South  Seas  were  destroying  the 
"heathens'  pagan  idols"  and  other  tradi- 
tional arts,  missionary  wives  were  introducing  a 
new  art  form,  the  Western  quilt.  Introduced  as  a 
utilitarian  item,  quilts  were  soon  modified  to  the 
islanders'  tastes  and  adapted  to  Polynesian  pur- 
poses. Today,  after  nearly  150  years,  the  unique 
Polynesian  art  form  of  tifaifai  continues  to  play  an 
important  role  in  many  ceremonial  contexts  of 
eastern  Polynesia. 

In  many  respects,  tifaifai,  the  generic  term 
used  here  for  eastern  Polynesian  "bedcovers," 
parallels  the  uses  of  western  Polynesian  bark  cloth, 
or  tapa,  the  indigenous  material  made  from  the 
inner  bark  of  certain  trees.  Indeed,  although  the 
tifaifai  traditions  originated  with  the  Western  quilt 
in  the  early  nineteenth  century,  the  motivation  be- 
hind the  ready  acceptance  of  the  new  art  form 
arose  from  its  value  as  a  replacement  for  particular 
uses  of  bark  cloth. 

Tifaifai  are  common  to  the  Hawaiian  Is- 
lands, the  Society  Islands,  the  Austral  Islands,  and 
the  Cook  Islands.  While  the  tifaifai  traditions  of 
different  island  groups  share  some  basic  char- 
acteristics, such  as  the  use  of  cotton  fabric  and 


symmetrical  designs,  tifaifai  of  eastern  Polynesia 
are  distinctive  for  their  regional  variations.  Even 
the  name  for  the  "bedcovers"  varies  from  one  place 
to  another. 

In  the  Society  Islands,  where  tifaifai  are 
known  by  that  name,  the  applique  style  is  most 
popular.  A  double  bed-size  piece  of  fabric  is  folded 
into  eighths  and  cut  "snowflake  fashion,"  resulting 
in  a  symmetrical  four-part  design.  The  design  is 
then  sewn  to  a  background  fabric  of  a  contrasting 
color  to  form  the  finished  tifaifai.  Although  tifaifai 
are  sometimes  sewn  by  machine,  handsewn 
tifaifai  are  generally  considered  more  beautiful 
and  valuable. 

The  Hawaiian  quilt,  or  kapa,  begins  with  the 
same  design  principles  as  the  Society  Islands 
tifaifai,  but  once  the  design  has  been  appliqued  to 
the  background  fabric,  the  ensemble  becomes  the 
top  layer  of  a  quilt.  A  filler  layer  of  synthetic  batting 
(traditionally  wool  or  moss)  is  placed  between  the 
design  layer  and  a  backing  layer  of  fabric.  The  three 
layers  are  sewn  together  with  quilting  stitches  in  a 
distinctive  Hawaiian  style  known  as  humii  laii,  or 
contour  quilting.  The  quilting  stitches  follow  the 
outlines  of  the  design  in  consecutive  patterns, 
moving  from  the  center  of  the  quilt  outwards.  A 


Tiare  Tahiti,  or  "Tahi- 
tian  Flower,"  Society 
Islands  applique  tifaifai 
design.  Photo  by  Joyce 
4     Hammond  '(1977). 


W'luih'ri  ofRiinitii,  in 
\u--tinl  /s/iimis,  prepare 
to  wriip  icfi/i/ii/y  couple 
(left)  ill  iripiti,  or 
lifiiifiii^  Photo  hy  loi/ce 
Hammond  (1978).  ' 


>killful  Hcivvdiiiin  quilter  will  arrange  hvv  i.]uilting 
lines  painstakingly  to  line  up  the  "peaks  of  the 
waves,"  as  the  points  of  the  quilting  lines  are 
called.  The  ocean  metaphor  is  sustained  in  the 
name  of  the  quilt's  border,  ho'opacpac,  which  means 
"going  ashore." 

On  the  island  of  Rurutu,  in  the  Austral  Is- 
lands, iripiiti  are  created  by  sewing  many  small 
pieces  of  fabric  together  in  a  fashion  comparable  to 
the  piecework  or  patchwork  quilt  of  the  Western 
world.  Although  some  iripiti  incorporate  various 
geometrical  shapes  of  fabric  sewn  together  by 
machine,  the  most  characteristic  iripiti  style  is  that 
made  from  hundreds  of  one-inch-square  pieces  of 
fabric  carefully  stitched  together  by  hand.  A  back- 
ing layer  of  fabric  is  placed  behind  the  mosaiclike 
design  layer. 

Tivaevac  in  applique  and  piecework  styles 
are  equally  popular  in  the  Cook  Islands.  Applique 
tivaevae  are  made  from  different  pieces  of  vari- 
ously colored  fabric  arranged  on  a  background 
cloth.  Although  the  design  is  not  continuous,  as  in 
the  Hawaiian  and  Society  Islands  applique  styles, 
the  symmetrical  four-part  arrangement  is  indica- 
tive of  an  historical  evolution  from  the  same  design 
principle.  Cook  Islands  applique  tivaevae  are  dis- 
tinctive in  their  use  of  elaborate  handsewn  em- 
broidery. The  embellishment  of  design  motifs,  with 
various  sewing  stitches  in  multicolored  embroid- 
ery floss  is  particularly  well  suited  to  the  use  of 


/I'l/cf  Hnmmond,  a  doctoral  candidate  in  anthropology  at  Ihr 
Umversity  of  Illinois,  Urbana,  has  been  a  lecturer  for  the  Learn 
ing  Museum  Program  at  Field  Museum  and  is  currently  teach- 
ing "Women's  Folk  Arts:  Reflections  on  Women's  Lives,"  an 
Adult  Education  Course  at  the  Museum. 


separate  design  elements.  Cook  Islands  piecework 
tivaevae  are  similar  to  Austral  Islands  iripiti,  al- 
though a  greater  variety  of  geometrical  shapes  are 
popular.  Piecework  tivaevae,  like  applique 
tivaevae,  are  invariably  handsewn. 

Motifs  for  Polynesian  tifaifai  are  many  and 
varied.  The  Protestant  missionary  influence  in 
eastern  Polynesia  is  evident  in  some  tifaifai  motifs 
and  names.  In  Hawaii,  for  example,  historical  quilt 
names  include  "Forbidden  Fruit,"  "King  Sol- 
oman's  Porch,"  and  "The  Garden  of  Religious 
Light."  A  popular  contemporary  Society  Islands 
tifaifai  motif  is  "Joseph's  Dream,"  a  design  which 
incorporates  symbols  of  the  biblical  dream  such  as 
the  moon,  stars,  and  wheat.  The  majority  of  tifaifai 
designs,  however,  seem  to  originate  from  a  Polyne- 
sian interest  in  natural  phenomena.  The  most 
popular  motifs  used  as  design  elements  include 
flowers  and  other  plants,  winds,  waterfalls, 
oceans,  and  scenes  of  natural  beauty.  The  "Tahitian 
Flower"  and  "Apetahi  Flower"  nn)tifs  of  Society 
Islands  tifaifai  celebrate  the  national  flower  of  the 
Society  Islands  and  the  unique  Apetahi  flower, 
which  grows  only  on  the  summit  of  Mount 
Temehani  on  Raiatea.  "The  Breadfruit/'  "The 
Pineapple,"  and  "Plumeria"  are  Hawaiian  quilts 
easily  identified  by  their  designs.  Other  Hawaiian 
quilts  incorporate  designs  which  must  be  inter- 
preted on  the  basis  of  the  quilt  names.  Poetic 
names  such  as  "Rippling  Sea  of  Kahului,"  "The 
Mists  of  Eleile,"  and  "The  Wind  that  Wafts  Love 
from  One  to  Another"  are  as  distinctively  Polyne- 
sian in  their  rendering  of  natural  phenomena  as  the 
quilt  designs  they  describe. 

Even   the  abstract  designs  of  piecework 
style  tifaifai  suggest  naturalistic  motifs  to  the 


The  late  high  com- 
missioner of  French 
Polynesia,  Charles 
Schmitt,  is  wrapped  i)i 
tifaifai  on  the  island  of 
Rangiroa,  in  the 
Tuamotus,  east  of  the 
Societi/  Islands.  In 
centuries  past,  captauis 
Cook  and  Bligh  had 
been  similarly  honored. 
Photo  In/  Claude 
Clavenea977). 


Polynesians.  "The  Turtle,"  "The  Octopus,"  "The 
Butterfly,"  "Stars,"  and  "Hibiscus"  are  names  of 
abstract  piecework  tifaifai  designs.  In  some 
piecework  tifaifai,  particularly  those  created 
from  small  squares,  mosaiclike  pictures  of  birds, 
plants,  flowers,  and  other  objects  are  created  by 
juxtaposing  the  colors  of  the  fabric  pieces. 

A  number  of  motifs  in  both  piecework  and 
applique  tifaifai  styles  are  drawn  from  objects  of 
interest  to  the  Polynesians.  Leis,  or  garlands  of 
flowers,  are  an  important  part  of  Polynesian 
culture  and  provide  the  inspiration  for  many 
tifaifai  motifs.  Other  objects  include  anchors, 
fans,  and  lamps. 

History  has  also  figured  in  the  choice 
of  tifaifai  motifs,  particularly  among  the 
Hawaiians.  The  appearance  of  Hallev's  Comet, 
the  discovery  of  pearls  at  Eua,  Oahu,  and  the  use 
of  the  first  carrier  pigeons  in  the  mail  service  of 
Kauai  have  all  been  commemorated  in  Hawaiian 
quilt  designs.  When  the  Hawaiian  monarchy 
was  overthrown  in  1898,  and  the  Hawaiian  flag 
officially  banned,  a  quilt  design  entitled  "My 
Beloved  Flag"  evolved  to  commemorate  the 
Hawaiian  monarchy's  flag  and  coat  of  arms. 
Such  quilts  were  covertly  created  and  sometimes 
hung  secretively  on  the  under  side  of  four-poster 
canopies. 

Other  symbols  of  royal  power,  both 
Polynesian  and  European,  have  figured  in  tifaifai 
traditions.  In  Hawaii,  a  popular  quilt  motif, 
"Crowns  and  Kahilis,"  incorporates  the  histori- 


cal Hawaiian  royal  symbols  of  the  crown  and  the 
kahili,  a  feather  standard.  Traditionally,  this  quilt 
motif  is  executed  in  red  and  yellow,  the  official 
colors  of  Hawaiian  royalty.  A  crown  motif  is  also 
popular  in  the  Cook  Islands,  which  have  been 
under  English  rule  for  many  years.  In  1967,  when 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Kent  visited  Rarotonga 
on  an  official  visit,  they  were  presented  with  a 
beautiful  piecework  tifaifai  with  crown  motifs. 
When  the  Queen  of  England  visited  at  another 
time,  she  was  presented  a  tifaifai  with  a  coat  of 
arms  design  adapted  from  a  picture  on  a  Grey's 
tobacco  package. 

Some  tifaifai  designs  hold  symbolic 
meanings  for  those  who  create  them  and  those  to 
whom  they  are  given.  Love,  sorrow,  and  yearn- 
ing may  motivate  the  motif  selection  and  naming 
of  a  Polynesian  tifaifai.  For  example,  a  woman 
from  the  Society  Islands  told  me  that  she  selected 
"A  Head  Garland  of  the  Fruit  of  the  Pandanus" 
design  for  her  son's  wedding  present  because 
her  son  was  like  a  crown  for  her.  A  Hawaiian 
woman  recounted  that  her  grandmother  had 
made  a  quilt  for  her  with  a  breadfruit  design  be- 
cause as  a  small  child  the  granddaughter  had 
been  fed  a  great  amount  of  breadfruit. 

Tifaifai  are  made  almost  exclusively  by 
middle-aged  and  older  women  working  individ- 
ually or  in  groups.  Young  women  and  girls  are 
often  too  busy  with  school,  jobs,  or  young  chil- 
dren to  devote  time  to  creating  tifaifai.  General 
sewing  skills  are  often  taught  in  the  schools,  but 
many  women  learn  to  make  tifaifai  from  friends, 
relatives,  or  by  observing  others'  work. 

Piecework  tifaifai,  the  oldest  tifaifai  style 
throughout  eastern  Polynesia,  was  first  introduced 
as  a  group  art  form  based  on  the  Western  quilting 
bee.  Since  Polynesian  women  were  accustomed  to 
working  in  groups  on  bark  cloth,  they  easily  trans- 
ferred their  communal  work  patterns  to  hfaifai.  In 
many  instances,  women  shared  their  fabric  scraps 
and  labor  in  order  to  acquire  tifaifai  on  a  rotating 
basis.  In  the  Austral  Islands  and  the  Cook  Islands, 
where  piecework  tifaifai  are  still  very  popular, 
women  conhnue  to  work  together  in  groups  based 
on  kinship,  friendship,  and  common  interest.  In 
the  Society  Islands  and  the  Hawaiian  Islands, 
where  the  applique-style  tifaifai  is  more  prevalent, 
women  often  prefer  to  work  individually.  Many 
women  feel  that  a  tifaifai  will  be  more  beautiful  if  it 
is  created  in  a  consistent  fashion  by  one  person 
alone.  Machine-sewn  tifaifai  are  gaining 
acceptance  in  the  Society  Islands  and  are  often 
created  individually  by  women  who  seek  economic 
profits  by  selling  tifaifai  to  other  Polynesians.  Indi- 
vidual work  is  also  encouraged  by  a  highly 
westernized  Polynesian  life  style  and  tifaifai  com- 
petitions which  honor  one  person's  achievement. 

Tifaifai  patterns  are  the  property  of  those 


Tivaevcie  manu  (applique)  on  the  floor  and  tivaevae  taorei 
(pieceivork)  on  the  umlh  and  ceiling  create  a  special  arena  for  a 
Rarotongan  haircutting  ceremony.  The  individual  braids  on 
the  boy's  head  are  cut  /'v  relatives  and  friends  invited  to  the 
ritual.  Photo  courtesy  Johnson's  Photographic  Studios  (1973). 

who  create  them,  but  patterns  may  be  kept  within 
the  family  from  one  generation  to  the  next  or  ex- 
changed between  friends.  Some  tifaifai  motifs  are 
unique;  patterns  may  be  destroyed  immediately- 
after  use.  Other  tifaifai  designs  are  very  common, 
with  individual  interpretations  providing  varia- 
tions on  the  theme.  Tifaifai  rules  of  ethics  ensure 
creativity,  since  it  is  considered  improper  to  copy 
another's  design  directly.  In  Hawaii,  women  who 
stole  quilt  patterns  were  sometimes  ridiculed  pub- 
licly in  the  derisive  words  of  a  hula. 

just  as  the  esthetic  principles  of  tifaifai  tradi- 
tions have  drawn  from  both  Western  and  Polyne- 
sian sources,  the  uses  of  eastern  Polynesian  tifaifai 
reflect  traditional  roles  of  bark  cloth  as  well  as 
innovative  uses  arising  from  cultural  change.  In 
contemporary  eastern  Polynesian  societies,  tifaifai 
play  important  roles  in  life-crisis  ceremonies,  cyclic 
ceremonies;  and  ceremonies  honoring  high-status 
individuals. 

In  life-crisis  ceremonies,  those  rituals 
enacted  to  emphasize  and  support  individuals' 
physical  and  social  changes,  tifaifai  have  replaced 
the  use  of  bark  cloth  as  a  highly  esteemed  gift  pre- 
sented to  the  individual  or  individuals  undergoing 
transition.  Sometimes  they  are  also  used  as  decora- 
tion for  the  area  in  which  the  rites  are  celebrated.  In 
the  past,  bark  cloth  was  used  throughout  eastern 
Polynesia  as  a  socially  valuable  gift  to  confirm  a 
change  in  social  status  and  to  establish  bonds  be- 


tween participating  parties;  today,  tifaifai  figure 
importantly  as  gifts  for  birthdays,  coming  of  age 
ceremonies,  weddings,  and  funerals. 

Tifaifai  are  especially  important  in  wedding 
ceremonies  throughout  eastern  Polynesia.  In  the 
Society  Islands  and  the  Cook  Islands,  tifaifai  are 
often  used  to  decorate  the  walls  and  sometimes  the 
ceilings  of  buildings  used  for  the  wedding  feast. 
In  the  Society  Islands,  a  canopy  and  backdrop 
of  tifaifai  are  sometimes  erected  as  a  special 
area  where  the  wedding  couple  stand  to  receive 
congratulations. 

On  the  island  of  Rurutu,  in  the  Austral 
Islands,  gift  tifaifai  are  ceremoniously  wrapped 
about  a  couple  during  the  wedding  festivities. 
The  symbolic  act  of  binding  the  man  and  woman 
together  in  a  bedcover  serves  to  sanction  and 
legitimize  their  social  and  sexual  bond. 

In  the  Cook  Islands,  the  boy's  coming  of  age 
ceremony  is  celebrated  with  a  hair-cutting  ritual. 
Families  who  plan  to  celebrate  the  ritual  allow  a 
boy's  hair  to  grow  long  from  infancv;  most  boys 
undergo  the  rite  by  the  time  they  enter  adolescence. 
During  the  ceremony,  relatives  and  friends  take 
turns  cutting  the  boy's  hair,  which  is  plaited  in 
braids.  The  number  of  braids  one  is  entitled  to  cut  is 
based  on  the  amount  of  money  and  presents  he  or 
she  gives.  Along  with  clothes  and  some  personal 
items,  household  articles,  including  tifaifai,  are 
often    given    to   be    used    by    the   boy    when 


Hawaiian  quilt  (grayed 
green  on  white)  made 
by  Mrs.  Montgomery 
in  mo,  intheeoUec- 
lion  of  the  Honolulu 
.■\eademy  of  Arts.  The 
design  is  Niumalu, 
or  "Nmcili  Beauti/." 
Courtesy  Honolulu 
Academy  of  Arts,  gift 
of  Dora'isenherg,  1940.  : 


Piecework  tivaevae, 
made  by  women  mem- 
bers of  church  congre- 
gation on  island  of 
Rarotonga,  being  pre- 
sented to  xoidou'  of  their 
late  pastor  Photo  by 
]oyce  Hammond 
(1978). 


he  matures  and  marries.  However,  the  most  im- 
pressive and  important  use  of  tifaifai  in  the  hair- 
cutting  ritual  is  in  decorating  the  area  in  which  the 
bov  is  seated  for  the  hair-cutting.  Very  often  the 
ceremonv  is  conducted  in  a  tentlike  structure  in 
which  tifaifai  form  the  walls,  ceiling,  and  some- 
times even  the  floor.  The  chair  upon  which  the  boy 
is  seated  may  also  be  draped  with  a  tifaifai.  It  is 
generally  acknowledged  that  the  use  of  many  val- 
ued tifaifai  in  the  hair-cutting  ceremonv  is  a  vvav  of 
honoring  the  boy. 

Tifaifai  are  buried  v\ith  the  deceased  in  the 
Cook  Islands,  the  Austral  Islands,  and  to  a  lesser 
extent  in  some  of  the  Societv  Islands.  There  is 
ample  evidence  that  the  practice  of  burying  tifaifai 
with  deceased  persons,  today  less  common  than 
formerly,  was  predated  by  the  practice  of  wrapping 
the  dead  in  bark  cloth.  The  principle  role  of  tifaifai 
in  funerals  is  as  a  symbol  expressive  of  the  love  and 
personal  loss  felt  for  a  person.  For  this  reason, 
some  people  sacrifice  their  most  precious  tifaifai  for 
use  in  the  grave.  Among  the  Cook  Islanders,  the 
number  of  tifaifai  placed  in  a  grave  seems  to  have 
special  importance  as  an  indication  of  social  status 


and  the  esteem  of  the  deceased's  relatives.  It  is 
not  uncommon  for  a  Cook  Islander  to  be  buried 
with  ten  tifaifai.  The  body  may  be  placed  on  one, 
wrapped  in  another,  and  covered  with  a  third.  A 
folded  tifaifai  may  serve  as  a  pillow.  Additional 
tifaifai  are  often  placed  over  the  closed  casket  or 
inside  the  grave  vault  itself.  The  symbolic  message 
con\eyed  in  the  act  of  wrapping  an  individual  in 
tifaifai  for  burial  is,  like  the  message  traditionally 
conveyed  by  the  wrapping  of  bark  cloth  around 
someone,  expressive  of  feelings  of  love,  esteem, 
and  honor.  As  an  object  associated  with  the 
utilitarian  function  of  providing  warmth  and  pro- 
tection, the  tifaifai  seems  an  especially  apt  symbol 
for  expressing  the  emotions  of  the  bereaved. 

Various  cyclic  ceremonies  of  eastern  Poly- 
nesia illustrate  another  way  in  which  tifaifai  have 
replaced  some  of  the  functions  of  bark  cloth  and,  at 
the  same  time,  have  been  adapted  to  cultural 
change.  In  parts  of  eastern  Polynesia,  the  contem- 
porary celebration  of  the  New  Year  still  retains 
practices  dating  to  pre-contact  Polynesian  society. 
Throughciut  the  Society  and  Austral  Islands,  tifaifai 
are  used  to  decorate  the  walls  and  the  many  beds  of 
Polynesians'  homes  for  the  New  Year.  In  a  spirit 
reminiscent  of  the  way  in  which  bark  cloth  was 
once  spread  out  upon  lines  at  the  disposal  of 
spiritual  guests,  tifaifai  are  now  used  to  decorate 
homes  to  honor  neighbors  and  relatives  who  visit 
on  New  Year's  Day. 

The  Me,  a  post-contact  event  which  origi- 
nated from  the  introduction  of  the  Protestant 
church's  annual  tithe  collection  in  May,  is  impor- 
tant in  the  Society  and  Austral  Islands  as  another 
cyclic  ceremony  in  which  tifaifai  figure  promi- 
nently. In  the  Austral  Islands,  where  the  Me  is 
especially  important,  part  of  the  ceremonv  in- 
cludes the  visitation  of  one  another's  homes. 
Tifaifai  used  as  bed  and  wall  decoration  are  impor- 
tant in  this  context  as  a  symbolic  expression  of  the 
renewal  and  reaffirmation  of  each  individual's  ties 
to  the  church  and  to  other  church  members. 

During  the  annual  Tiitrai  festivities  of 
French  Polynesia,  which  center  around  the  French 
independence  day  in  July,  tifaifai  are  used  in  con- 
texts which  underline  their  adaptive  importance. 
Fair  stalls  and  parade  floats  are  sometimes  deco- 
rated with  tifaifai  to  give  the  festivities  a  decidedly 
Polynesian  flavor. 

The  presentation  of  tifaifai  to  high-status 
individuals  in  order  to  honor  them  is  the  third 
major  way  in  which  tifaifai  are  used  throughout 
eastern  Polynesia.  A  traditional  method  of  presen- 
tation is  c^ften  used.  The  practice  of  wrapping  a 
tifaifai  around  a  government  or  church  official  has 
direct  historical  antecedents  in  the  practice  of 
draping  bark  cloth  around  honored  individuals' 
shoulders.  In  a  manner  similar  to  that  in  which 
Captain  Bligh  and  Captain  Cook  were  honored 


Rarotoiigaii  womcit 
work  oil  picccu'ork 
tivnn'iu'.  Photo  /'i/ 
loi/cc  Hammoiiti 
(1978). 


with  bark  cloth,  the  late  high  commissioner  of 
French  Polynesia  was  wrapped  in  a  tifaifai  on  an 
island  in  the  Tuamotus,  east  of  the  Society  Islands, 
during  an  official  government  trip.  In  the  Cook 
Islands,  church  officials  and  their  families  are 
sometimes  honored  with  presents  of  tifaifai  which 
are  draped  about  their  shoulders  or  ceremoniously 
placed  across  their  laps. 

Derived  from  Western  quilts  and  heavily 


influenced  by  Polynesian  bark  cloth  uses,  eastern 
Polynesian  tifaifai  have  evolved  into  a  unique 
Polynesian  art  form  remarkable  for  its  adaptation 
to  the  changing  circumstances  of  the  Polynesian 
people.  Just  as  tifaifai  continue  to  play  important, 
viable  roles  in  contemporary  Polynesian  cultures, 
tifaifai  will  undoubtedly  continue  to  adapt  to  the 
needs  and  values  of  Polynesian  people  in  the 
future.  D 


Rawtotii^an  applique  tivanHw, 
showing  pansy  rffsix'",  made 
N  Maii^^aitikai  Roa  Women' f 
Group.  Photo  by  Joyce  Ham- 
mond (1978). 


Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 


l  he  C/tissrcii/  luu/i/s: 

Greece  ami  the  G  red  an  hies 

September  7-26 


Siintorini  -  <in  (.iiccuin  Isles  iliiicniry 


Under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Donald  VChiteomb,  Field 
Museum  assistant  curator  of  Near  Kastern  archeology  and 
ethnolog).  this  tour  w  ill  visit  Athens,  the  sites  of  ancient 
( orinth  and  .\l\cenae.  Delphi.  Ohnipia,  ICnossos,  Santo- 
rini.  .Miletus.  Skiros.  Piraeus,  and  numerous  other  sites  of 
interest  in  the  history  of  western  civilization  and  art. 

hollowing  five  days  and  four  nights  in  Athens,  the 
sleek  luxury  motor  yacht  duo  D'Uro,  with  30  passenger 
cabins,  will  take  tour  members  across  the  shimmering 
waters  of  the  Aegean  to  some  of  the  loveliest  and  most  his- 
torically interesting  of  the  Greek  isles. 

Gost  of  the  tour  —  S3,425(plusa  S300  donation  to 
Field  .Museum  )  —  is  based  upon  double  occupancy  and  in- 
cludes round  trip  air  fare  via  American  Airlines  between 
Chicago  and  New  York,  and  Olympic  Airways  bervseen 
New  York  and  .Athens.  First  class  accommodations  will  be 
used  throughout.  ITic  package  includes  almost  all  meals 
( all  meals  while  aboard  the  Caro  D'Oro  ),  motorcoach  fares, 
baggage  handling,  all  transfers,  taxes  (except  airport  tax), 
and  tips  (except  to  tour  guides),  all  sightseeing  charges 
and  admissions  to  special  events.  Advance  deposit:  S3OO 
per  person. 


Death  Valley,  California 
10-Day,  Christmas  Vacation,  1980 

Dr.  .Matthew  H.  Nitecki,  Field  .Mu.seum  curator  of  invertebrate  fossils,  and  Prof  Stanley  M.  Awramik.  of 
the  Department  of  Geological  Sciences,  L  niversity  of  California,  Santa  Barbara,  will  lead  this  field  trip. 
ITie  all-inclusive  price  will  be  approximately  SI, 500.  For  additional  information  call  the  Tours  Office 
todav:  922-9410. 


Coming  up  for  1981 

Seven  Exciting  Field  Museum  Tours 

To  the  Far  Corners  of  the  Earth 


10 


i^  India  in  January 

J^  Egypt  in  February 

»^  Baja  California  (whale  watching!  )  in  February 

v^  The  Peoples  Republic  of  China  in  April 


*^   Papua  New  Guinea  in  May 
»^   Kenya  in  September 
p^  Peru  in  October 


Vi'ritc  (or  call )  the  fours  Otficc  now .  indicate  which  of  these  tours  are  of  special  interest  to  you.  and  your  name 
will  be  placed  on  a  special  mailing  list.  As  soon  as  itineraries,  travel  dates,  and  rates  have  been  established,  this 
information  will  he  sent  to  you.  A  SSO  advance  deposit  on  any  tour  will  reserve  space  for  you  and  may  be 
refunded,  without  penalty,  up  to  90  days  before  the  departure  date. 


THE  GREiVr  BRONZE  AGE 

of 

CfflNA 

An  Exhibition  from  the  Peoples  Republic  of  China 

August  20  to  October  29 


•  rchaeologv  in  China  today  promises  to  disclose  the  sec-  by  the  People's  Republic  of  China,  carefully  selected  for  their 

/m  rets  of  ancient  China  in  much  the  same  way  that  aesthetic  and  historical  importance,  summarize  the  most  brij- 

r^^   nineteenth-century  archaeology  revealed  the  ancient  liant  achievements  in  recent  Chinese  Bronze  Age  archaeology. 

^^       Greek  world,  both  by  refuting  cherished  notions  of  The  advent  of  bronze  metallurgy  in  any  ancient  civiii- 

the  later  historians  and  by  restoring  myths  and  vanished  king-  zahon  assured  the  creation  of  better  tools  for  increased 

doms  to  history.  The  105  exhibits  in  the  present  exhibition  sent  productivity,  and  more  effective  weapons  for  making  war. 

]adt'  pendant  (huang).  Enfteiii  Zhou  (Intc  bth-Sth  century  P  c  ).  Length  20.2cm  (8  in.);  nuixiinuni  witith  4.7cm  CI  ^'s  in.):  wei\;ht  76g  C2  Vj  oz.). 


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SETH  JOEL  COURTESY  TMfc  MfclHoPOUiAh  MOafcuM  ^i-  ART 

In  ancient  China,  however,  bronze  technology  was 
put  to  a  third  important  use,  the  one  with  which 
this  exhibition  is  primarily  concerned,  namely, 
the  casting  of  imposing  drinking  vessels  and  food 
containers.  These  objects  were  created  for  rituals 
in  ancestral  temples  by  kings  and  nobles  whose 
rank  and  order  were  measured  by  the  size  and  the 
number  of  their  bronzes.  Such  bronzes  display  the 
incredible  range  of  inventive  genius  of  the  ancient 
Chinese,  who  successfully  combined  art  and  in- 
dustry to  form  some  of  the  most  accomplished  and 
enduring  works  of  art  the  world  knows.  Splendid 
works  in  bronze  and  jade,  these  objects  stand  as 
eloquent  and  tangible  testimon\'  to  the  great  early 
ci\'ilizations  of  China.  The  ultimate  importance 
of  such  works  of  art  lies  not  only  in  their  revealing 


the  e\traordinar\'  skill  and  genius  of  the  earliest 
Chinese  artisans,  but  also  in  their  role  as  keystones 
in  the  reconstruction  of  ancient  Chinese  history. 

Legend  has  it  that  after  King  Yu  of  the  Xia 
dynasty  controlled  the  flood,  about  2200  B.C.,  he 
divided  his  land  into  nine  provinces,  and  had  nine 
ding  (cauldrons)  cast  to  represent  them.  Thus,  the 
"nine  dmg,"  also  called  the  "HeavT  Vessels  of  the 
State,"  or  the  "Auspicious  Bronzes  of  the  State," 
became  symbols  of  power  and  prestige.  When 
the  Xia  dynasty  fell,  it  is  recorded,  the  "nine  ding" 
passed  to  the  Shang  dynasty,  and,  in  turn,  to  the 
Zhou  when  they  conquered  the  Shang. 

Whether  weapons  or  ritual  vessels,  bronze 
objects  meant  power  for  those  who  possessed 
them.  In  times  of  war,  the  bronze  from  ritual 


Three  terracotta  war- 
riors from  the  eternal 
bodiiguard  of  China  s 
First  Emp^eroK  Qin 
Shihaungdi  (221-2W 
R.C.)  stand  partly  un- 
earthed from  their 
trench  position  in  the 
mausoleum.  The 
terracotta  cavalrymen 
and  their  horses  are 
representative  of  7,500 
life-size  military  figures 
found  in  China's 
Shaanxi  Province  in 
1974.  On  the  ground 
above  the  figures 
(where  workers  are 
shown  studying  the 
site)  arc  rutted 
mounds  -the  remains  of 
a  tightlx/  laid  roof  of 
thick  planks,  supported 
by  massive  wooden  pil- 
lars and  crossbeams 
that  long  ago  collapsed. 
Eight  of  these  terra- 
cotta figures  are  among 
the  105  pneces  featured 
in  "The  Great  Bronze 
Age  of  China:  An 
Exhibition  from 
The  People's  Republic 
12  of  China." 


vessels  could  be  used  to  make  weapons;  in  rimes 
of  peace  weapons  might  be  transformed  into 
ceremonial  objects.  After  the  First  Emperor  of  Qin 
unified  China  in  221  B.C.,  he  ordered  that  all  the 
bronze  vessels  and  weapons  captured  from  his 
vanquished  enemies  be  melted  down  and  made 
into  twelve  colossal  bronze  statues  to  adorn  his 
palaces.  The  real  purpose  of  this  grandiose  act  was 
to  keep  weapons  out  of  the  hands  of  his  subjects, 
but,  eventually,  the  giant  bronze  statues  were 
melted  down  and  recast  into  weapons  by  enemy 
invaders. 

The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China,  the  exhibition 
that  the  People's  Republic  of  China  has  lent  to 
[the  Field  Museum  and  four  other]  United  States 
museums*,  makes  a  unique  contriburion  to  West- 
ern understanding  of  the  greatness  of  ancient 
Chinese  civilLzarions.  It  opens  with  the  earliest 
known  Chinese  bronze  vessel  and  concludes  with 
the  extraordinary  terracotta  soldiers  and  horses 
that  were  recently  excavated  from  the  burial 
complex  of  the  First  Emperor  of  Qin.  Unlike  the 
first  Chinese  exhibirion  of  archaeological  finds 
that  toured  the  United  States  in  1974-75,  which 
consisted  of  a  general  sampling  of  objects  daring 
from  the  Neolithic  through  Yuan  periods,  the  pre- 
sent show  has  a  unified  theme:  it  presents  us  with  a 
thorough  review  of  the  most  brilliant  latest 
achievements  in  Chinese  Bronze  Age  archaeology 
with  discoveries  that  have  fundamentally  changed 
our  knowledge  of  ancient  Chinese  history  and 
art — -Philippe  de  Montehello,  director.  The  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art.  From  The  Great  Bronze  Age  of 
China,  copyright  ©1980  by  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art;  published  in  the  United  States  by 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  and  Alfred  A. 
Knopf,  Inc.,  New  York. 


The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China,  published  In/  The  Met- 
ropolitan Museum  of  Art  and  Alfred  A.  Knopf,  Inc.,  may  he 
purchased  at  the  Field  Museum  Shops.  See  ad,  p.  26. 


'The  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  Neu'  York:  Kimbell  Art 
Museum,  Fort  Worth;  Los  Angeles  County  Museum  of  Art; 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston. 


The  narional  tour  of  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of 
China:  An  Exhibirion  from  the  People's  Republic  of 
China"  is  made  possible  by  grants  from  The 
Coca-Cola  Company;  the  Narional  Endowment  for 
the  Humanities,  Washington,  D.C.,  a  federal 
agency;  and  the  Robert  Wood  Johnson  Jr  Charita- 
ble Trust;  it  has  been  organized  by  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art.  Under  the  Arts  and  Arrifacts 
Indemnity  Act,  indemnity  was  granted  by  the 
Federal  Council  on  the  Arts  and  Humaniries. 


Archeology  students  unearth  terracotta  soldiers  from  their 
positions  in  Qin  Shihaungdi's  underground  army.  Once  the 
excavation  work  is  complete,  the  figures  wilUw  preserved  as  a 
national  treasure. 


13 


Hu,  a  type  of  wine  vessel.  Western  Han  (second  half  2nd  century 
B.C.).  Height 44.2cm  (17%  in.);  diameter  15.6cm  (6 Vs  in.);  weight 
6.55kg  (14  lb.  7  oz.).  Gold  and  silver  inlays  form  ornamental 


"bird-script"  inscriptions,  reading,  in  part:  "Let  delicacies  fill  the 
gates  and  increase  our  girth,  and  give  us  long  life  without  illness  for 
ten  thousand  years  and  more." 


14 


Hu,  a  type  of  wine  vessel.  Anyang  period  ica.  1300-ca.  1030  B.C.).        slender,  round-bodied  shape  are  rare,  quite  lIi^Iiiu  t  foni  those  with 
Height  31.4cm  (12  ^k  in.),  weight  2.7kg  (6  W.).  Wine  vessels  of  this        S-curve  profile  and  oval  cross  section,  such  as  that  on  facing  page. 


15 


Hu,  a  type  of  wine  vessel.  Eastern  Zhou  (early  5tb  century  B.C.). 
Heigh  1 44 .  2cm  (1 7  %  in . );  greatest  diameter  25cm  (9  %  in . );  weigh  t 
5.77kg  (12  lb.  11  02.). 


16 


Gu,  ();•  drum.  FifUriitli-foui Urntli  iCiiliiiu  n  l  ,'  Height  75. ban 
{19^k  in.);  weight  42.4kg  (93  V2  lb.).  The  second  bronze  drum 
known  from  the  Shang  period. 


17 


From  Dust  to  Dignity: 

Collection  News  from  Anthropology 


by  Phyllis  Rablneau  and  Donald  Collier 


The  Department  of  Anthropology  has  re- 
cently completed  the  first  stage  of  a  major 
project  upgrading  the  care  of  its  storage 
collection,  and  has  begun  work  on  the  next 
phase.  The  completed  portion  is  housed  in  the 
former  southeast  lightwell,  in  a  new  facility 
called  Central  Anthropology  Storage  (CAS). 
During  the  recent  modernizing  of  Field 
Museum's  building,  this  space  was  filled  in  to 
provide  four  storeys  of  steel  shelving  set  aside  for 
anthropology  collections.  The  facility  includes 
adequate  fire  protection,  sensitive  security  de- 
vices, and  a  climate-controlled  atmosphere. 

In  August  1977  we  began  our  reorganiza- 
tion project.  Some  250,000  artifacts  were  moved 
from  older,  antiquated  storerooms,  arranged  in 
CAS,  and  inventoried  by  means  of  computer 
printouts.  The  new  storage  location  of  each  ar- 
tifact was  recorded  as  that  of  the  nearest  18  x 


Collections  on  the 

move!  Joyce  Hammond 

transports  African 

artifacts  from  an  old 

storeroom  to  the  newly 

1 8     modernized  area. 


36-inch  shelf,  numerically  identified,  a  proce- 
dure which  now  greatly  simplifies  access  to  the 
collection  by  researchers.  The  inventory  was  de- 
signed to  remove  the  many  discrepancies,  er- 
rors, and  lacunae  which  had  accumulated  in  the 
original  catalog  since  it  was  initiated  in  1894. 
Because  of  the  dramatic  improvements  in  the 
care  of  the  collection,  our  moving  staff  began 
to  call  the  project  "From  Dust  to  Dignity,"  a  hu- 
morous yet  apt  description  of  what  has  been 
accomplished. 

Approximately  three-fifths  of  our  an- 
thropology collection  is  now  housed  in  CAS,  and 
we  have  begun  work  on  modernizing  the  care  of 
artifacts  in  the  remaining  older  storerooms.  Once 
again,  we  will  clean,  reorganize,  and  inventory 
with  computer  printouts  the  remaining  175,000 
objects.  The  first  year  of  this  project,  called  "New 
Dimensions  in  Old  Spaces,"  is  funded  by  a  grant 
from  the  National  Science  Foundation,  and  will 
focus  upon  North  and  South  American  artifacts 
of  organic  composition —  feathers,  fur,  woolen 
textiles,  leathers,  wood,  foodstuffs.  These  ob- 
jects are  among  the  most  perishable  items  in  our 
collection;  they  are  sensitive  to  insect  attack,  fluc- 
tuations in  climate,  and  most  likely  to  suffer  from 
physical  crowding.  The  inventory  project  will 
enable  us  to  carefulh'  inspect  every  item  in  the 
storeroom,  isolate  and  treat  those  with  insect 
damage,  reorganize  the  storage  arrangement, 
and  alleviate  the  overcrowding  that  makes  it 
hard  to  locate  and  inspect  objects  needed  for  re- 
search and  exhibition. 

We  believe  the  achievements  of  the  stor- 
age reorganization  project  to  be  unique  among 
major  museums  in  terms  of  magnitude,  com- 
plexity, and  efficiency.  Field  Museum  moved 
other  large  collections  into  new  facilities  in  the 
1950s  and  1960s,  and  in  the  past  three  years,  but 
none  of  these  other  moves  has  involved  this  kind 
of  inventory.  The  Museum  of  the  American  In- 
dian has  recently  made  an  inventory  of  its  large 
collection  but  without  rehousing  the  specimens. 


Phyllis  Rahineau  is  custodian  of  the  anthropology  collections; 
Donald  Collier  is  curator  emeritus  of  Middle  and  South 
American  archeology  and  ethnology. 


I 


Tens  of  llwufivids  of 
pol>herd^  lunv  been 
clcivieil,  pnckii'^ed,  or- 
f^iiiiizi'd,  (iiui  iiiiHti- 
loried.  Here,  Paul  Fiiii 
niui  Ethel  Tuniip^eed 
prepare  ceramics  from 
the  southwestern 
United  States. 


The  U.S.  National  Museum's  project  to  rehouse 
and  inventory  its  anthropology  collection,  and 
the  projects  at  the  University  Museum  in  Phila- 
delphia and  the  Peabodv  Museum  at  Harvard 
University  will  not  be  finished  for  several  years. 
Field  Museum  is  recognized  nationally  for  hav- 
ing taken  an  energetic,  innovadve  lead  in  the  new 
wave  of  collection  management  development. 
It  is  accurate  to  say  that  the  CAS  project 
took  twelve  \'ears.  It  began  in  1968  with  serious 
departmental  and  Museum-wide  planning  for 
modernization,  which  led  to  policy  decisions, 
fund  raising,  architectural  and  engineering 
planning,  and  construction.  Our  new  storage 
space  was  completed  and  cleaned  in  July  1977; 
detailed  planning  for  the  move  and  creating  the 
computer  catalog  file  had  begun  early  in  1977, 
and  was  completed  in  six  months.  The  actual 
mt)ving  and  inventory  was  carried  out  by  two 
teams  of  three  persons  each,  plus  a  project  as- 
sistant and  an  engineering-logistics  specialist. 
These  teams  performed  with  extraordinary  skill, 
stamina,  and  devotion.  We  would  like  to  recog- 
nize their  ct)ntribution  to  the  success  of  this  pro- 


ject by  listing  their  names: 

Edward  Applebaum 
Robert  Bailey 
Donald  Bockenfeld 
Kathleen  Christon 
Diane  Gluts 
George  Davis 
Patricia  Figel 
Paul  Fini 

Theresa  Gross-Diaz 
Joyce  Hammond 
Elizabeth  Koenen 
Barbara  Larson 
John  Listen 
Timothy  Listen 


Roberto  Maisonave 
Alan  Majak 
Roberta  Martin 
Anita  Raba 
M.E.  Rada 
John  J.  Rider 
Marianne  Schoch 
Maija  Sedzielarz 
Ernest  Sheldon 
Sue  Ann  Stott 
Christine  Taterka 
Ethel  Turnipseed 
Adam  Wasserman 
Charles  Williams,  Jr. 


Over  the  three-vear  span  of  the  CAS  pro- 
ject, some  eight)'  people  in  all,  within  and  out- 
side the  Museum,  contributed  to  its  success.  The 
work  has  been  made  possible  by  four  generous 
grants  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the 
Arts,  and  by  substantial  support  from  Field 
Museum's  Capital  Fund  for  modernization.  The 
project  was  directed  in  its  first  year  by  Donald 
Collier  and  thereafter  by  Ph\llis  Rabineau.       D 


19 


Exploring  A  New  Nation's 

Ancient  Past:  Archeology 

In  The  Marshall  Islands 


By  THOMAS  J.  RILEY 

Photos  bi/  the  Author 


Marshallesc  field- 
workers  prepare  for  the 
day's  survey  shortli/ 
after  daum.  The  islets 
to  he  sun^ei/ed  dot  the 
horizon. 


As  one  of  the  most  recent  members  of  the 
Community  of  Nations,  the  Marshall  Islands  is 
interested  not  only  in  future  development,  but 
also  in  developing  an  understanding  of  its  past. 
Located  in  the  western  Pacific  some  2,300  miles 
southwest  of  Hawaii,  the  new  nation  has  been 
under  United  States  trusteeship  from  the 
United  Nations  since  1946.  Now  the  trusteeship 
is  ending  and  the  Marshalls,  like  other  island 
groups  in  Micronesia,  are  in  a  period  of  transi- 
tion to  independence.  The  new  government  is 
parliamentary  with  a  Council  of  Iroij  (chiefs) 
and  an  elected  assembly  called  the  Nitijela.  The 
council  oversees  matters  of  custom  and  the  pre- 
sident and  cabinet  members  are  chosen  from 
the  assembly. 

The  first  president  of  the  Marshalls, 
Amata  Kabua,  took  office  in  1979.  Since  that 
time  the  new  nation  has  taken  over  most  of  the 
functions  formerly  overseen  by  the  U.S.,  such 


as  education,  immigration,  and  economic  de- 
velopment. The  fleet  of  fieldtrip  ships  necessary 
for  communications  between  islands  are  a  new 
addition  to  the  new  government,  and  negotia- 
tions with  the  U.S.  have  been  completed  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  top  secret  U.S.  missile  test 
range  at  Kwajalein  atoll  in  the  northern  part  of 
the  country. 

The  task  of  governing  a  nation  like  the 
Marshall  Islands  is  unique  and  difficult.  The 
new  nation  spans  an  ocean  area  estimated  at 
over  375,000  square  miles,  but  its  land  mass  is 
confined  to  about  75  square  miles  over  34  is- 
lands. Thirty  of  these  islands  are  atolls,  low- 
lying  series  of  sand  and  coral  islets  surrounding 
massive  saltwater  lagoons.  The  remaining  is- 
lands are  what  geographers  call  "high 
islands" — volcanic  masses  rising  out  of  the 
depths  of  the  sea.  The  northern  islands  are 
often  racked  by  typhoons  and  sometimes  suffer 


from  devastating  droughts.  This  island 
paradise — for  it  is  a  paradise — presents  a  for- 
midable set  of  problems  in  economic  develop- 
ment for  its  new  leaders. 

Even  in  the  midst  of  these  problems  the 
new  Marshall  Islands  government  has  not  for- 
gotten the  importance  of  preserving  traditions 
and  the  remaining  vestiges  of  its  prehistoric 
past.  In  the  mid-1970s  the  Trust  Territory  of  the 
Pacific  Islands  developed  an  Historic  Preserva- 
tion Program  for  Micronesia.  The  program  was 
designed  along  the  same  lines  as  those  cur- 
rently operating  in  states  on  the  U.S.  mainland, 
and  was  coordinated  through  Trust  Territory 
headquarters  on  Saipan  in  the  Marianas  Is- 
lands. 

In  the  Marshall  Islands  two  committees 
were  constituted.  One  of  these,  the  Historical 
Preservation  Committee,  was  charged  with 
locating  and  identifying  historic  and  pre- 
historic sites  of  significance  to  Marshallese 
culture  and  history.  The  second  was  a  museum 
committee  which  planned  the  development  of  a 
museum  in  the  capital  city.  As  a  part  of  the 
Historic  Preservation  Committee  program,  a 
number  of  projects  relevant  to  the  history  and 
archeology  of  the  Marshall  islands  were 
planned  and  are  currently  being  executed. 

One  of  these  programs  was  the  restora- 
tion of  a  nineteenth-century  plantation  house 
on  Likiep,  a  southern  atoll  of  the  chain.  The 
plantation  house  had  belonged  to  Anton  De- 
Brum,  one  of  the  early  traders  in  the  Marshalls. 
The  restoration,  which  included  cataloging  De- 


Thotnns  j.  Riley  in  a  staff  archcolo^isl  with  the  Bcrnia'  P. 
Bishop  Museum,  Honolulu,  and  currently  on  leave  from  the 
University  of  Illinois -Urbana,  Department  of  Anthropology. 


Brum's  extensive  collection  of  papers,  books, 
and  early  photographs  of  the  Marshall  islands, 
was  conducted  by  Edward  Jelks  of  Illinois  State 
University,  Bloomington. 

A  second  project  funded  through  the 
Trust  Territory  has  been  my  own  fieldwork,  an 
intensive  archeological  survey  with  test  exca- 
vations on  Majuro,  the  atoll  on  which  Rita,  the 
capital  city  of  the  Marshall  islands,  is  located. 
This  latter  fieldwork  was  conducted  through  the 
B.  P.  Bishop  Museum,  Honolulu,  perhaps  the 
foremost  museum  in  the  Pacific  at  the  present 
time. 

Archeological  survey  on  a  Pacific  atoll  is 
quite  different  from  research  in  most  parts  of 
the  mainland  U.S.  My  own  work  took  me  to 
over  54  islets  around  the  atoll,  the  majority  of 
which  had  to  be  reached  by  boat.  Test  excava- 
tions, each  one  meter  square,  were  excavated 
across  the  islets  of  the  atoll  at  different  points  in 
order  to  determine  whether  sites  lay  buried  be- 
neath storm-borne  sands  or  had  been  eroded 
away.  Some  of  our  excavations  were  carried 
down  two  meters  or  more  to  the  limits  of  the 
freshwater  table  to  see  whether  there  were 
waterlogged  deposits  that  had  existed  at  times 
when  there  were  lower  stands  of  sea  around  the 
atoll. 

In  all,  a  total  of  134  archeological  sites 
were  noted  on  Majuro.  These  represent  differ- 
ent types  of  human  settlement  and  activity  on 
the  atoll  over  the  course  of  its  history  and 
document  a  settlement  that  goes  back  to  the 
time  of  the  dark  ages  in  Europe  and  perhaps  as 
far  back  as  before  the  time  of  Christ. 

The  earliest  permanent  settlement  on  the 
atoll  appears  to  have  been  at  Laura  village  on 
the  western  end,  opposite  the  present  capital 


The  new  government 
house  for  the  Nitijela  and 
llic  Council  of  Iroij. 


21 


city  of  Rita.  Here  the  most  concentrated  human 
settlement  was  near  the  lagoon  side  of  the  atoll, 
and  the  garbage  noted  at  sites  consisted  mostly 
of  strombus  shell,  suggesting  intensive  col- 
lecting of  marine  resources  around  the  lagoon 
reef.  In  contrast  to  the  concentrated  settlement 
at  Laura,  the  rest  of  the  atoll  showed  signs  of 
scattered  homesteads  with  little  depth  to  de- 
posits and  not  much  strombus  shell  in  the  gar- 
bage. On  some  islets  no  settlement  was  found 
at  all,  and  the  little  archeological  debris  re- 
covered probably  represented  specialized  use 
in  fishing  or  turtle-hunting  expeditions. 

At  first  my  Marshallese  survey  crew  and  I 
had  a  difficult  time  identifying  many  of  the 
house  sites  scattered  around  the  atoll.  The  only 


surface  remains  left  were  a  scattering  of  small 
white  coral  pebbles.  These  pebbles  are  the 
remnants  of  paved  houseyards.  Even  today  one 
often  sees  Marshallese  women  and  children 
gathering  the  small  pebbles  on  the  beaches. 
They  spread  these  pebbles,  often  tens  of  cubic 
yards  of  them,  around  the  houseyards  to  keep 
them  dry  in  the  torrential  rains. 

In  a  few  places,  mostly  away  from 
houses,  small  coral-faced  enclosures  represent 
the  places  of  traditional  Marshallese  burials. 
Some  of  these  burials  were  on  small  un- 
inhabited islets  on  the  north  side  of  the  atoll. 
Ethnohistoric  documentation  by  early  explorers 
relate  that  the  dead  had  to  be  removed  from  the 
vicinity  of  houses  so  that  their  spirits  would  not 


170' E 


Taongi  A, 


Eniwetok  A. 


-  -10° N 


22 


C*      BikarA. 
Bikini  A. 

'""•"J.  RongelapA 

■— '■  /«i'"N.,  RongerikA 

^'''      ^  TakaA.   i*  ^"^'^^ 

Ailmginae  A 

AilukA, 

:^   WothoA.  LikiepA  V.I  ?>  Me|il  A 

♦»-       '-'■ 

Vv       JemoA 

Kwaialem  A  Xi  _,      ,.,  .,     . 

_        .-.  ^  ;  •••     WotieA. 

Uiae  A  '>.  ^A  .     y^  ^c9/    sr-i 

-        *LaeA  V.  Q.  - 

^'^  <^y-  »_.  -.NMaloeiapA 


10°N    - 


^^ 


LibA 


^'3///c 


%:^    NamuA. 


Aur  A. 


PACIFIC 
OCEAN 


Oi 


V,  Jabwot  A 


'^// 


Ailinglapalap  A 


Majuro  A. 


Arno  A. 


Namorik  A- 


Kill  A. 


MiliA. 


JaluitA 


-<^j^      Keats  Bank 
Knox  A. 


Ebon  A   /-:■ 


MARSHALL  ISLANDS 


bother  the  li\'ing. 

The  portable  artifacts  recovered  by  us  in 
our  survey  and  excavations  included  adzes  of 
tridacna  clam  and  other  shell  as  well  as  peelers 
for  breadfruit  and  the  great  swamp  taro,  some 
small  amounts  of  fishing  gear,  fowling  weights, 
a  fragment  of  a  large  helmet  shell  trumpet  for 
communicating  across  the  lagoon,  drill  bits, 
and  a  large  variety  of  ornaments  including  shell 
arm  rings  and  what  we  believe  to  be  ear  exten- 
ders. These  last  were  used  to  extend  the  size  of 
the  pierced  earlobes  that  were  considered  a 
mark  of  beauty  among  Marshallese  at  the  time 
of  European  contact. 

The  breadfruit  and  taro  peelers  recovered 
in  the  excavations  at  Laura  related  to  two  of  the 
staple  crops  of  the  Marshallese  before  contact 
with  European  culture.  A  zone  of  irregular  pits, 
at  least  some  of  which  were  excavated  at  the 
time  of  the  earliest  settlement  of  Majuro,  was 
noted  in  the  center  of  the  islet  behind  the  major 
prehistoric  settlement  at  Laura  village.  These 
pits  had  been  excavated  to  pierce  the  so-called 
Ghyben-Herzberg  lens,  the  lens  of  freshwater 
that  floats  on  the  saltwater  beneath  the  mass  of 
larger  islands.  Here  the  giant  swamp  taro, 
Ciytospenna  chamissonis,  was  grown.  It  was  one 
of  the  crops  usable  all  year  round  on  Majuro 
during  prehistoric  times. 

In  the  same  area  extensive  groves  of 
breadfruit,  Artocarpus  incisus,  provided 
nourishment  from  June  through  September  and 
the  fruit  was  often  preserved  in  a  fermented 
paste.  A  third  staple  crop  not  represented  in- 
directly by  artifacts  recovered  in  our  excava- 
tions was  pandanus.  This  was  eaten  raw, 
steamed,  or  preserved  like  breadfruit  in  a  fer- 
mented paste.  In  our  survey  we  recovered  few 
small  items  directly  related  to  fishing,  even 
though  we  know  it  was  important  in  prehistoric 
and  traditional  Marshallese  economy.  The  por- 
table artifacts  that  we  did  recover  included 
one-piece  fishhooks  and  tridacna  shell  lures 
that  were  used  for  trolling  in  the  waters  of  the 
lagoon  and  the  ocean  outside  the  reef. 

We  did,  however,  record  a  larger  number 
of  fishtraps,  and  it  is  obvious  that  these  devices 
played  a  major  part  in  the  fishing  activity  of  the 
Marshallese  before  European  contact.  They  are 
still  important  on  Majuro  today.  The  fishtraps 
are  essentially  stone  wiers  about  2  feet  high  and 
shaped  like  a  V  with  a  circle  near  its  apex.  They 
are  located  in  passes  between  islets,  with  their 
openings  facing  against  the  current.  Large 
schools  of  mackerel-like  fish  are  periodically 
caught  in  these  traps,  sometimes  tons  at  a  time. 
The  nearly  50  traps  noted  in  the  survey  suggest 
that  this  form  of  fishing  was  perhaps  more  im- 
portant than  line  fishing  in  terms  of  providing 
periodic  surpluses  of  marine  protein  for  Maj- 


uro's  prehistoric  inhabitants. 

One  of  the  interesting  features  of  the 
survey  that  we  did  on  the  atoll  was  the  dis- 
tribution of  archeological  sites.  Only  one 
housesite  was  noted  on  the  eastern  end  of  the 
atoll,  and  it  appeared  that  it  might  have  been 
abandoned  only  after  World  War  11,  when  the 
U.S.  government  constructed  an  airstrip  in  the 
immediate  vicinity. 

No  signs  of  taro  pits  or  fishtraps  were 
noted  on  this  end  of  the  atoll  either.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  this  area  of  the  atoll  was  not  favored  for 
human  settlement  in  prehistoric  times  even 
though  it  is  today  the  location  of  the  largest  city 
in  the  Marshall  islands,  a  community  with  sev- 
eral thousand  residents.  It  is  equally  possible 
that  storms  devastated  the  area.  We  know  from 
historic  accounts  that  in  1905  and  1918  typ- 
hoons scoured  parts  of  the  atoll.  A  severe  storm 
at  sea  in  late  1979  generated  waves  that  did  such 
damage  to  the  capital  city  that  the  atoll  was  de- 
clared a  disaster  area  by  president  Carter.  I  am 
planning  to  return  to  Majuro  later  this  year  to 
asses  the  damage  to  archeological  sites  on  the 
atoll.  If  there  are  patterns  to  the  destruction 
then  we  might  have  the  beginnings  of  an  ex- 
planation of  the  apparent  lack  of  settlement  on 
the  eastern  end  of  Majuro. 

The  beginnings  of  human  settlement  on 
Majuro  are  obscure  right  now,  but  several 
radiocarbon  dates  have  been  submitted  from 
the  sites  where  we  did  our  initial  excavations, 
and  an  earlier  trench  excavated  by  Paul  Rosen- 
dahl  in  1977  yielded  a  date  of  703  ±  80  B.C.,  and 
we  fully  expect  that  Majuro  itself  had  a  much 
longer  history  than  that  date  implies. 

Our  expectations  are  based  on  linguistic 
evidence.  The  language  of  the  Marshall  Islands 
is  closely  related  to  other  languages  in  eastern 
Oceania  and  apparently  split  off  from  them 
somewhere  in  the  area  of  the  Banks-Northern 
New  Hebrides  islands  of  Melanesia  to  the 
south.  One  scholar  suggests  that  this  linguistic 
split  occurred  about  3,000  years  ago.  If  this  is 
the  case  then  we  might  reasonably  expect 
people  to  have  settled  Majuro  at  or  before  the 
time  of  Christ.  We  might  also  expect  the  early 
assemblages  in  the  Marshall  Islands  to  look  like 
those  of  the  newly  independent  Kiribati  (for- 
merly the  British-controlled  Gilbert  Islands)  to 
the  south. 

These  are  some  of  the  questions  that 
govern  the  prehistoric  research  in  the  Marshall 
Islands.  They  remain  to  be  answered  in  detail 
in  archeological  investigations.  What  is  impor- 
tant, though,  is  that  the  newly  independent 
Marshall  Islands  government,  heavily  involved 
in  the  determination  of  its  future,  recognizes 
the  importance  of  learning  about,  and  from,  its 
long  and  relatively  little  known  past. 


23 


24 


Letters  from  Brazil 

Timothy  Plowman,  assistant  curator 
of  botany,  reports  on  his  field  work  in 
northern  Brazil 


Feb.  13, 1980,  Redengao 
Dear  friends, 

I'm  fittiii;^  ill  tlic  middle  of  a  rice  field  amid  charred  logs, 
cornstalks,  and  sc]uash  vines.  The  sun  is  going  down 
over  the  ne\t'ha\/stack  hill  in  this  range  of  endless 
mountains  which  have  no  name.  No  one  here  civr  heard 
of  the  inline  on  the  inap-'Serra  dos  Gradaus" -where 
we  suppose  ourselves  to  he.  We  just  finished  a  good  meal 
of  paca  (a  large  rodent)  killed  last  iiiglit  In/  our  woods- 
man Mario  (he  has  also  supplied  us  with  turtle,  caiman, 
and  various  chickens),  along  with  rice,  beans,  spaghetti, 
faivia,  and  guarand  to  drink. 

This  is  the  nicest  place  we've  been  so  far -good 
forest  to  camp  and  collect  in,  but  with  a  varied  terrain  to 
tramp  around,  including  many  exposed  granitic 
outcrops-both  wet  and  dri/-all  with  very  interesting 
plants.  Not  much  in  flower  now  though  since  we're  at 
the  middle  of  the  rainij  season  (5-6  months)  and  most 
trees  and  shrubs  are  in  fruit.  We  are  finding  many 
things  nezc  (at  least  to  us)  including  Rafflesiacese,  Bur- 
manniaceae,  Quiinacese,  Vellozias,  and  sei'eral  endemic 
tree  genera  and  species.  There  are  4  erythroxylums  here, 
3  of  which  are  new  Also  many  orchids  and  unusual  ter- 
restrial aroids.  The  collecting  and  hiking  are  great,  but 
making,  pressing,  and  dri/ing  11  duplicates  of  each  plant 
are  tedious  and  time-consuming. 

We  are  trying  to  send  all  dried  plants  back  to 
Belem  as  we  travel  or  we'd  be  inundated  loith  specimens; 
even  with  2  vehicles,  it's  cramped  traveling  with  5 -and 
soon  we'll  be  joined  by  another  Brazilian.  We  have  a 
pretty  good  working  team  now  and  everyone 
does  his  job-one  of  the  climbers  does  all  the  cooking 
and  dishwashing,  which  is  good  for  the  morale  of  the 
rest  of  us. 

The  Portuguese  spmken  here  is  a  far  cry  from 
what  I  studied  in  summer  school,  but  Ym  slowly  re- 
learning  the  names  of  everything  in  the  Amazonian 
dialect.  (Tlie  dictionary  is  no  help,  being  based  on  the 
language  of  Portugal.)  Tlie  evening  is  beautiful  ivith 
many  crickets  and  tree  frogs,  3  or  4  seretiading  birds, 
screeching  parrots  and  occasional  monkey  hoivls.  A 
jaguar  stole  2  pigs  on  the  next  farm  last  month  but  we 
haven't  seen  any  signs  of  the  big  cat.  But  the  area  is 
rugged  enough  to  support  wildcats  and  still  little  pene- 
trated by  colonists.  Tlie  land  is  very  hilly  and  the  soil 
nothing  but  coarse  quartzitic  gravel.  This  rice  field 
might  he  good  for  a  second  hanvst  but  even  that  won't 
be  a  great  one.  It  will  then  be  abandoned  or  burned  off 
again  in  the  dry  season  to  plant  forage  grasses.  Most  of 
the  good  level  land  is  already  occupied  by  big 


fazendas  -Texas  st\/lc  -with  private  airports  and  inten- 
sive modem  ranching -the  leftozvrs  go  to  the  poor  far- 
mers moving  in  mostly  from  the  northeast  and  populous 
Golds  State. 

We  are  all  in  good  health  thanks  to  countiy  liv- 
ing, fresh  air  and  unpolluted  water  Except  for  ant  bites 
and  wasp  stings,  no  major  encounters  with  the  creatures 
and  we  haven't  seen  a  single  snake  of  any  sort.  Well,  the 
no-see-ums  and  mosquitoes  are  on  the  rise  so  Til  retire  to 
my  hammock  and  mosquiteiro  -tomorrow  we  leave  early 
for  Redengao  to  dispatch  6  crates  of  plants -about  3 ,500 
specimens  -and  to  head  off  to  our  next  localiti/. 
With  warm  regards  fivm  Balmy  Brazil, 
Tim 


March  5, 1980,  Belem 
Dear  Bill, 

It  was  good  to  hear  from  you  and  news  of  the  north.  I 
zorote  and  posted  a  letter  to  you  from  Redengao  but 
you  might  not  get  it  for  months.  The  road  situation 
became  impossible  with  the  continuing  heavy  rains 
plaguing  all  of  north  Brazil  -ivorst  in  recorded  his- 
tory. Of  the  3  roads  out  of  Redengao,  two  zvere  com- 
pletely closed  zvhile  we  were  there  due  to  zvashed-out 
bridges.  The  third-partly  asphalted -zvas  ok  till  zve 
reached  the  Rio  Arraia  (pronounced  more  or  less  like 
Ohio) -the  rickety  wooden  bridge  and  3  km  of  road 
zvere  1  meter  under  zvater.  We  zvaited  3  days  and  fi- 
nally a  makeshift  ferry  appeared-a  platform  mounted 
on  2  dugouts -but  it  carried  our  2  overloaded  vehicles 
across  (for  arz  exorbitant  price).  Then  it  zvas  300  km  of 
mudholes,  mostly  zvith  huge  overloaded  lumber 
trucks  stuck  in  them  -counted  at  least  20-usually  on 
the  upgrades  and  jackknifed  across  the  road. 

It  became  ridiculous  after  a  zvhile  and  zve  kept 
good  spirits  -and  miraculously  detoured,  pick  and 
shoveled,  pushed  and  tozved  until  zve  got  our  VW  van 
and  Brazilian  Ford  Jeep  through.  Got  in  some  good 
collections  along  the  ivay-somehozv.  So  finally  to  the 
Belem-Brasilia  highioay  and  asphalt  (beloved  asphalt 
at  this  point).  We  started  north  tozvard  our  next  des- 
tination: Marabd and  Tucuruion  the  Rio  Tocantins. 
When  zve  reached  the  river  zi'e  found  lines  and  lines  of 
trucks  stacked  up  -  the  only  bridge  was  flooded  at  both 
ends  and  the  supports  zi^ere  cracking.  The  asphalt  had 
worn  off  the  surface  and  the  zvater  had  carried  off 
much  of  the  roadbed.  Nao  pasa/ 

We  took  a  rapidly  deterioratuig  road  parallel 
the  river  and  dozvnstream  to  the  city  Tocantindpolis 
(Marabd  was  already  out  of  the  question  -no  road  and 
%  of  the  city  undcrzvater) ,  zvhere  rumor  had  a  ferry 
crossing.  We  arrived  to  find  one  of  tzvo  ferries  still 
functioning  hut  you  had  to  make  a  run  through  thick 
mud  on  the  river  edge,  line  up  on  tzvo  pilanks  and  then 
onto  the  boat.  We  got  across  on  the  last  day  before  the 
police  prohibited  the  ferry  altogether  Now  there  are 
4,000  zvhicles  stranded  on  either  side  of  the  riz>er  and 
Brazil's  main  north  artery  cut.  Tons  of  fresh  fruit  and 


produce  bi'iii^  iiitniped  ui  the  river,  etc.  Iff  a  disaster 
You  can  only  reach  Beleiu  noiv  by  road  via  a  l,OU()-kiu 
detour  throu\;h  the  Northeast.  Luckihj  we  were  able 
to  avoid  that  route  or  -weeks  of  waiting  for  a  new 
bridge  or  fern/. 

We  stopfH'd  to  collect  along  the  Belem-Brasilia 
his^hway  on  our  wai/  back.  There  are  still  a  few  pnitches 
of  primary  forest  near  the  road  where  xve  found  a  nundh-r 
of  very  interesting  plants.  Gerrit*  began  getting 
feverish  here  ami  with  diarrhea.  When  we  reached 
Belem,  he  was  really  in  bad  shape  with  an  assend^lage 
of  dire  symptoms -his  temperature  hit  106°  this  PM 
so  we  rushed  him  to  the  hospital.  They  did  a  blood 
test  on  the  spot.  Diagiuisis:  Plasmodium 
falciparum -/f)rt/rtr/(7.  So  we'i'e  got  him  in  good 
hands.  He  didn't  really  let  us  know  he  ivas  feeling  so 
bad  till  it  was  serious.  Very  fortunately,  we  were  on 
our  way  back  to  Belem  and  not  stuck  in  some  Godfor- 
saken village.  I  think  he'll  be  OK-the  treatment  takes 
about  a  week.  One  of  the  tree-climbers  was  also  feel- 
ing bad  (symptoms  similar  to  Gerrit's),  but  zoe  don't 
knoivyet  hozv  he  is.  iVm  fine-perhaps  for  taking 
Chloroquine  weekly . ) 

Our  plan  now  is  to  travel  by  plane  if  possible 
to  Tucurui  and  make  some  collections  at  the  site  of  the 
new  hydroelectric  datn-TII  probably  go  alone  while 
Gerrit  recuperates  in  Belem -it's  up  in  the  air  now 
but  we're  really  stuck  as  far  as  road  travel.  There  are 
many  areas  accessible  by  river  from  Belem  and  we  can 
always  work  around  here.  I  hope  Gerrit  will  stay  put 
long  enough  to  get  over  this -he  really  was  over- working 
even  after  he  started  with  the  fevers  and  headache 
symptoms  -choppnng  down  big  trees  for  instance. 

We  have  a  great  deal  of  plant  material  now  to 
sort  through  -about  1,400  numbers  with  many  fruit 
and  wood  collections,  bryophytes,  fungi  and  materials 
for  chemical  a)uilysis.  I'll  work  on  that  in  the  ne.xt  few 
days.  We  figured  we  needed  at  least  7  duplicates  for 
Field  Museum  and  Missouri  Botanical  Garden  to  get 
a  specimen  so  extra  work  always  goes  to  finding 
enough  of  the  same  species.  Still,  there  are  many  uni- 
cates  especially  of  our  cerrado  [dry  scrub-savan)iali  of 
central  Brazil]  collections. 

Well  so  much  for  the  tales  of  woe  and  hard 
work-we've  all  boiefitted  a  lot  from  the  trip  so  far,  zve'vc 
learned  a  lot  about  the  vegetatwn  here  which  is  really 
so  rich  and  complex,  especially  in  the  cerrado  and 
Amazo)iian  forest  transition  zone  where  we  were 
mainly  working.  I  hope  my  slides  come  out  so  I  ca)t 
share  some  of  it  with  you  in  pictures. 
Still  raining  in  Belem,  Chaozinho, 
Tim 


Mario,  our  woodsman,  with  paca  that  provided  our  eiviiing 
meal.  We  also  dined  on  turtle  and  caiman. 


*Dr.  Gerrit  Davidse,  Missouri  Botanical  Garden  grass 
specialist 


25 


> 


Six  Beautiful  Books  on  Recent,  Current,  and  Coming  Exhibits 

Available  at  Your  Field  Museum  Shops 


Feather  Arts:  Beauty,  Wealth,  and  Spirit  from  Five  Continents,  by  Phyllis  Rabineau, 
published  by  Field  Museum;  S9.95:  88  pp..  8-l/2"xll",  24  color  plates.  The  catalog  of  the 
1979  exhibit,  now  on  national  tour.  Rabineau  is  custodian  of  the  anthropology  collections. 

Patterns  of  Paradise,  by  John  Terrell  and  Anne  Leonard,  published  by  Field  Museum; 
89.95;  76  pp.,  10-l/2"xl0-l/2",  53  color  plates.  Thecatalogof  the  exhibit  of  the  same  name, 
concerning  tapa,  or  bark  cloth,  which  opened  at  Field  Museum  March,  1980,  and  closed  in 
June.  Terrell  is  associate  curator  of  anthropology,  Leonard  is  research  specialist.  Depart- 
ment of  Anthropology. 

Gold  of  El  Dorado,  text  by  Warwick  Bray,  a  striking  'coffee-table'  edition  published  by  The 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History  and  Harry  N.  Abrams;  $9.95;  72  pp.,  30  full-bleed 
color  plates,  ll-l/2"xl6".  "The  Gold  of  El  Dorado"  exhibit  will  remain  on  view  until  July  5. 

The  Gold  of  El  Dorado,  by  Warwick  Bray,  published  by  Times  Newspapers;  $6.95;  240  pp., 
7-l/2"xl0",  38  color  plates,  over  400  halftones.  The  catalog  of  the  exhibit. 

Treasures  from  the  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of 
China,  written  and  edited  by  Katherine  Stoddert  Gilbert,  based  on  texts  by  Robert  W. 
Bagley,  Jenny  F.  So,  and  Maxwell  K.  Heam;  published  by  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art 
and  Ballantine  Books;  $9.95;  192  pp.,  8-l/2"xll",  125  color  plates,  13  halftones. 

The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China,  An  Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of  China,  edited 
by  Wen  Fong,  published  by  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  and  Alfred  A.  Knopf;  $25.00; 
404  pp.,  9"xl2",  121  color  plates.  Contains  essays  by  leading  authorities  on  Chinese  art 
and  recent  excavations  of  artifacts  on  view  at  Field  Museum  from  August  20  to  October  29. 

10  percent  discount/or  Members  on  all  Field  Museum  Shop  purchases 

Mall  Orders:  For  orders  shipped  to  an  Illinois  address,  please  add  6%  sales 
lax  (tax  Is  not  applied  to  orders  going  out  of  state).  For  all  orders,  please  add  75* 
per  book  for  shipping  and  handling.  Check  or  money  order  should  be  payable 
to  Field  Museum.  Address  orders  to:  Field  Museum  Shops,  Field  Museum  of 
26  Natural  History,   Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,   IL  60605. 


July,  August,  and  September  at  Field  Museum 


(Juli)  15  through  September  15) 


Mew  Exhibit 

"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from  the 
People's  Republic  of  China."  This  exhibit  features  recent 
discoveries  that  have  fundamentally  changed  our  knowl- 
edge of  ancient  Chinese  history  and  art.  The  105  master- 
pieces, dating  from  about  1.500  BC.  include  86  bronze 
ritual  wine  cups  and  vessels.  1 1  jade  sculptures,  and  eight 
lifelike  terra-cotta  figures  from  the  spectacular  "buried 
army"  of  China's  first  emperor.  Don't  miss  the  most  im- 
portant archeological  exhibition  ever  to  come  out  of 
China!  Exhibit  curator:  Bennet  Bronson;  designer:  Clifford 
Abrams.  Opens  August  20.  Halls  26  and  27.  Members' 
preview:  August  18(A-L).  1 9  (M-Z).  For  further  information 
see  below,  under  "Mew  Programs." 


Continuing  Exhibits 

"Place  for  Wonder"  encourages  a  hands-on  approach  to 
learning.  You  can  touch  a  rattlesnake  skin,  examine  a  di- 
nosaur bone,  or  try  on  a  mask  from  the  People's  Republic 
of  China.  Open  weekdays  1  p.m. -3  p.m.;  weekends  10 
a.m. -noon,  and  1  p.m. -3  p.m. 

"Primitive  Art."  Compare  the  art  of  primitive  societies  of 
Africa,  the  Americas  and  Oceania.  The  relationship  of 
primitive  art  to  modern  art  is  also  considered.  Hall  2, 
main  floor. 

"Tibetan  Culture"  can  be  explored  through  rare  film  foot- 
age, shot  in  1 927,  that  documents  nomadic  life  and  religi- 
ous pageantry  The  exhibit  is  divided  into  two  sections. 
One  hall  displays  common  possessions  of  the  past  such 
as  weapons,  yak-herding  equipment,  and  textiles. 
Lamaism.  the  Tibetan  form  of  Buddhism,  is  the  theme  of 
the  second  hall.  Hall  32,  2nd  floor 


New  Programs 

"Weekday  Highlight  Tours"  focus  on  the  Museum's  most 
popular  exhibits.  Learn  about  American  Indian  rituals,  the 
culture  of  ancient  Egypt,  or  animal  life  around  an  African 
watering  hole.  These  one-hour  guided  tours  meet  at  the 
Morth  Information  Booth,  1  p.m.,  Monday-Thursday,  July 
7  through  August  28. 

"China  Festival."  Enjoy  this  day-long  celebration  of 
Chinese  culture.  Festivities  begin  with  the  Chinese  Lion 
Dance  on  the  north  steps  of  the  Museum.  Other  special 
events  include  Chinese  painting,  calligraphy  music,  mar- 
tial arts,  table  tennis,  Chinese  cooking,  special  tours,  and 
more.  Events  will  be  held  in  Stanley  Field  Hall  and 
throughout  the  Museum.  This  free  festival  is  supported  by 


a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities, 
a  federal  agency  Sunday,  July  20.  11  a.m.- 5  p.m. 

Members'  Preview  to  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An 
Exhibition  from  the  People's  Republic  of  China. "  The 
Museum's  new  exhibit  will  be  open  exclusively  for  Mem- 
bers on  two  evenings.  After  touring  the  exhibit,  join 
Museum  staff  for  refreshment  and  conversation.  The 
cafeteria  will  remain  open  until  7:30  p.m.  The  following 
alphabetical  schedule  is  suggested:  A-L,  Monday,  August 
18;  M-Z.  Tuesday.  August  19.  1  p.m.-9  p.m..  both  days. 
Halls  26  and  27. 

Films  on  Ancient  China.  These  free  films  are  offered  for 
the  duration  of  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China  "  exhibit, 
which  opens  August  20,  1980.  Featured  films  include 
"China:  The  Beginnings,"  "China:  Hundred  Schools  to 
One,"  and  "China:  The  First  Empires."  Films  are  screened 
Friday  Saturday  and  Sunday  at  1 1  a.m..  12:30  p.m..  and 
2  p.m.  in  Lecture  Hall  I. 

"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China"  Lecture  Series.  China 
scholars  lecture  on  the  significance  of  Chinas  recent  ar- 
cheological discoveries — how  these  finds  have  rewritten 
the  Chinese  past,  and  how  they  have  changed  Western 
views  of  Chinese  history  and  art.  Fridays,  8  p.m..  Sept.  5. 
12.  26.  and  Oct.  3.  Call  922-3136  for  ticket  information. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Each  Saturday  and  Sun- 
day between  11  a.m.  and  2  p.m.,  the  Museum  offers  a 
variety  of  free,  exfiibit-related  tours,  demonstrations,  and 
films  on  current  natural  history  topics.  Check  the 
"Weekend  Sheet"  available  at  Museum  entrances  for 
locations  and  additional  programs. 

•  "American  Indian  Dress."  Learn  about  the  construc- 
tion, craft,  style,  and  symbolism  of  Indian  dress  from  six 
regions  of  North  America  in  this  30-minute  tour.  Saturday 
July  19,  11:30  a.m. 

•  "Digging  for  Dinosaurs'  Film  Features:  Dinosaurs: 
The  Terrible  Lizards  examines  the  different  kinds  of  di- 
nosaurs that  dominated  the  earth.  The  Dinosaur  Who 
Wondered  Who  He  Was  uses  animation  to  tell  its  story 
Saturday  July  19.  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments,"  a  half-hour  tour,  fo- 
cuses on  the  underwater  worid  of  ancient  invertebrates. 
Saturday  July  19,  1:30  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals" 
Bones  and  Teeth."  This  45-minute  tour  looks  at  changes 
in  teeth  and  bones  that  characterize  the  great  variation  in 
todays  mammals.  Saturday  July  19.  2  p.m. 

•  "Digging  for  Dinosaurs'"  Film  Features:  Dinosaurs 
traces  these  creatures  from  development  to  extinction. 
Dinosaurs  in  the  Wall  visits  Dinosaur  National  Monu- 
ment in  Utah  and  Colorado.  Saturday  July  26,  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  Saturday,  July  26, 
1:30  p.m. 

(Continued  on  back  couer) 


27 


ILLP/aiS    ^JATURAL 
^URV:y    LI-    RM 


HISTORY 


July,  August,  and  September  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cover) 


•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals' 
Bones  and  Teeth."  Saturday.  July  26,  2  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Etruscans.'  a  35-minute  tour,  looks  at  the 
everyday  life,  religion,  and  funerary  practices  of  these 
people.  Sunday  July  27.  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt."  This  45-minute  tour  explores  the 
traditions  of  this  culture  from  daily  life  to  myths  and 
mummies.  Saturday  August  2,  11:30  a.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments.'"  Saturday.  August  2. 
1:30  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals" 
Bones  and  Teeth."  Saturday  August  2.  2  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Etruscans."  Sunday  August  3.  12:30  p.m. 

•  "Africa,  the  Changing  Continent"  Film  Features:  Nawi 
and  Malaivi.  Saturday  August  9.  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  Saturday  August  9. 
1:30  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals' 
Bones  and  Teeth."  Saturday  August  9,  2  p.m. 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt."  This  45- 
minute  tour  concentrates  on  Field  Museums  collections 
of  ancient  Egyptian  artifacts,  and  concludes  with  a  de- 
scription of  the  mummification  process.  Sunday.  August 
10.  12  noon. 

•  "American  Indian  Dress."  Saturday  August  16.  11:30 
a.m. 

•  "Africa.  The  Changing  Continent "  Film  Features:  Arts 
and  Crafts  of  West  Africa"  and  East  African  Wood  Carver. 
Saturday.  August  16.  1  p.m. 

•  "The  Inside  Story:  Some  Adaptations  of  Mammals" 
Bones  and  Teeth."  Saturday  August  16.  1:30  p.m. 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt."  Sunday. 
August  17.  12  noon. 

•  "The  Ancient  Etruscans."  Sunday  August  17,  1  p.m. 

•  "Africa,  the  Changing  Continent"  Film  Features: 
Africa  Dances.  Saturday  August  23,  1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments."  Saturday,  August  23. 
1:30  p.m. 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt."  Sunday, 
August  24, 12  noon. 


•  "Ancient  Etruscans."  Sunday  August  24.  1  p.m. 

•  "Africa,  the  Changing  Continent"  Film  Features: 
Women  Up  in  Aurns.  Saturday  August  30,  1  p.m. 

•  "Subsistence  Societies"  Film  Features:  Slash  and 
Burn  Agriculture  and  Turtle  People.  Saturday  Sept.  6, 

1  p.m. 

•  "Prehistoric  Life  in  the  Illinois  Valley."  This  half-hour 
tour  discusses  how  these  people  adapted  to  their  en- 
vironment through  the  use  of  tools.  Sunday  Sept.  7, 1  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Egypt."  Saturday  Sept.  13.  11:30  a.m. 

•  "Subsistence  Societies"  Film  Features:  B/fterMe/ons. 
Saturday  Sept.  13.  1  p.m. 

•  "Clay  Dinosaurs."  Children  look  at  dinosaur  skeletons 
and  then  make  their  own  clay  dinosaur  to  take  home.  Meet 
in  Hall  38.  2nd  floor  Sunday,  Sept.  14.  11  a.m.-l  p.m. 


Continuing  Programs 

Summer  Journey:  "A  Time  to  Play."  This  self-guided  tour 

takes  families  to  many  Museum  halls,  where  toys  from 
around  the  world  may  be  found.  Watch  for  a  new  Fall 
Journey  in  September.  Free  Journey  pamphlets  are 
available  at  Museum  entrances. 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Volunteers  with  an  interest  in 
Chinese  culture  are  needed  to  assist  with  visitor  services 
for  the  duration  of  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China  "  ex- 
hibit (Aug.  20-Oct.  29).  Please  call  or  write  the  Volunteer 
Coordinator.  922-9410.  ext.  360,  for  details. 

July.  August,  and  September  Hours.  The  Museum  opens 
daily  at  9  a.m.  and  closes  (through  Sept.  1 )  at  6  p.m.  every 
day  except  Friday  Beginning  Sept.  2.  the  Museum  will 
close  at  5  p.m.  On  Fridays  the  Museum  remains  open  until 
9  p.m.  throughout  the  year. 

The  Museum  Ubrary  is  open  weekdays  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m. 
Obtain  a  pass  at  reception  desk,  main  floor  Closed  Sept.  1 
(Labor  Day). 


Museum  telephone:  (312)  922-9410 


eptember 
980 


FIELD  /v\aSEU/vi  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BGLLHTIN 


Field  Museum 
of  Natural  History 
Bulletin 

September  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  8. 


Eiiitor!Defi\^ncr:  David  M.  VValsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Marv  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President:  E.  Leland  Webber 
Director:  Lorin  I.  Nevling,  Jr 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.Swartchild,  Jr., 

cbmrtnan 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 

Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Da\is 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphv  Jr 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarringtor\ 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blaii 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Field  Mufi-um  of  Natural  His/ory  Bullflin  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly,  except 
combined  july'.-Xugust  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shun  Drive.  Chicago,  II.  60605.  Subscriptions:  S6.00  annually.  S3.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  Btilletm  subscription.  Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are 
their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  policy  ot  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scripts are  welcome.  Museum  phone;  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  of  N'atural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  D. 
60605.  ISSX:  0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Briefs 

4  Totems  of  the  Gitksan 

('V  Roil  Tt's/ii,  Field  Mufeum  p'hotographer 

10         Field  Museum  Tours 

12  Our  Environment 

13  Third  Annual  Festival  of  Anthropology  on  Film 

17         Coca 

/'V  Timothy  Plowman,  assistant  curator  of  botany 

22         Animals  in  Human  Perspective 

NEH  Learnini^  Museum  Program 

by  Anthony  Pfeiffer,  project  coordinator 

26  Honor  Roll  of  Donors 

27  September  and  October  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  Coming  Events 


COVER 

Detail  of  totem  pole  of  the  Gitksan  Indians  in  the  village  of  Kitumnkul, 
British  Columbia.  Carved  about  1900.  Photo  /n/  Ron  Testa,  who  shot 
British  Columbia  totem  pwles  with  his  Hasselblad  SOOc^i  camera  during 
1977  tour  of  the  region.  See  pages  4-9. 


Group  Visits  for  China  Treasures 

Group  Visits  for  the  exhibit  "The  Great 
Bronze  A^e of  Chijin:  An  Exhibition  fi'om 
the  Peop^le's  Repubhc  of  China,"  opening 
August  20  and  closing  October  29,  may 
now  be  arranged  for  group^s  as  small  as  30 
piersons.  Durvig  public  Jwurs,  daily  ex- 
cept Triday,  special  groups  of  30  to  120 
piersons  can  be  accommodated.  On  Tues- 
day ami  Thursday  ezmiings  (after  the 
Museum  is  closed  to  the  general  public) 
groups  of  50' or  more  can  be  accommo- 
dated. Supplemental  lectures  for  such 
groups,  as  well  as  private  dining  ar- 
rangements, are  also  available.  Tor  rates 
ami  other  information  call  Caryn  Fried- 
man at  786-9570. 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


President  Webber  Honored 

E.  Leland  Webber  (right),  Field  Museum 
president,  receives  congratulations  of  De- 
Paul  University  president  Rev.  John  R. 
Cortelyou,  CM.,  after  accepting  honorary 
Doctor  of  Humane  Letters  degree  at 
DePaul's  82nd  annual  commencement  on 
June  15.  Webber  was  one  of  four  to  receive 
an  honorary  degree  at  the  ceremony. 

Webber's  citation  noted,  "As  presi- 
dent and  director  of  one  of  the  few  great 
museums  in  the  world...,  you  have 
helped  form  and  implement  its  philoso- 
phy. You  envision  a  museum  as  a  won- 
derland that  can  stimulate  young  and  old 
at  their  own  pace  and  on  their  own  initia- 
tive, and  your  leadership  has  ensured  that 
the  Field  Museum  does  this  superla- 
tivelv  well." 


Marianne  F.  Powers  Joins  Staff 

Marianne  Fugiel  Powers  has  joined  the 
Department  of  Education  as  the  new  geol- 
ogy instructor.  Her  responsibilities  in- 
clude giving  programs  to  visiting  school 
groups,  preparing  educational  materials, 
and  working  with  Department  of  Educa- 
tion volunteers. 

Mrs.  Powers  taught  intermediate  and 
junior  high  science  for  12  years  as  well  as 
introductory  geology  courses  at  the  col- 
lege level.  She  holds  degrees  from  De 
Lourdes  College,  Des  Plaines,  IL,  and 
from  Notre  Dame  University. 


Admission  Fee  Increase 

Admission  fees  to  Field  Museum  for 
non-members  have  been  increased,  as  of 
July  1.  The  new  admission  rate  for  in- 
dividual adults  is  $2.00,  for  individual 
children  (ages  6-17)  and  students  with  ID 
$1.00,  for  families  $4.00,  for  senior  citizens 
50'.  Admission  is  free  for  children  under 
6,  teachers,  U.S.  military  personnel,  and 
Field  Museum  Members.  On  Fridays 
admission  is  free  to  all. 

Annual  membership  rates  continue  at 
$25.00  for  families  and  $20.00  for 
individuals. 


Volunteer  Landow  Honored 

Carol  Landow,  a  volunteer  in  the  "Place 
for  Wonder,"  has  been  named  by  the  Vol- 
untary Action  Center  of  the  Comprehen- 
sive Community  Services  of  Metropolitan 
Chicago,  Inc.  as  one  of  seven  Outstanding 
Volunteers  in  the  Chicago  metropolitan 
area  for  1980.  The  selection  was  made  from 
more  than  150  individuals  and  groups 
nominated  by  Chicago  area  organizations 
and  human  care  agencies. 

Carol  Landow  has  spent  hundreds  of 
hours  during  the  past  three  years  helping 
to  develop  and  innovate  special  educa- 
tion programs  at  Field  Museum  in  the 
hands-on  exhibit,  "The  Place  for  Wonder." 


Impressive  First  Season  for  Hitters 

Field  Museum's  new  Softball  team,  the 
Field  Museum  Hitters,  winds  up  its  initial 
season  with  an  impressive  record.  By 
July's  end,  the  team  had  garnered  nine 
wins  against  a  single  loss.  Team  members 
represent  the  Department  of  Security 
and  Visitor  Services,  Housekeeping,  and 
Engineering.  Team  manager  is  Gwen 
Anderson. 

Shown  here  with  Field  Museum 
President  E.  Leland  Webber  (top,  left)  are 
(seated)  R.  Crawford,  F.  Bluntson,  and  N. 
Glover;  (kneeling)  E.  Holmes,  A.  Holmes, 
L.  Mister  (plaver'coach),  and  G.  Stlaske; 
(standing)  Webber,  D.  Raabe,  R.  Leigh 
(coach),  J.  Suffredin,  T.  Williams, 
D.  Sadowski,  P.  Poindexter,  A.  Bluntson, 
G.  Anderson,  and  W.  Grey.  Not  shown 
are  L.  McGraw  and  E.  Jones.  Team  ex- 
penses, including  uniforms  and  equip- 
ment, are  borne  by  the  players. 


TOTEMS 

of  the 
GITKSAN 

Photos  by  RON  TESTA 


Field  Museum  photographer 


In  August  and  September  of  1977, 
Field  Museum  photographer  Ron  Testa 
toured  the  Northwest  Coast  of  Canada 
to  photograph  scenes  of  contemporary 
Indian  life  in  that  region.  His  material  was 
to  be  used  in  the  design  and  development 
of  Hall  10  ("Marine  Hunters  and  Fishers"), 
scheduled  for  completion  in  1982. 

Along  the  way,  Testa  also  photo- 
graphed a  large  number  of  totem  poles, 
particularly  of  the  Gitksan,  a  subgroup  of 
theTsimshian  people  living  along  British 
Columbia's  Skeena  River.  Traveling  north- 
eastward from  the  city  of  Prince  Rupert  on 
Highway  16,  known  as  "Totem  Highway," 
he  passed  through  the  Gitksan  villages  of 
Gitsegyulka,  'Ksan,  Hazelton,  Kispiox, 
Kitwanga,  and  Kitwankul,  where  the 
totems  shown  on  these  pages  are  located. 
The  most  widely  known  art  form  of 
the  Northwest  Coast  Indians,  totem  poles 
serve  a  variety  of  purposes:  as  memorials, 
as  grave  poles,  and  as  house  poles,  both 
interior  and  exterior.  The  oldest  of  those 
shown  here  were  carved  about  1870,  the 
most  recent  about  1915. 

Testa's  tour  of  the  Northwest 
Coast  was  funded  in  part  by  the  National 
Endowment  for  the  Arts  (NEA)  and  the 
National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities 
(NEH). 

CAPTIONS 

Left:  Detail  of  memorial  pole,  Kitwankul. 
Pfl^e  5:  Stand  of  totem  poles  at  Kispiox. 
Pnge  6:  House  frontal  pole  with  elongated 
entranceway,  in  village  of 'Ksan.  Animals 
represented  appear  to  be  a  wolf  and  bears; 
lips  originally  painted  red,  eyes  painted  black. 


Page  7,  left:  Humanoid  house  post  in  'Ksan. 
Page  7,  right:  Detail  of  totem  in  Hazelton. 
Page  8,  left:  Detail  of  totem  in  Kitwankul.  Portion 
shown  here  has  twelve  small  humanoid  figures 
encircling  the  unusual  hole.  Carved  about 
1870-90. 

Page  S,  center:  "Pole  of  the  Cormorant,"  Kitwan- 
kul. Topped  by  a  cormorant,  the  pole  also  has 
a  bear  cub  lower  down,  out  of  view.  Carved 
1910-15  and  originally  painted  black  and  white. 
Page  8,  right:  The  name  of  this  Kitwankul  pole  is 
"Drifted  Aside,"  or  "Drifted  to  One  Side,"  after 
the  traditional  name  of  an  ancestor,  represented 
by  the  humanoid  figure.  On  his  head  perches  a 
raven  and  in  his  hands  he  carries  a  bow. 
Page  9:  Humanoid  house  post  in  'Ksan. 


Above  caption  material  was  adapted  from 
descriptive  material  inTotem  Po/fs  of  the  Citksan, 

Upper  Skeena  River,  British  Columbia,  by  Marius 
Barbeau  (1929),  published  by  the  National 
Museum  of  Canada,  Ottawa. 


11 


i 


^  1 


sWH 


Field  Museum 
Tours  For 
Members 


Egypt 

February  421,  1981 

Our  Egypt  tour  offers  a  rare  opportunity  for  in-depth  visits  to 
the  treasures  along  the  Nile  under  the  leadership  of  Mrs.  Del 
Nord,  doctoral  candidate  in  Egyptology  at  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  Dr  David  P.  Silverman,  assistant  professor  of 
Egyptology  at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  and  assistant 
curator  of  the  Egyptian  Section  at  the  University  Museum. 
(Dr  Silverman  was  project  director  for  the  "Tut"  exhibit  at 
Field  Museum  in  1977.)  This  is  the  second  time  the  Nord- 
Silverman  team  has  led  an  Egyptian  tour  for  the  Museum. 

Our  1981  tour  is  being  cosponsored  with  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania  Museum  and  will  be  available  exclusively  to 
members  of  the  two  museums. 

The  itinerary  will  include  Cairo,  Memphis,  Sakkara, 
Aswan  /  Abu  Simbel,  Edfu,  Esna,  Luxor,  Thebes,  the  Valley 
of  the  Kings  and  Queens,  Dendereh,  Abydos,  Amarna,  Mid- 
dle Kingdom  tombs  at  Beni  Hasan,  the  pyramid  at  Medum, 
and  much  more.  The  tour  also  includes  an  11-day  Nile  cruise 
on  a  chartered,  modern  Nile  steamer,  the  Rev  Vacances.  The 
tour  price  is  $3,395  per  person  based  upon  double  occu- 
pancy plus  a  $500  donation  to  Field  Museum.  The  price 
includes  all  air  transportation,  meals,  Nile  cruise,  hotels,  tips, 
taxes,  transfers,  visa  fees,  admissions,  baggage  handling,  es- 
corts, and  more.  Single  supplement  is  available  upon  request, 
Nile  cruise  and  land. 

Since  this  tour  has  already  elicited  unusual  interest  and  is 
limited  to  30  persons.  Members  are  urged  to  make  reserva- 
tions as  soon  as  possible.  Reservations  will  be  honored  in  the 
order  received. 


10  Interior  of  the  Great  Temple  at  Abu  Simbel 


Baja  California 
January  30-Fcbruary  14,  1981 

Just  50  miles  from  our  Southwest  border  begins  the  richest 
sea  in  the  world — the  Sea  of  Cortez.  It's  a  body  of  water  600 
miles  long  and  rarely  more  than  90  miles  wide.  To  the  west  is 
the  Baja  peninsula;  an  area  known  to  only  a  few  people.  Field 
Museum  is  pleased  to  offer  its  Members  an  opportunity  to 
explore  this  area  which  is  rich  in  marine  life,  many  species  of 
birds,  desert  vegetation,  beautiful  beaches  and  truly  magnifi- 
cent scenery.  There  will  be  daily  outings  in  "zodiac"  boats  for 
landings  and  whale  watching  or  birding.  Weinvite  you  to  join 
us  for  a  14-day  circumnavigation  cruise  aboard  the  Lindblad 
Pacific  Northwest  Explorer,  built  in  the  U.S.A.  and  launched 
just  this  year  Our  exploration  cruise  will  begin  in  Puerto 
Penasco.  Of  course,  one  of  the  most  exciting  aspects  of  this 
journey  will  be  the  opportunity  to  observe  the  huge  gray 
whales  as  well  as  a  half  dozen  other  species.  The  Field 
Museum  lecturer  will  be  Dr  Robert  K.  Johnson,  Head  of  the 
Department  of  Fishes;  we  will  also  have  along  other  profes- 
sional and  amateur  leaders  who  will  help  make  the  trip  more 
meaningful. 

This  is  the  perfect  escape  from  Chicago's  winter;  and  just 
think,  two  weeks  with  no  packing  and  unpacking  and  no 
airports  to  negotiate!  We  hope  the  idea  excites  you  as  much 
as  it  does  us.  Please  write  or  call  for  information. 


Papua  New  Guinea 
April  30-May  16,  1981 

The  island  of  New  Guinea,  the  third  largest  island  in  the 
world,  is  the  major  part  of  the  newly  independent  nation  of 
Papua  New  Guinea.  Although  known  to  Europeans  since  the 
1500s,  intensive  contact  with  the  industrial  Western  world 
began  a  scant  100  years  ago.  Some  highland  areas  with  large 
native  populations  were  unknown  until  the  1930s,  when 
'discovered'  by  Australian  patrols. 

New  Guinea  abounds  in  extremes  of  climate,  geog- 
raphy animal  and  plant  life.  There  are  also  fascinating  dif- 
ferences amongst  the  peoples  and  their  cultures.  Many  still 
live  according  to  their  old  ways,  while  others  have  modern- 
ized; developing  cities,  universities,  hospitals,  and  industries. 
Exotic  birds  and  animals  still  abound  everywhere;  native 
peoples  still  present  colorful  ceremonies  and  dances.  The 
variations  in  language,  culture,  and  art  forms  which  de- 
veloped over  thousands  of  years  of  geographical  and  social 
isolation  are  still  to  be  seen.  Each  province  has  its  own  charm 
and  style,  whether  in  the  green  valleys  of  the  highlands,  the 
coastal  lowlands,  or  along  the  mighty  Sepik  River,  a  monster 
waterway  draining  a  vast  area  of  grassland  and  jungle  in  a 
serpentine  path  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea. 

Field  Museum  can  now  offer  its  members  a  16-day 
expedition  to  New  Guinea,  including  visits  with  peoples  of 
the  highland  and  coastal  regions  and  a  four-day  cruise  aboard 
the  newly  refurbished  Melar^esiar^  Explorer,  during  which 
secluded  villages  of  the  Sepik  River  and  its  tributaries  will 
be  visited.  Dr  Phillip  Lewis,  curator  of  primitive  art  and 


For  additional  information  and  reservations 
for  all  tours,  call  or  write  Dorothy  Roder,  Field 
Museum  Tours,  Roosevelt  Rd.  at  Lake  Shore 
Dr..  Chicago.  III.  60605.  Phone  (312)  922-9410. 


Melanesian  ethnology,  our  Field  Museum  lecturer,  and  Jeff 
Leversidge,  a  well  known  authority  on  the  Sepik  River, 
will  share  with  you  their  knowledge  of  traditional  life  and 
customs  of  New  Guinea  peoples. 

"Sing  Sings"  (dances  and  celebrations)  performed  by 
villagers  adorned  with  vivid  feather  headdresses  and  with 
bodies  painted  in  bright  colors,  will  be  attended  by  tour 
members;  there  will  also  be  opportunities  to  buy  Sepik  art. 

Participation  in  this  unique  expedition  is  limited  to 
the  capacity  of  the  Melanesian  Explorer  —  a  maximum  of  39 
persons. 


India 
January  21-February  11,  1981 

Now  is  the  time  to  take  that  long-awaited  tour  of  India — a 
country  that  must  be  experienced  to  be  believed.  The  Hindu 
and  Buddhist  respect  for  life  has,  over  the  centuries,  permit- 
ted great  populations  of  humans  and  animals  to  coexist  in 
often  crowded  proximity:  painted  storks  calmly  fish  in  a  road- 
side ditch  within  yards  of  a  man  and  bullock  ploughing;  mon- 
keys scamper  on  a  highway  jammed  with  cars,  camels,  water 
buffaloes,  and  bicycles:  dozens  of  iridescent  blue-green 
parakeets  shriek  defiance  from  a  schoolyard  tree;  animals 
vulnerable  for  their  immense  size  —  elephants,  rhinoceros, 
and  tigers  —  still  roam  the  forests. 

India  also  affords  breathtaking  landscapes:  The  sheerly 
rising,  snow-peaked  Himalayas  form  a  backdrop,  unreal  in  its 
wall-like  abruptness,  to  the  valley  of  Kathmandu.  Ancient 
temples  freeze  still  living  theologies  into  stone;  The  eloquent 
marble  geometry  of  the  Taj  Mahal,  the  many-armed  dieties  of 
Hinduism,  and  the  serene  face  of  the  teaching  Buddha  form  a 
living  link  with  the  past. 

And  this  is  a  country  where  travel  is  still  very  affordable. 
Please  call  or  write  for  further  details. 


People's  Republic  of  China 
April  1-21.  1981 

A  specially  tailored  3-week  travel/study  tour  of  China  is 
offered  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Phillip  Woodruff,  an 
authority  on  Chinese  histoiy  and  culture.  Limited  to  25 
members,  the  group  will  explore  the  marvels  of  ancient 
China  and  see  how  cities  as  well  as  rural  communities 
have  been  modernized. 

Among  the  cities  to  be  visited  is  Peking,  which  retains 
its  15th-century  layout  amidst  the  Imperial  Palace  buildings. 
A  side  trip  is  planned  to  the  Great  Wall.  In  Sian,  tucked  into 
a  small  section  of  what  was  China's  capital  during  the  T'ang 
dynasty,  we  will  marvel  at  the  8th-century  calligraphy  and 
carved  decor  of  the  famous  Memorial  Forest  of  Tables, 
where  Chinese  classics  are  inscribed  in  stone.  The  nearby 
neolithic  site  of  Pan  Po  will  be  seen,  as  well  as  the  spectacu- 
lar tomb  of  Emperor  Shih  Huang-Ti.  of  the  Ch'in  (Qin) 
dynasty.  Partial  excavation  of  the  tomb  has  revealed  a  clay 
army  of  6.000  life-size  soldiers,  horses,  and  chariots  (some 
of  which  are  to  be  seen  in  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China" 
exhibit  on  view  at  Field  Museum  through  October  29).  Wall 
paintings  in  the  Li  Hsien  and  Yung  T'ai  tombs  are  also 
scheduled  to  be  seen.  A  side  trip  is  planned  to  the  Yunkang 
Caves,  dating  from  460  to  490  A.D.,  and  occupied  by 
Buddha  statues  of  all  sizes. 


'j»    1      1 


Monument  to  the  People's  Heroes  in  Peking 


Nanking,  dating  back  to  the  Chou  dynasty  (8th  to  3rd 
centuries,  B.C.),  served  seven  times  as  capital  of  regional 
empires,  twice  as  seat  of  revolutionary  government,  and 
twice  as  capital  of  united  China.  Nature  has  endowed  the 
city  with  an  abundance  of  scenic  delights,  such  as  the  Lake 
of  No  Sorrow  and  the  Mystic  Martial  Lake. 

In  Shanghai,  one  of  China's  major  ports,  is  the 
noteworthy  Museum  of  Art,  which  houses  a  large  collection 
of  Chinese  bronze  vessels  and  exquisite  paintings.  On  the 
south  end  of  the  Grand  Canal,  Hangchow  is  one  of  China's 
most  beautiful  southeastern  cities,  steeped  in  2,500  years  of 
history.  The  West  Lake  mirrors  the  landscape  to  form  a 
panorama  of  beauty.  Local  handicrafts  of  silk,  embroidery, 
and  glassware  will  delight  the  most  discriminating  shopper 

Kweilin  is  also  well  known  for  its  spectacular  scenic 
beauty.  The  riverbank  rises  sharply  into  the  hills  and  crags, 
forming  unusual  landscapes  which  have  inspired  centuries 
of  traditional  painters.  Many  of  the  peaks  contain  exotic 
limestone  caves.  Canton,  southernmost  point  in  our  tour 
itinerary,  with  a  history  of  over  2,000  years,  was  China's  first 
city  to  trade  with  foreign  countries.  We  will  visit  memorials  of 
the  revolution,  such  as  the  former  site  of  the  National  Insti- 
tute of  the  Peasant  Movement,  the  Memorial  Hall  to  Sun 
Yat-sen,  and  the  Mausoleum  of  the  Seventy-Two  Martyrs  at 
Huanghuagang. 

Air  travel  is  scheduled  via  the  Pacific  route.  Although 
details  of  the  exceptional  itinerary  are  still  under  negotiation 
with  Peking,  Museum  members  interested  in  joining  the  tour 
should  call  or  write  the  Tours  Office  now.  As  additional  in- 
formation on  the  tour  is  available,  you  will  be  notified. 

Watch  for  details  on  the  trip  to  Death  Valle}^ 
(December  1980),  to  Ken\^a  (Sept-Oct  1981).  and 
to  Peru  (October  1981).  Or  let  us  know  of  \^our 
interest  and  we  will  send  ]^ou  full  information  on 
these  trips  as  it  becomes  available. 


n 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Decomposition  Rates  for  Litter 

The  New  Hampshire  Campground  Oiimers 
Neu'sletter  reports  the  following  rates  of 
decomposition  for  various  types  of  road- 
side litter.  (The  identity  and  qualifications 
of  the  estimator  were  not  given.) 

•  Orange  peel:  2  weeks  to  5  months 

•  Plastic-coated  paper;  1-5  years 

•  Plastic  bags:  10-20  vears 

•  Plastic  film:  20-30  years 

•  Nylon  fabrics:  30-40  years 

•  Hiking  boot  soles:  50-80  years 

•  Aluminum  tabs,  cans:  80-100  years 


Lucrative  Skullhunting  Reduces 
Mountain  Gorilla  Population 

Twent\'  vears  ago  there  were  500  moun- 
tain gorillas  on  the  Zaire-Rwanda  border 
Today,  primarilv  because  of  habitat  de- 
struction, numbers  are  down  to  about  250. 
Trade  in  gorilla  skulls  has  become  a  lucra- 
tive business  as  they  are  sought  as 
souvenirs  bv  European  tourists,  con- 
sequentlv  poaching  has  become  a  serious 
problem. 

At  least  16  gorillas  have  been  killed  for 
their  heads  since  1976.  In  1978  the  domi- 
nant male  of  a  troop  was  killed;  this  may 
result  in  the  whole  troop  of  animals  dying 
out  as  younger  animals  probably  have  not 
attained  the  maturity'  necessarv  to  hold 
the  group  together. 


Geese  as  Guards 

Geese,  the  sentinels  that  reportedly 
warned  the  Romans  of  encroaching 
Gauls,  are  still  used  as  watchdogs.  In 
Dunbarton,  Scotland,  six  dozen  white 
geese  guard  about  30  million  gallons  of 
whiskey,  valued  at  over  $900  million  dol- 
lars. Any  intruder  is  greeted  with  a  fanfare 
of  hissing  and  honking.  The  unique 
security  force  has  been  found  to  be  more 
effective  than  dogs,  people,  or  mechanical 
devices. 


Norwegian  Scheme  for  Car  Recycling 

After  one  year  of  operation,  Norway's 
"deposit  legislatton"  on  privately  owned 
cars  seems  to  be  a  success.  The  program 
requires  a  $100  deposit  on  new  cars  at  time 
of  purchase.  The  money  is  returned  when 
the  auto  is  scrapped.  Based  on  the  "pol- 
luters pay"  principle,  the  system  has  re- 
12  suited  in  the  recycling  of  41,000  autos  and 


vans.  A  20  to  25  percent  reduction  in  steel 
imports  by  Norway  has  been  one  of  sev- 
eral benefits. 


Kirlland's  Warbler  Increases  in  Michigan 

The  Michigan  Department  of  Natural  Re- 
sources announced  that  its  1980  census  of 
the  Kirtland's  warbler  population  in 
Michigan  was  up  30  pairs  from  last  year's 
census.  The  inventory  revealed  242  pairs 
of  Kirtland's  warblers  in  the  six-county 
survey. 

The  Kirtland's  warbler,  a  federally 
endangered  species,  is  dependent  on 
Michigan's  jackpine  habitat  for  nesting. 
The  tinv  bird  winters  in  the  Bahamas  and 
returns  to  Michigan  each  year  to  nest. 

Thomas  Sheldrake,  an  endangered 
species  biologist  with  the  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  (FWS)  in  Minneapolis,  said 
that  although  the  1980  census  was  good 
news,  the  warbler  population  is  still  pre- 
cariously scant  in  total  numbers.  "Our 
cooperative  goal  for  the  Kirtland's  warbler 
is  1,000  pairs,"  he  said.  "This  target  popu- 
lation level  can  only  be  achieved  by  in- 
creases in  the  nesting  habitat." 

Sheldrake  said  biologists  conclude 
that  it  will  take  roughly  36,000  acres  of 
prime  nesting  habitat  to  achieve  a  popula- 
tion of  1,000  pairs.  Currentlv  the  warbler 
population  in  Michigan  has  around  17,000 
acres  of  nesting  habitat.  The  FWS  said  the 
recent  Mack  Lake  fire  did  not  affect  the 
warbler  population.  The  birds  simply  left 
the  area  for  other  sites  when  a  large  scale 
fire  swept  through  the  Mack  Lake  area. 


Hydrocarbons  as  Air  Pollutants 

Gasoline  prices  at  the  pump  are  at  an 
all-time  high,  vet  millions  of  gallons  of 
gasoline  literally  go  up  in  the  air  in  the 
Midwest  ever\'  vear 

The  loss  occurs  at  gasoline  storage  and 
loading  terminals,  during  the  loading  pro- 
cess. Here's  how  it  happens. 

A  tank  truck  pulls  into  a  gasoline  dis- 
tribution terminal  and  parks  next  to  a 
gasoline  loading  rack,  which  is  a  platform 
full  of  pipes  and  pumps  that  transfer 
gasoline  from  the  storage  tank  to  the  truck. 
A  loading  arm  from  the  platform  is  coupled 
to  the  truck,  and  gasoline  is  then  pumped 
into  the  truck. 

The  truck's  tank  appears  to  be  empt\', 
but  actually  it's  full  of  hydrocarbon 
(gasoline)  vapors  left  over  from  previous 
loads.  The  liquid  gasoline  pumped  into  the 


truck  displaces  those  vapors,  which  escape 
through  the  hatch  into  the  air. 

Once  in  the  air,  h\'drocarbons  react 
with  nitrogen  oxides  and  sunlight  to  form 
ozone,  commonly  knov\Ti  as  smog.  Ozone 
is  one  of  the  five  major  air  pollutants  for 
which  EP.A  has  established  a  national 
health-related  standard.  If  ozone  exceeds 
that  standard,  it  means  your  health  can  be 
adversely  affected.  Studies  show  that 
ozone  can  impair  normal  lung  functions 
and  cause  symptoms  such  as  eye  irritation, 
coughing,  choking,  headache,  and  severe 
fatigue.  Besides  helping  to  form  ozone,  es- 
caping hydrocarbons  represent  gasoline 
that  is  lost  forever 

There  are  three  basic  loading  methods 
used  at  gasoline  terminals;  splash  loading 
(from  the  top  of  the  truck),  submerged 
top-fill  loading  (with  load  pipe  extended  to 
18  inches  of  truck  bottom),  and  submerged 
bottom-fill  loading.  Submerged  loading 
(top-  and  bottom-fill)  reduces  gasoline 
\'apor  loss  by  58  percent  when  compared 
to  splash  loading,  but  neither  method  is 
approved  bv  ep.a  as  the  answer  to  hydro- 
carbon pollution  control  The  installation 
of  vapor  recovers'  and  control  equipment 
is  the  onh'  sure  method,  era  emphasizes. 

If  vapor  recovery  systems  were  in- 
stalled and  operating  properly  at  all  gaso- 
line loading  facilities  cited  for  violations 
to  date,  EP.A  estimates  that  oil  companies 
in  Illinois  could  recapture  4.2  million  gal- 
lons of  gasoline  per  year. 

(Continued  on  page  25) 


Third  A  nnual  Festival 
Of  Anthropology  on  Film 

FiKi.i)  Ml  ^1,1  \i(ii  .\\ii  lui  lli>i()in 

west  eiilr;ince 


SMiurdMv.  S'|ilt'iiiUT  2"".  10:1.111.  l()r)|i.iii. 
>iiii(la\.  ,N'|ilriiilHM  'l^K  Iniiii  10  ii.iii.  to  .">  |i.fii. 


I  in  I)  \ll  -Kl  \l  IwriKs  ^()l   1(1  join  111  llir  Tluril  \iiiiii(il  Fe.iliviil  iif 
\nllinii)til(iif\-  on  tiliii.  a  fiiMiiiMiiiif;  ii|i|miiIiimi1\  to  fxpliire  llic  ciilliirfs 
iif  ilii-  wiirld  nil  film    We  :iir  fs|)<-iuilK  [iIim>i-(I  Iu  Iuim-  Jimii  Kducli.  llif 
lllll'•l^llll^  Kri'iicli  (lociiiiu'iiuirv  riliiiiiiiikci.  ;i~  iiur  ki'\  iiolr  ^|ii':ikri    I  li' 
liniii;>  iiiaiu  filiii~  Inmi  I'ari^  lliai  ilociiiiiriil  nliial  ami  |iiis^r^siiiii  aiuun;; 
ilie  |)e<i[ile>  cif  Atriia. 

riie  Kf>li\al  coiisisls  of  50  films  grouped  b\  eight  subject  areas: 
1)  Rituals:  I II I  ^Xork:  Survival  and  Self- E.xpression;  (III)  Cultures  and 
Change:  (IV  )  .\rcheologv  and  l.ithic  Technologv ;  ( V)  World  Music  anil 
naiicr.    \'l\l.-ii  and  \lii. Mini:    \ll)  Possession  an. I  Ilealiiii;;  and    Mil 
I  liiiiiiii.  Iiiin\.  and  PaniiK 

In  adiliiuin  to  ■.elecli-d  work^  of  Koiich.  Keslival  highlight  include 
HiiUri  Cariliier's  new  work  /Ar/j  Hearl.s.  I)a\id  and  .liidilli  MacDoiigall  s 
Ihe  Ueililiim  Camels  and  Loriiiifis  lUiy.  Mava  Dereii  ^Diriiie  llurxmu'ii: 
riif  l.irinic  (iuds  uf  Haiti — a  rareh  seen  filiii  on  the  \  oudoiin  religion  ol 
I  laiii.  and  .Some  Uomen  of  Marrakesh  by  .Melissa  L.  Davies. 

The  films  are  show  n  In  subject  area  in  James  Simpson  Theatre. 
I  ecnire  I  lall  I    A    Monlgonierv  Vi  ard  Hall),  and  Classroom  A   Selected 
film-  will  fie  -.(■reened  a  second  time  according  to  culture  ill  Lecture  Hall  II. 
I  he  Ke-iival  Schedule  is  subject  to  change.  Please  use  the  attached  coupon 
111  order  \our  tickets    \  film  schedule  w  ill  accompain  the  tickets  mailed  to 
vou.  Complele   "Kiliii  Notes"  are  available  at  the  Festival,  (^all  ('M'l) 
.■«2-88r)4f(.r  details 


Salurday.  Sei)t.  27 

1(1  OOa  111  — .")()()  p.m. 

James  .Simpson  Theatre 

Intniduciion  by  Ptitil  1  lockings,  .\ssociate  Professor  of 

\iitlini|H)logv.  I  niversitv  of  Illinois.  Chicago  Circle  (Jampus. 

(I)  RH  U.\LS 

The  t'.lereii  Powers    I'l-S)      48  mill. 

I.VKm  I.VKII-.N-rKIN 

Once  III  lot)  years  in  Bali,  a  sacred  frslival  re-lores  llir  lialiiiicr  U-lwreii  ;;onil  iui<l 
evil   Oron  Welles  iiiirrale-  ihis  clrainalic  filiii. 

Sainlx  and  Spirits  {W79)     4.'i  nun 

Ki  IzvntltllKHNF.v 

1  Ills  film  .^.eks  U)  explore  the  personal  dimension  of  Isliini  dunn;:  ihree  e\eiiis  in 

Nlonicco.  all  seen  ihmiifjh  ihe  e\[>en)'nre  of  one  woman 

Hii  Dolorosa  i  W^R  i      111  mm 

t.KlHl.l-sPvMuslHt   WDfl   U  DINK  \  HI  ION 

Dimiifi  ihe  "Pfission  of  Chnsl"  eeremoiiv  in  .Xnli^iia.  taialenuilii.  llie  [wople 

(lecoralelhe  sireels  and  lake  inm- rarr\  iiii;  llif  cnirifix  alon;;  '  Tlir  I'ainfnl  \Xa\ 

>ii!ui  Hiint'ii    VH>'I  .  Sipii  UiKiiii    ITII) 

Jl  VN  Hoi  (  II 

Diieeeverv  Ol)  \ears.  llie  l)of;on  of  Mali  celeliriile  llie  rereinonies  of  Sigiii.  whirli  lake 

plai-e  over  u  [leriod  of  7  years.  Jean  Roiich  made  7  films  lo  docnmeni  llii-  festival:  Iwi 

«llll»s|,..«„ 


Funerailles  ,1  ItuiiL'ii-  tri'll  l>"l"  lUS  ITU    l<r2        Oil  oiin 

JKVN  Hill  (  M 

filmed  over  a  jieriod  of  \ears.  I  Ins  film  dwiimenls  ilie  mnals  In-fore.  diinn<i  iiiid  afler 

tile  dealli  of  a  religions  leader  of  llie  Btinjio  Inlie  in  \Sesl  Africa,  a  well  kived  man  wlio 

was  over  120  \ears  old 

Aniharti  ihiinit    l^~'4i      *H)  mill. 
JK.VN  Kol  I  II 

rile  socieiv  of  mask- of  Saiiga  ;.\lalii  organizes  a  "Daiiia"  in  which  llie  old  masks  are 
replaced  by  new  ones,  Ihe  dance  of  the  ma.sks  is  vividly  portrayed. 


1:00  p. Ill   "Kitiiiil  and  Possession  Among  the  Dogon 
Keynote  address  by  Jean  Rottch.  director  of  re.searcii.  Ontre 
National  de  la  Recherche  Scientifiqtie.  and  instrticlor  Miisee  de 
I   Homme.  Paris. 

\  world  renowiied  leader  in  visual  antlirii|H)l(igv.  Roucb  U'gan  making 
films  111  Vtesl  .\fnca  in  I'Hb.  I  le  has  made  more  than  ".">  film~.  maiiv 
documenting  rituals  and  ceremonies  in  African  \  illages.  1  lis  films  of 
possession  rituals  have  pioneered  a  [leisonal.  intenictive  style  of  film- 
making w  Inch  uses  portable  syiic-Mniiid  eciiiipmenl  to  its  greatest  |x)- 
tential.  \  captivating  speaker,  he  is  a  master  at  coiiiiiiiiiiicaliiii; 
infectious  enthusiasm  for  bis  subject.  \ou  have  a  rare  (ip|Mirliinilv 
to  hear  one  of  the  most  important  figures  in  riliiiiiiaking  bi-tory. 


10:00  a.m.  — 1:00  p.m. 

Lecture  Mall  1    A.  .Montgomery  Viard  Hull) 

(II)  WORK:  SURVIVAI    \M)  SKI.F-KM'RKSSION 

rhe  Aeic  Opium  Route  (1973)     54  iniii 
CvmiiRINF.  \M)M\RIVNNI:.  I.VMOI  II 

\  slorv  of  the  Pashtus  who  have  lived  for  ceiilnnes  ai  ihi'  kli\  Int  Pass  hm-iises  < 
lives  of  the  fanners  who  jiniw  ami  harvesi  ihe  |Kippies  ioMows  ilir  opium  mine 
Kiiro()eaii  prmessors  and  in  llie  Amenean  markel 

Alicf  Elliot     10  mill 

Shows  the  handiwork  of  Pomo  liuskeimaker  Alice  tllioii.  a  jiified  ariisi  wlios<'  hi 

preserve  the  dying  iradilbn  of  her  ixtiple. 

At  the  lime  of  U  hiilirif:  il'»74)     .'IB  mill 
I. KIN  MID  kwimi  iNi:  vndSmhii  Ki  I)I-:ii 

\  film  fn.iii  die  \laska  Native  lleritiip-  S'ries  alKinl  ihe  Iradilional  aiidcontemp 
ciillim-of  Kskiiiio|n-ople  Pnidiieed  liy  the  commiimty  in  iheir  liHallail(.'uiige  K 
subtitles. 


daily 


iskc-l- 


«iriirv 
iiL'lish 


13 


14 


Fiirm  Snnii    l')"'8i      .^"111111 
John  \\IM\N  for  Mii«iiii  Kiliicniiiiiiiil  IcIrM^tun 

\n  f\lriuinliininl\  iH-aiinrul  jiim)  inliiiiiiti*  flltn    Hmir  ^rniTiilifiii"  tif  a  njnil  Jii|>Hnes<> 
rmnilv  "iM'jik  fniiikU  jiInmii  llinr  fuK-klin'iikiii-:  «urk.  llicir  n'liilhin^hip^  «  illi  one 
anolluT.  antl  llir  ^MixMial  rrlcl train m-  lliar  riili\fn  ihnr  wmHiI 

t'nitfitKftiiit Himtlirntffs      I'»  nun 
Join-  l\K\- 

\  ^llorl.  I\  nral  film  alMinl  lin'  nivlli'  ami  crafl-  of  llic  (  liiiii--^-  jM-o|>lr.  llinr  uorkinan- 
"-llip.  and  lio»  iIicm-  tradition^  ha\i-  Ut-ri  [ta^s<'<l  ilnwn  lliron^h  generations. 

Ihr<i,sl  i,f  I  1,11(111      .til  nun 

\  )Nl^M■rflll  <tiH-nnientar\  on  I  la-  rffi-ii^  of  ila-  inlrnianona)  1  in  nam  I  for  roiion  on  a  ilr- 
M-loIMiii.'  mil  Ion  h.xalinnr-  tllr  effi-rl  of  (N-^ncliir"  on  llic  nu  ironini-iil  ami  IhmIiIi  of  iln- 
(,>nii-)ir  lialiaiix.  ( .liiilt'inala-  roinmuorkrr-. 

tink.w    1'l«l)       J-Jniin 
\Mllo^^  MiiNt 

\  -i-n-in\r  iNirlrail  of  a  [ia>kelinakt-r.  fni'lliT.  ami  liaqi  [ilavcr  from  (  o«an  (  Tcrk. 
K('iilni'k\ 

I'hr  /'<iintril  Irurk       28  niin. 

Jlllllll  VMl'-UMH  Ihl  I  KT  \M)  SUnsTIW  C    SllF«lKt)HI 

llierr  an*  lull  l»o  nirllio4l>  of  lnin-|)orlalioii  in  Vft'liani-lan — caineU  ami  inirk- — 
and  I  In-  lag  mi<-k>  are  ink iiifi  over  1  Hlh  inu-k  dn\cr  irll-  wfiat  11  in  like  l«  live  ami  uiiri 
in  Vf::l)anisian  and  reveals  much  about  the  social  >inicinn-.  iruditioiis.  aiid  culture 
of  Ills  couiilrv. 


1   .;i)|i,ill, — .',  (Ill  |.  Ill 

I  ,.,(iiir  I  I. ill  I      \    \l(.n|o(.iiu'iy  WanI  I  hill 

Jll)(;ll  riRKS  \M)(  IIWGE 

/'/(f  I'lirtlf  Petiplf       2li  mm 

I  he-  roaMal  Mi-kiio  Indian-  of  i-asieni  Nicaragua  have  depended  on  the  preen  -ea  turtle 
lor  over  ^t.")()  veai>  1  lie  \liskilo  have  entered  die  market  economy  and  now  piir-ne  the 
nirlle-  iiol  for  food,  lull  forca-li 

Listen  ('<irtinis      I*'  nun 
(Mil  II-  \/.l'l  111  \ 

\  forceful  -laleinenl  from  the  Indians  of  the  Amazon  region  on  die  while  man  -  coii- 
nniiini:  attack- on  ilieir  culture 

ln,li„ns  mid  Chiefs  (1972)      41)  mm 

li  iiiiii  wiiDwil)  \1\(D(ii  I. Ml 

\  film  aUiiil  Ainencan  Indian-  trying  to  mainlain  their  Indian  idenlilv  while  learning  to 

ma-ler  ihe  w  hue  man-  world,  on  his  tenils. 

J'lrna  Mft.sjli/  Strffl  Jrninidl     1M~'0        20  mill 
\llKV  \\IK 

\  |>er-iaiai  record  of  -ireel  life  in  the  Mo-lcni  coinmiiniu  that  centers  it-^lf  around  the 
.lama  \la-)id.  or  die  (ireat  Mosque,  in  the  old  city  of  Delhi. 


1(1  (Ilia. III. —  l;()()|i.m. 

(ila— itMini  A 

(IV)  .\R(:hk()LO(.^  am)I  miK;  ikciinoioc^ 

■i  tlulle- 1 :  A  Lesson  in  irchueolu^    141)8,      33  nun 
l)t)NM  dMiI  I.EK.  TON^  (.ORSI.INE.  J  ^ME^i  H.  SvCKEIT 

Meiiildirrmfl  HiKksheller:  A  (,)ueslinn  of  Questions      3(1  min. 
J    MH'HKNl  Mill  Mil  I)  Jx\IK-\lXl\  V-ltl  \M)J    I)    (;i  \\ 

ArrhaeolofT)  in  Mesoimtiiiniti    141)4         l"o4       In  miii 

Kxciwitlions  (It  l.a  tenia  >.  19().3)      24  nun 
HOHKHI  K   \  ItlZER 

EiirlySlone  TooU  (1%'')      211  nun 
FkxncoisBordks 

Cum  Preparation,  Stone  flaking:  Dju^anKini  Lecuv.^  Hadjas      14  nun. 

Spear  Making:  Bo\s '  Spear  f'ighl      1 0  min 

Sinew-backed  Bow  and  lu  Arrows  [ViiA)     24  min. 
SVMI  Fl    \    HMtRFri 


l:.U)|Mll.— 5:0(1  |.  in 
Cla^Moom  A 

(V)  wom.i)  Ml  sk;  vnd  dwck, 

l^etirtMiiii  tt>  Diiticf  III  Hull       20  miii 

(.HKt-Om  IJ\lhM)N 

1  Mano  is  shown  leaching  l)a-if  arm  aiiil  tiilicr  (liincf  rnoxmie'iir-  in  ilir-  mIIh^c  i»t 

Itivanan.  A  stud\  of  visual  ami  kinc^llit'iic  If-armti^, 

TnH/erl.efiumhnii   I^^H       _M)  ,,nti 

Ml  (.11 /.Mil' 

The  niakirii:  of  [tan  flute-,  ainoiii.'  iIh'  Xn-  \\v  |H-n[ilr  uf  ilu-  Silommi  Khiml- 

liehind the Scftifs  af  (hv  l*ekiriis  (in'us      Iti  nun 
Juris  IvENs 

\  hacksia^e  view  of  the  nilenialionalK  acclamieii  IVkin-:  (;ircii>  as  performer--  reliearx- 
awu!e\anel\  oftalenl- 

Ao  \fiips  on  My  Hips  \  \^'!^ :      58  min. 
(;K0U(.K  i.  NlKKKMlKRC 
\  unique  iii>ight  into  ja//  lap  (iaiieirii:  as  a  ne«:lerletl  lilark   \meruan  arr  form 

Hiilteries  i)uiion      10  nnn 

Jkw  IUikh 

Music  luid  (.ianee  amouf:  llie  l)oL!on  [jeople  ol  Nlali 


Sunday,  Sept.  28 

10:00  a. m.— 5:00  f).m. 
James  Simpson  Fliealre 

(VI)  MEN  AM)  WOMEN 

Some  Homen  of  \tarrakesh  \  19"'8)      52  niin. 

MKI  1SS\  1.1  KUEl  \N  Owits 

Kilnied  in  ihe  home--  hi  lite  old  oit\  of  Marrakesh.  Morocco,  the  film  tells  the  -■tor\  of 
Aisha  bill!  Muhanuned  and  her  fnencK  1  he  crew  accom[>anieH  (hem  in  tlieir  wnrshi[). 
at  parties,  and  at  a  Muslim  fteddmj.' 

Riimi      18  mm 

Hm  (  h  Mdiu  \M)  l)t  nn^  Kim. -I  wu 

A  moving'  and  insightful  portrait  of  a  Muslim  L'lrl  hviiiti  iii  Old  Delhi 

Loranii's  Hav  1 1*^78)      T^O  min. 

Dwii)  \M).li  Dllli  M\(;Doi  (.\i.L 

Ihe  second  film  in  ihe  new  "Turkana  Conversations    trilofj\.  A  fascinating  porlrait  of 

Loran^'.  heat!  of  a  lar^e  hoii>eht)ld  in  Kenya.  It  is  a  study  of  a  man  who  has  come  to  see 

hi>  societv  as  \uliierable — and  explore  his  personalitv  through  his  conversaiioiis  with 

the  filmmakers,  the  tesimioiu  of  fnends.  and  ol)servation  of  his  J>ehavior  w ilh  his  wives, 

children,  and  men  of  his  ow  n  age  and  status. 

Ihe  Heddut'^  Camels  flP^i'S)      108  min 
Dwii)  \\i)Ji  mm  \I\(  Doi  cm  i 

\  narralive  documentarx  almui  the  lurkana.  seminomadic  herders  who  li\e  a  tradi- 
tional life  in  an  isolated  region  in  norlhwe->teni  Keiua   A  young  girl  -•  wedding  to  an  old 
fnend  of  her  fatlier  should  go  smoothK.  Iiut  under  the  pressures  of  Uiih  families  de- 
mands things  almost  fall  apart.  From  the  "lurkana  Conversations""  inlog\. 

Deep  Henrls    1480'      5.^  mm 
Moitmi  ( .\un\KH 

\  lieautiful  film  aUmt  the  liororu  lulain  [H'uple  of  the  Niger  Republic  of  Afnca  These 
nomadic  [)e<.iple  of  ihe  Sahe!  gather  dunng  the  raiiu  season  lo  celei»rate  their  indejten- 
deiice  and  l>eaut\  ihrough  ntual  dance.  \t  die  galhenng.  thev  hold  a  senes  of  <iances 
known  as  "Berewol     in  which  the  \ounger  men  coin[)ele  in  ihe  context  of  l:)eautv. 
"Deep  hearts    is  their  descnf)lHMi  of  how  lhe\  must  live.  Kor  them,  it  is  necessary  to 
hide  the  feelings  of  envv  w  hich  the\  all  expenence.  and  they  do  this  by  cultivating  a  deep 
and  s^-crel  heart 


10:00  a.m.— 1:00  p.m. 

I,eclure  I  lall  I    A.  .\lon<:omerv  ^ard  I  lall  i 

(II!)  CL  l/n  KKS  AM)  CHANGE 

Qeros:  The  Shape  of  Survival   1978)      53  min. 
John  Comkn 

\  document  of  Peruvian  Indians  in  the  region  of  (^eros  at  14.000  feet  in  the  ,\ndes    The 
film  examines  their  complex  pattern  of  survival  in  this  harsh  environment 


Communists  for  l.fHft/  )fiirs      •^.\  nun 
(iOHDIWN   ThOKI  I  KH  \M)MMUt  Cl  \l  I)  DK  i  \H(.V. 

\n  investigation  into  the  U'liefs  and  cushims  nf  the  ancient  Carmaihian  seel  in  Siuth 
^emen  In  the  midst  of  ihe  Islamic  wudd.  ilie\  have  practiced  (^ommunisni  f(»r  l.(M)0 
\ears  and  U'lieve  in  I  lie  etpialiu  nj  wuiiu-ii  and  atheism 

/hr  (hid  People:  Life  tuni  Death  in  I'lerra  del  tue^o    19()8,'      55  min. 

\N\K  Cli\l'M\N  \M)  \\\  MoMKsDK  (U)N/\I.K/ 

The  story  of  the  Ona  I'enple    N-lk  fiam   — i  heir  culture  and  kui.  and  Imw  Ik  till  were 

destroyed 


1:00  p.m.— 5:00  |i. Ill 

Lecture  Hall  I    A.  .Vhtntgdiiiery  Viiinl  Hall 

(VII)  POSSESSION  AM)  IIKAIIN(, 

Les  I'amffnurs  tJ' Ai'aiit:  'luumu  e(  Hitti    l*'""!        10  nun 

Jew  Mou  m 

In  one  contmuou"'  take.  Houch  captured  the  climax  of  a  possession  dance  at  Siniiri  in 

Niger.  One  of  the  best  examples  of  Rouch's  provocative  film  technique 

A  Balinese  Trance  and  Dance  Seance  il978i      -tO  nun 

Tl\IOT>n  Ast.H-  lJM)\(;ONVtH  \MJP\I'-^    \s(  \\ 

Documents  the  work  of  Jem  iapakan.  a  woman  of  Central  Bali  w  ho  is  esteemed  for  her 

ability  (o  contact  the  main  deities  and  spints  through  seances   Petitioners  come  fnmi  far 

awa\  to  seek  answers  from  the  spmis  ttirough  the  medium 

Divine  Horsemen:  I  he  Lii'inii  ( !(nls  of  Haiti    1**4T'-1^51        54  min 
M\^  \  Dkiu.n 

Maya  Deren.  w  ho  had  Iwen  iniliatecl  as  a  jmestess  of  the  \oudoun  religion  of  Haiti. 
documented  in  inlimate  detail  some  niuals  of  ific  Mada.  Pelro.  and  Congo  cults  of  Haiti 
\fter  her  death  this  film  w  as  edited  l>\  Cherel  and  leiji  Ito, 

Hich  Man 's  Medicine.  Poor  Man 's  Medicine  (197())      43  min 

( A.)\Wi\ \\\  Tmoki  I .KK  \M)  M \1UK (  W  \l  I)  Dkkk \H( ;K 

(Contrasts  the  modem  medical  practices  in  the  cities  of  Vkcst  Afnca  with  the  iradiiioiial 

approach  to  healing  iii  the  hinterlaiuls 

\oel  \utels      30  nun 

.\l\l«  I  s  \l  II1KR<. 

Tells  the  stor\  of  a  (German  ph\  sicuin  w  Im  sjK-nt  his  life  working  iii  ihe  Rra/ilian  jungles. 

parlicularU  with  the  native  Indians    In  addition  the  film  docimienis  ihr  [iroblenis 

created  b\  the  encroacfimenl  of  while  ciNilization. 

Eduardo  Curandero    19"'8  i      55  mm. 

RkiixrdCo*  \n 

Kduarilo  is  a  self-si\  led  healer  in  Peru  who  uses  hallucinogenic  drugs  to  practice  his 

healing  art   "  \  moving  and  memorable  documenlarv  [Mirlniit  of  a  man  of  exceptional 

character  '* 


chicken^  in  tflp  rnnntrvHiile  of 


l():()()a.in. — f)!)!)  |i.iu. 
( ilassroom  A 

Mil)  IILMOK.  IlidNV.  \M)  l'\l{(»l)^ 

/,  I  /.  1.   \l,if.in!iil  in  I..  I.     l>^r'»i      :>«  Tiiirr 

CMKll  INK  \M)Fm\K  \l(ll  III> 

A  ciociiineiilary  pssa\  f<)cu>irm  <>ti  itie  search  ftir  shdft  huMries--  fariir  ami  l<irlune  m 

the  \a>-  \ii;;clespiilprlairlilieiit  iiiilii'.try.  Keaturcs  flfly-fivp  as[)iniif;  a<-I(ir>.  nuislcians. 

and  comedians  wllo  sjjeak  alxnit  llipir  lives,  dreams,  an(i  (lisappoiiumpnls 

Munla  Carles  (iy79)      28  min. 

liMlin   lillWKKMW 

\  nin-down  liic\clp  shop  on  Scacpn  Island  is  owned  hy  Nhirray  Bravennan.  an  abrasive 
|>liilosii|>her  junk  collector  l)ike  repairman    I'he  film  is  In  his  son    This  candid  portrait 
uses  humor  and  sensitivit\  in  an  attem[il  li\  a  son  to  understand  his  father 

(ijciinni.'  Monsieur  Poulet  [WA I     '»tl  mm 
Dwuil  UK,  \.\\\  Houill 

I  ictional  tale  of  the  ad\entures  of  three  fnends  w  ho 
Niizer  with  the  help  of  an  oiil  car 

Hush  Hiiiipes  Hush:  Tom  Jahnson's  Pniyinii  Pi^s    m"'4  !      4  miti 

Bll  I   l-KKKIs  Wll.ll  \A  HkIsKK 

lor  .iS  out  of  the  last  37  years.  Tom  Johnson  of  Bptonia.  Mississippi,  has  Iraiiipd  litters 

of  pips  to  "pray     lieforp  thpv  pat  from  thpir  ironph   As  thp  film  documents  this  process. 

Johnson  comments.  "Most  ever\lind\  1  know  is  amazed  to  see  this- 

I'elil  a  Petit      '>0  nun 
\\  w  Hint  II 

\  fictional  (ale  winch  (miiiiIs  out  w  ith  ihariii  and  liiimor  the  [missiIjIc  c(  inflicts  of  ^Xesteni 
and  traditional  wa\s  as  Vfrica  lie-iins  industnaltzation   An  imjMirt-exfXirt  firm  called 
I'etit  a  Petit,  set  up  In  the  three  fnpiids  who  starred  in  Rouch's  famous  film  Jiiguor. 
firows  into  a  hiifie  cotifjlomeratp  as  the  founders'  greed  and  accumulation  of  Kuropean 
ways  gets  more  and  more  out  of  hanil  and  out  of  touch  with  their  own  heritage.  Includes 
a  marvelous  paroiK  of  aiitliro|M>logical  studies  as  the  fneiiiis  travel  to  France  to  leant 
aUmt  sk\scraj>ers, 

t lino's  Ptzzd      18  mm 

%  arreii  Bass 

\  cinema  verite  documentary,  a  comedy,  a  character  study,  and  a  social  comment  on  the 

wa\  |iiiiple  look  at  themselves  and  thpir  successes  It  is  both  hilarious  and  touching. 

1  Miihl  in  ihe  \ri  Ciillen      IK  nun 

\  cliarming  animation  from  the  Peo|ilp  s  Rppnblic  of  China  satirizes  the  Cultural 

He\i>lutioll 

CREDITS:  Our  sjierial  thanks  to  the  following  film  distnlnitors  for  their 
genetosilv  in  extending  courtesy  film  loans  to  llie  I  liird  Annual  Festival  on 
Anthro[iolog\  on  Film:  .\udio  Brandon  Films.  Brookfield.  IF:  Direct  Cinema. 
I.ld..  Los  .Aiifjeles,  C\\  Documentarv  Educational  Resources.  \Xatertown. 
NFA;  Film  Australia,  .New  York.  .NA  ;  Icarus  Films.  .New  York.  .NA  ;  Institute 
for  Study  of  F  liinian  Issues.  Philadelphia.  P \;  Japan  Society  F ilnis.  New 
\ork.  NA  ;  Nev^  ^ork  I  iiiversitv  Film  Library.  New  \ork.  NA  :  The  Pennsyl- 
vania State  Audio-visual  Senice.  I  niversitv  Park.  PA;  Phoenix  Films.  Inc.. 
New  \brk.  NA:  Serious  Business  Com[)any.  Oakland.  CA:  I  iiifilm.  New 
York.  .NY;  Liiiversitv  of  California  Extension  Media  Outer.  Berkeley.  C.\; 
I'niversitv  of  Illinois.  Chicago  (arcle  Campus.  Chicago.  11. 


Third  .Vnniial  Fesrival  of  Anthropol<»f!:>  on  Film 

September 27 and 2 S  I9S0 


l.ast  Name 

First  Name 

Street 

ClH 

Stale 

Zip 

Phone:  Da\time 


D  Member  . 


Evening 


,  Q  .\i»ninenil)er 


Mrnilicrs:  niicday:  ST'. 00;  Series:  $12. (K) 
NiinmcmlHTs:  one  day:  $8.00;  Series:  $15.00 

F^ntire  Scries 


Saturday  only 
Sutidav  onl\_ 


Amount  enclosed 

Please  use  Vest  Knlrance  for  free  admis.sion  lu  the  .Museum,  (ionfirmalioii  w  ill  U- 
mailed"  iipfm  ret^ipl  of  check-  Please  include  self- addressed  stamped  enveliifH'   Mail 


FILM  FKSin  AI..  FIKLU  MISEUM 

^lel^l  Mu-^iirn  of  NjUural  (lis(iir\ 
RcKtj^xell  Rciarl  al  Lake  Shore  Drive 
Chicago.  1L6(X>(I5 

*lf  CMii[Min  iinil  chet-k  are  nfeived  one  week  or  les>  before  ihe  program,  reservations 
will  be  belli  in  vour  name  at  the  %  est  tntrance. 


16 


COCA 


High  in  nutritional  value  as  well  as  alkaloids — notably 
cocaine — the  coca  leaf  is  the  focus  of  an  international  debate 
by  anthropologists,  health  officials,  and  lawmakers 


By  TIMOTHY  PLOWMAN 


COCA  is  one  of  the  most  important  plants  in 
the  history,  religion,  medicine,  and  daily 
lite  of  South  American  Indians.  It  is  also 
one  of  the  oldest  New  World  cultivated  plants, 
the  origin  and  domestication  of  which  is  only  now 
coming  to  light.  (Coca  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
the  cocoa,  or  cacao,  plant,  the  seeds  of  which  are 
the  source  of  chocolate.)  The  leaves  are  the  part  of 
special  interest  to  man,  and  these  are  derived  from 
two  species  of  shrubs  of  the  genus  Erythwxylum . 
Bolivian,  or  Huanuco,  coca  (£.  coca),  is  nahve  to  the 
moist  forests  of  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Andes.  An 
important  variety  of  £.  coca  (var.  ipadii)  is  cultivated 
in  the  lowlands  of  the  Amazon  basin.  The  second 
species,  known  as  Colombian  coca  (E.  novo;^raiia- 
tetife),  is  grown  in  drier  areas  of  Colombia  and 
along  the  Caribbean  coast  of  Venezuela.  £. 
novo^ranateiife  also  has  a  major  variety,  which  is 
known  as  Trujillo  coca  (var.  truxilloise).  This  variety 
is  cultivated  on  the  desert  coast  of  northern  Peru 
near  the  city  of  Trujillo  and  is  much  sought  after  for 
its  rich  flavor 

The  chewing  of  coca  leaves  is  an  integral 
characteristic  of  most  Andean  cultures,  where  even 
today  the  use  of  coca  pervades  all  aspects  of  Indian 
life.  The  sole  source  of  the  alkaloid  cocaine,  which 
in  recent  years  has  become  a  major  recreational 
drug  in  Western  societies,  coca  is  the  focus  of  in- 
creasing international  debate  by  government  offi- 
cials and  law  enforcement  agencies  preoccupied 
with  controlling  illegal  drug  traffic. 

The  history  of  coca,  long  and  complex,  is 
still  not  well  understood.  Archeological  finds  along 
the  coast  of  Ecuador  date  the  use  of  coca  to  as  early 
as  3000  B.C.,  and  its  early  domestication  certainly 
goes  back  much  further  Numerous  ceramic  and 
metal  artifacts  associated  with  coca  chewing  have 


Timothy  Plowman  is  assistant  curator  of  botany. 


turned  up  in  sites  from  Costa  Rica  south  to  Chile, 
indicating  the  widespread  diffusion  of  coca  chew- 
ing in  pre-Columbian  times.  Intact,  preserved  coca 
leaves  dating  back  to  1300  H  C  have  been  recovered 
from  preceramic  sites  on  the  desert  coast  of  Peru. 
There  is  every  reason  to  assume  that  coca  was  used 
in  most  if  not  all  of  the  highly  developed  civiliza- 
tions of  the  Andean  region. 

On  the  basis  of  archeological  evidence,  it 
appears  that  in  early  Andean  cultures  coca  was  fre- 


Floweriu)^  branch 
of  Trujillo  coca 
(Erythroxylum 
novogranatense 
var.  truxillense) 
cultivated  near 
Trujillo,  Peru.  17 


18 


quently  used  by  priests  and  shamans  for  religious 
and  healing  purposes.  Many  figurines  and  painted 
ceramics  suggest  that  some  coca  chewers  were 
members  of  high-ranking  noble  or  priestly  castes. 
In  Colombia,  archeologists  have  found  elaborate 
gold  vessels  used  to  hold  the  powdered  lime  taken 
with  coca;  these  containers  were  worn  as  orna- 
ments by  priests  and  noblemen.  Coca  was  certainly 
one  of  the  most  important  elements  in  the  native 
materia  medica,  used  not  only  as  a  stimulant  but 
also  to  treat  a  broad  range  of  illnesses.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  coca  was  used  in  ancient  Peru  as  a 
local  anesthetic  for  trephination  (cutting  a  hole 
through  the  skull)  and  other  surgical  operations. 
The  Andean  Indian  today  employs  coca  as  a  com- 
mon household  remedy  in  continuation  of  an  an- 
cient medical  tradition. 

When  the  first  Europeans  arrived  in  Central 
and  South  America,  they  encountered  coca  in  ex- 
tensive use  among  completely  unrelated  indigen- 
ous groups.  After  the  Conquest,  the  Spaniards 
condemned  the  use  of  coca  and  attempted  to  re- 
press its  cultivation.  Ecclesiastical  authorities  were 
especially  vehement  in  attempHng  to  eradicate  coca 
chewing,  which  they  considered  a  form  of  idolatry. 
Later,  when  the  conquerors  realized  how  impor- 
tant coca  was  for  the  highland  Indians,  especially 
for  working  in  the  gold  and  silver  mines,  they 
ceased  their  persecutions  and  eventually  took  con- 
trol of  coca  production  and  distribution.  In  the  17th 
and  18th  centuries,  both  the  viceroyalty  of  Peru  and 
the  Church  collected  enormous  revenues  from 
taxes  levied  on  the  coca  trade.  Indian  laborers  were 
often  paid  in  coca  leaves,  which  today  remain 
an  important  means  of  exchange  in  highland 
communities.  It  was  mainly  after  the  Spanish  Con- 
quest that  coca  became  secularized  and  made 
widely  available  to  the  general  populace  as  a  daily 
stimulant. 


Ethnopharmacology 

The  use  of  coca  leaves  as  a  general  stimulant  and 
tonic  has  changed  little  since  pre-Columbian  times. 
The  dried  leaves  are  placed  in  the  mouth,  mois- 
tened with  saliva,  and  formed  into  a  quid  with  the 
tongue,  to  which  is  applied  an  alkaline  substance  in 
the  form  of  Ume,  powdered  seashells,  or  plant 
ashes.  The  quid  is  not  actually  chewed  but  allowed 
to  remain  in  the  mouth  and  sucked,  as  the  alkaloids 
and  other  constituents  are  slowly  assimilated.  The 
quid  is  spat  out  after  about  an  hour.  The  only  major 
variation  in  coca  chewing  is  found  in  the  western 
Amazon  basin,  where  the  leaves  are  toasted,  finely 
pulverized,  and  mixed  with  ashes.  This  powder  is 
similarly  kept  as  a  quid  in  the  mouth;  after  gradu- 
ally dissolving,  it  is  swallowed  completely. 

Coca  chewing  produces  a  broad  spectrum 


Top  photo:  Colombian  coca  (Erythroxylum  novo- 
granatense),  planted  on  a  farm  near  Mocoa,  Colombia. 
Plioto  ('V  the  autlior. 

Bottom:  Picking  Atnazonian  coca  (Erythroxylum  coca 
var.  ipadu).  Photo  by  R.  E.  Schultes. 

of  physiological  effects.  Owing  to  the  cocaine  con- 
tent, there  is  a  mild  stimulation  of  the  central  nerv- 
ous system  and  a  slight  anesthesia  in  the  mouth. 
Coca  suppresses  sensations  of  hunger,  thirst,  cold, 
and  fatigue,  enabling  coca-chewing  Indians  to 
walk  long  distances  through  the  mountains  and 
jungles  with  only  coca  for  sustenance.  Coca  also 
produces  a  state  of  euphoria,   which  is  said  to 


ameliorate  the  arduous  lite  m  the  Andean  high- 
lands. In  the  words  ot  the  Incan  chronicler  Gar- 
cilaso  de  la  Vega  (15L)9),  "coca  satisfies  the  hungry, 
gives  new  strength  to  the  weary  and  exhausted, 
and  makes  the  unhapp\'  forget  their  sorrows." 

In  native  medicine,  coca  is  often  taken  as  a 
tea  or  chewed  as  a  quid  for  stomachaches  and  intes- 
tinal disorders.  It  is  considered  the  remedy  par  ex- 
cellence for  soroche,  or  altitude  sickness.  The  leaves 
are  also  widely  used  in  poultices  for  wounds  and 
skin  infections.  Their  anesthetic  properties  provide 
the  most  readily  available  remedy  for  toothaches 
and  muscular  pains. 

The  chemical  constituents  of  the  coca  leaf 
have  never  been  fulK'  elucidated,  a  surprising  fact 
in  view  of  its  longstanding  role  in  folk  medicine  and 
the  importance  of  cocaine  in  Western  medicine. 
However,  some  fifteen  alkaloids  have  been  iden- 
tified in  the  coca  leaf,  of  which  the  most  important 
is  cocaine.  Dried  coca  leaves  contain  between  0.2 
and  1.0  percent  cocaine,  with  an  average  content  of 
about  0.5  percent.  Although  cocaine  represents 
about  80  percent  of  the  total  alkaloid  content  of  the 
leaf,  it  should  not  be  considered  the  only  active 
constituent.  EarJier  workers  attempted  to  point  out 
the  differences  in  pharmacological  effects  between 
coca  leaf  and  pure  cocaine  and  emphasized  the  role 
of  the  minor  alkaloids  in  the  body's  total  response 
to  coca  chewing.  This  difference  has  recently  been 
reiterated  bv  modern  researchers  in  the  chemistry 
and  ethnology  of  coca  chewing,  but  still  virtually 
no  research  has  been  done  on  the  minor  alkaloids 
or  other  constituents  of  coca  leaf. 

Recent  studies  have  shown  that  coca  con- 
tains substantial  amounts  of  certain  vitamins  and 
minerals.*  For  example,  ingestion  of  100  grams  of 
Bolivian  coca  leaves  would  more  than  satisfy  the 
daily  R.D.A.  (Recommended  Dietary  Allowance) 
for  calcium,  iron,  phosphorus,  vitamin  A,  vitamin 
B2,  and  vitamin  E.  Since  coca  chewers  may  con- 
sume up  to  60  grams  of  coca  per  day,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  coca  contributes  substantially  to  the 
impoverished  diet  of  the  Andean  coca  user. 

Coca  leaves  also  contain  complex  mixtures 
of  flavoring  compounds,  such  as  methyl  salicylate 
(wintergreen  oil).  It  is  for  these  constituents  that 
coca  leaves  have  long  been  used  in  the  beverage 
industry.  At  the  turn  of  the  century,  a  number  of 
medicinal  coca  wines  became  extremely  popular  as 
patent  medicines.  Decocainized  extracts  of  Trujillo 
coca  leaves  are  used  today  in  the  manufacture  of 
the  ubiquitous  Coca-Cola  . 


'See  also  "Nutritional  Value  of  Coca,"  by  jamcs  A.  Duke, 
David  Aulik,  and  Timothy  Ploiotnan,  Botanical  Museum 
Leaflets,  Vol.  24,  No.  6,  Harvard  University  (1975).  A  copy 
of  this  7-page  booklet  may  he  obtaitwd,  ivithout  charge,  by 
writing  the  editor  of  the  Bulletin. 


Modern  investigations  of  the  pharmacologi- 
cal and  psychological  effects  of  coca  chewing  are 
scant.  Studies  by  two  Peruvian  physicians, 
Gutierrez-Noriega  and  Zapata-Ortiz,  made  during 
the  1940s,  were  extensive  but  largely  inconclusive 
and  unsubstantiated,  dedicated  as  they  were  to  the 
abolition  of  coca  chewing.  The  body  develops  no 
tolerance  to  the  effects  of  coca  chewing,  even  with 
regular,  daily  use.  Nor  is  there  the  appearance  of 
any  withdrawal  symptoms  when  coca  use  is  dis- 
continued. In  this  respect,  the  effects  of  coca  differ 
markedly  from  those  produced  by  the  unrelated 
opium  derivatives.  In  Peru,  coca  chewers  easily 
drop  their  habit  when  inducted  into  the  army  or 
when  they  move  to  large  cities  where  coca  chewing 
is  considered  socially  unacceptable.  There  is,  in 
fact,  no  conclusive  evidence  that  the  daily  use  of 
coca  leaf  in  moderate  amounts  produces  any  de- 
leterious acute  or  chronic  effects. 


The  Coca  Controversy 

The  specter  of  coca  as  a  debilitating  vice  and  source 
of  social  degradation  has  not  been  corroborated  by 


Dr.  Timothy  Plow- 
man, whose  interest 
in  the  coca  plant 
has  involved  several 
years'  research  and 
field  work,  is  shown 
here  with  dried  coca 
specimens  from 
the  Museum's 
herbarium. 


objective  studies.  The  fact  that  many  coca  chewers 
are  illiterate  and  poverty-stricken  is  attributable  to  a 
number  of  complex  social,  racial,  and  economic 
problems  widespread  in  rural  areas  of  Peru  and 
Bolivia.  The  abuse  of  alcohol  bv  native  Andeans  is  a 
far  more  serious  drug  problem,  and  alcohol,  unlike 
coca,  directly  contributes  to  poor  health  conditions, 
crime,  and  the  c\cle  of  poverty. 

Repeated  attempts  since  the  16th  century  to 
eradicate  coca,   usually  on  moral  or  religious 


ers.  Heavy  pressure  continues  to  be  exerted  on  the 
governments  of  Peru  and  Bolivia,  the  major  pro- 
ducers of  coca,  to  limit  or  reduce  their  annual  crops. 
The  Peruvian  government  now  officially  requires 
the  registration  of  all  coca  growers  and  vendors  and 
has  prohibited  the  establishment  of  any  new  coca 
plantations.  These  regulations  have  had  little  ef- 
fect, however,  except  in  the  most  accessible  areas  of 
production,  particularly  on  the  Pacific  coast.  In  re- 
mote jungle  areas  of  the  )iiontafia  on  the  eastern 


Poster  adver- 
tising the 
French  timic 
unne  Coca  des 
Incas,  which 
was  based  on 
an  extract  of  coca 
leaves  (1896). 
Collection  of  the 
author. 


20 


grounds,  have  consistently  failed  in  Colombia, 
Peru,  and  Bolivia.  Anthropologists,  nutritionists, 
and  cultural  ecologists,  as  well  as  other  scientists 
who  have  had  direct  contact  with  living  conditions 
in  the  high  Andes,  are  becoming  increasingly 
aware  of  the  integral  part  which  coca  has  played 
and  continues  to  play  in  man's  adapting  to  life  in 
the  Andean  environment. 

Coca  today  offers  major  problems  as  well  as 
possibilities  for  Western  society.  As  the  sole  source 
of  cocaine,  Ulegal  coca  production  has  become  the 
focus  of  much  controversy  and  attention  by  inter- 
national drug  enforcement  agencies  and  lawmak- 


slopes  of  the  Andes,  where  most  of  the  coca  is 
grown,  there  has  been  little  if  any  effective  control. 
On  the  contrary,  in  response  to  the  rising  demand 
and  higher  prices,  coca  production  has  steadily  in- 
creased in  the  last  ten  years. 

In  Peru  and  Bolivia,  attempts  have  been 
made  to  find  an  alternative  cash  crop  for  coca 
farmers.  This  effort  has  also  met  with  failure,  since 
no  crop  has  yet  been  found  that  can  command  a 
guaranteed  high  price,  yet  has  the  superlative 
adaptation  of  coca  to  the  unique,  mountainous  en- 
vironment of  the  eastern  Andes.  In  terms  of  local 
economies,  there  simply  is  no  other  crop  which  can 


redlisticMlK'  provide  the  small-scale  farmer  with 
such  a  profitable  cash  return  for  his  product  as  can 
coca.  Furthermore,  an  appreciable  and  legal  inter- 
nal market  for  coca  leaf  continues  to  thrive  in  Peru 
and  Bolivia,  both  for  chewing  by  the  native  popula- 
tion and  for  the  legal  production  of  pharmaceutical 
cocaine. 

The  recent  significant  increase  in  cocaine 
consumption  in  the  United  States  and  western 
Europe  has  caused  great  alarm  among  government 
officials.  The  abuse  potential  of  cocaine  is  very 
much  greater  than  that  of  coca,  and  cocaine  abuse 
has  been  demonstrated  to  cause  problems  of 
psvchological  dependence  and  other  disorders. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  attempts  to  control  the  abuse 
of  such  a  potentiallv  harmful  drug  must  be  made, 
but  it  is  impractical  to  impose  the  burden  of  drug 
control  on  the  Andean  peasants,  who  have  had  no 
historv  of  cocaine  abuse. 

The  Role  of  Coca  in  Modem  Medicine 

The  medicinal  use  of  cocaine  is  now  limited  to  topi- 
cal anesthesia  in  certain  surgical  operations.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  usefulness  of  coca  leaf  in  modern 
therapeutics  has  scarcely  been  explored.  In  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  19th  century,  many  physicians  in 
Europe  anci  the  United  States  were  prescribing 
coca  leaf  preparations  for  a  variety  of  complaints. 
But  after  the  pure  alkaloid  cocaine  was  isolated  and 
became  available  to  physicians,  the  natural  prepa- 
rations of  the  leaf  were  soon  neglecteci  in  favor  of 
the  more  potent,  and  more  easily  ingested  pure 
drug.  Adverse  reactions  to  excessive  use  of  cocaine 
were  soon  recognized  bv  the  medical  community 
and  the  press,  which  led  to  the  demise  of  cocaine 
and  its  ultimate  ban  under  the  Harrison  Act  of  1914 
as  a  nonprescription,  recreational  drug.  Unfortu- 
nately, coca  leaves  were  also  included  in  this  ban, 
which  rendered  them  completely  unavailable  to 
ph\'sicians  and  researchers  alike  for  the  next 
half  century. 

Today  there  is  widespread  renewed  interest 
in  natural  therapeutic  agents,  including  the  natural 
extracts  of  coca  leaf.  Coca  has  been  recommended 
by  some  medical  researchers  for  a  variety  of  disor- 
ders, especially  in  cases  where  stronger,  synthetic 
drugs  are  contraindicated.  Coca,  according  to  in- 
vestigators, may  prove  to  be  of  value  in  treating 
chronic  indigestion  and  spasm  in  the  gastrointesti- 
nal tract,  as  an  antidepressant  in  cases  where  a 
mild,  nonaddicting  stimulant  is  indicated,  for  alti- 
tude and  motion  sickness,  and  as  a  safe  stimulant 
for  persons  dependent  on  stronger,  more  harmful 
stimulants  such  as  amphetamines  and  cocaine.  In 
short,  say  these  investigators,  coca  offers  therapeu- 
tic potential  as  a  safe,  effective  remedy,  providing  a 
combination  of  desirable  effects  not  found  in  our 
panorama  of  synthetic  pharmaceuticals.  D 


Turn-of-the-centiiry  Coca  des  Iiicas  poster.  Collection  of  the 
author. 


SUGGESTED  READINGS 

Andrews,  George  and  David  Solomon,  eds.  1975.  The 
Coca  Leaf  and  Cocaine  Papers.  Harcourt  Brace 
Jovanovich.  New  York. 

Ashley,  Richard.  1975.  Cocaine:  Its  Histori/,  Uses  and 
Effects.  St.  Martin's  Press.  New  York. 

Grinspoon,  Lester  and  James  B.  Bakalar.  1976.  Cocaine: 
A  Drug  and  its  Social  Evolution.  Basic  Books.  New 
York. 

Mortimer,  W.  Golden.  1974.  History  of  Coca.  Reprint 
Edition.  And/Or  Press.  San  Francisco. 

Plowman,  Timothy.  1979.  "Botanical  Perspectives  on 
Coca."  loiirnal  of  Psychedelic  Drugs  11: 103-117. 

Weil,  Andrew  T,  1975.  "The  Green  and  the  White." 
journal  of  Psychedelic  Drugs  7:  401-13. 

Weil,  Andrew  T.,  1978.  "Coca  Leaf  as  a  Therapeutic 
Agent."  American  journal  of  Drug  and  Alcohol  Abuse 
5:  75-86. 

Antt>nil,  1978.  MamaCoca.  Hassle  Free  Press.  London. 


21 


Learning  Museum  continges  With: 


Animals  in  Human  Perspective 


by  AMTHONY  PFEIFFER 
Project  Coordinator 

Made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment 
for  the  Humanities,  a  federal  agency 


An  African  huntci 
combines  bird 
mimicry  and  ftealth 
to  approach  within 
range  of  his  prey. 
Such  abilities  illus- 
trate the  human 
facility  at  man- 
ipulating animal> 
ez'en  with  relatively 
simple  technology 


HKP!"  mm. 


22 


Every  child  imagines  meeting  Jaws  at  the 
beach,  as  do  manv  adults.  Who  thinks  of 
dogs  without  Lassie  or  Rin-Tin-Tin  coming  to 
mind?  And  who  imagines  jungles  without  Tar- 
zan,  mice  without  Mickey,  rats  without  Willard, 
cats  without  Morris,  whales  without  Moby  Dick, 
and  monsters  without  the  Creature  from  the 
Black  Lagoon,  Godzilla,  and  the  bar  scene  from 
"Star  Wars"?  Films  represent  our  favorite  ideas 
about  the  animal  kingdom. 

Animals  in  Human  Perspective 
examines  segments  from  some  of  the  most 
popular  animal  films  and  TV  shows  of  all  time. 
All  the  animals  portrayed  in  the  films  and  TV 
shows  have  one  thing  in  common  —  none  of 
them  actually  exist.  In  one  way  or  another  they 
are  distorted,  exaggerated,  or  just  plain  made 
up.  We  like  to  think  of  animals  as  dangerous  or 
devoted,  adorably  cute,  or  horridly  brutal.  And 
we  transform  them  into  images  of  ourselves  or 
into  alien  creatures.  Collectively  these  images, 
whether  of  Lassie  or  of  Jaws,  speak  of  a  human 
animal  that  is  out  of  touch  with  the  rest  of  the 
animal  kingdom. 

Imagine  a  male  chimpanzee  as  he  is.  He 


is  not  at  all  like  King  Kong,  Tarzan's  ape  friend 
Cheetah,  or  the  juveniles  you  see  cavorhng  on 
TV.  Nor  is  he  a  profound  mind  trapped  in  a  hairy 
body.  He  weighs  about  100  pounds,  is  intent  on 
making  a  living,  and  we  have  only  teasing  glimp- 


NEH  Learning  Museum  at  Field  Museum 

The  NEH  Learning  Museum  program  is  a  three-year 
sequence  of  learning  opportunities  focused  on  the 
Museum's  outstanding  exhibits  and  collections  and 
designed  to  give  participants  an  opportunity  to  explore 
a  subject  in  depth.  Each  unit  of  study  consists  of  one  or 
more  special  events,  a  lecture  course,  and  a  seminar  for 
advanced  work.  Special  events  are  lectures  by  re- 
nowned authorities  or  interpretive  performances  and 
demonstrations.  Course  members  receive  an  annotated 
bibliography,  a  specially  developed  guide  to  pertinent 
museum  exhibits,  study  notes  for  related  special 
events,  and  access  to  select  materials  from  Field 
Museum's  excellent  research  library.  In-depth,  small 
group  seminars  allow  more  direct  contact  with  faculty 
and  Museum  collections. 


I  ■  •  ■.■.■!• 


Aiiimoh  were  a  pre- 
liomiiuDit  theme  in 
iheemlieM  human 
art.  From  about 
^0,U00to:2,000 
\fears  ago,  people 
expreiised  their  fas- 
cination for  animals 
on  cave  walh  through- 
out Southern  France 
iitui  Mortliern  Spain. 
Fhe  art  may  haz'e 
been  part  of  ritual 
hunting  magic  or 
initiation  ceremonies. 
Shown  here  /s  a 
portion  of  one  of  the 
liioramas  in  Hall  C, 
Hall  of  the  Stone  A^e 
of  the  Old  World. 


ses  of  how  he  sees  the  world.  These  glimpses  are 
enough  to  tell  us  that  he  is  not  at  all  as  we  usually 
see  him. 

The  way  we  see  animals  mirrors  our  daily 
experience  of  them.  We  know  them  as  food,  but 
typically  the  animals  are  cut  up  to  look  nothing 
like  themselves.  We  know  them  as  domesticates, 
the  products  of  thousands  of  years  of  selective 
breeding.  As  for  other  animals — the  vast  major- 
ity of  the  animal  kingdom  —  our  day-to-day  lives 
do  not  include  them.  We  see  them  as  things  to  kill 
or  as  things  that  kill  us.  We  see  them  as  ludicrous 
caricature's  of  ourselves.  We  see  them  in  thou- 
sands of  far-fetched  and  colorful  ways.  In  short, 
wc  make  them  into  myths. 

Myths  about  animals  are  powerful  and 
seductive.  They  inspire  us  to  go  to  Africa  in 
search  of  danger  and  adventure  or,  more  philo- 
sophically, in  search  of  our  primal  selves.  We  go 
to  zoos  and  to  sea  world  shows  by  the  millions. 
And  we  pack  the  theaters  or  sit  glued  to  our  TV 
sets  to  be  terrified,  amused,  or  sentimental  about 
animals.  The  way  we  see  animals  says  a  lot  about 
ourselves,  and  the  origins  of  our 
perceptions  go  back  a  long  way. 

The  Bible  and  evolutionary  theory  both 
presume  a  time  when  humans  were  more  in  tune 


with  the  animal  kingdom.  Adam  and  Eve  are 
always  shown  among  other  innocent  beasts  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden  before  thev  fell  from  Grace. 
Evolutionary  theory  tells  us  that  the  great  divide 
between  people  and  other  creatures  was  a  cereb- 
ral Rubicon;  a  time,  perhaps  two  million  years 
ago,  when  human  brains  totally  outclassed  the 
others.  The  latest  evolution  hypothesis  goes  on 
to  suggest  that  these  early  human  ancestors  were 
not  the  intrepid  hunters  they  are  often  alleged  to 
be.  Rather,  through  long-distance  travel  and 
unparalleled  wit,  they  managed  to  thrive  by 
collecting  plants  arid  by  scavenging  from  the  kills 
of  the  great  predators.  Large  brains  nonetheless 
ultimately  became  the  vehicle  by  which  the 
human-to-animal  relationship  was  totally 
altered  and  continues  to  change. 

Braininess  endowed  humans  with  the 
unprecedented  capacity  for  abstract  thought. 
This  capacity,  in  turn,  allowed  people  to  manip- 
ulate other  animals,  to  confront  them  indirectly 
as  opposed  to  head-on.  A  lion  kills  with  fang  and 
claw  but  humans  lack  these  body  parts  so  they 
make  spears.  Spears  and  clubs  were  innovations 
early  in  the  game.  Thousands  of  years  later 
people  used  fire,  built  traps,  and  drove  animals 
off  cliffs  to  become  more  effective  killers  with 


I 
=1' 


!| 


Bushman  women  of 

the  Kalahari  Desert 

u>e  ostrich  eggs  to 

store  water  People 

have  long  depended 

on  animal  parts 

and  products  for 

survival.  Some  of  the 

earliest  iveapions.  for 

example,  are  thought 

to  have  been  animal 

hones.  This  theory 

is  reflected  in  the 

opening  scene  of  the 

film  2001:  A  Space 

Odvssev. 


less  risk  to  themselves.  Still  later,  they  tamed 
animals — quite  literally  changing  the  natures  of 
the  beasts  to  serve  human  needs.  Most  recently, 
genetic  engineering  has  raised  the  distinct  possi- 
bility of  creating  animals  from  scratch.  Human 
mastery  and  domination  of  the  animal  kingdom 
has  become  so  complete  that  the  prospect  of 
fashioning  our  own  kingdom,  instead  of  pro- 
tecting the  remnants  of  the  one  from  which  we 
emerged,  is  no  longer  science  fiction. 

Such  power  suggests  responsibility.  Is  it 
possible  to  preserve  other  animals?  —  and,  once 
preserved,  what  have  these  animals  become?  Is 
Jaws  still  a  shark,  Willard  still  a  rat,  Mickey  still  a 
mouse,  or  Elsa  still  a  lion?  Is  an  African  wildlife 
preserve  simply  a  San  Diego  Zoo  several  times 
over?  When  we  protect  an  animal  species — 
ostensibly  to  preser\'e  a  natural  heritage  —  what 
has  been  saveei  and  what  has  been  irrevocably 
lost?  The  endangered  whooping  crane,  for 
example,  lives  as  such  in  its  wildlife  refuge  but 
breeds,  matures,  and  dies  in  artificial  circum- 
stances. As  an  organism,  it  survives.  As  a  repre- 
sentative of  a  way  of  life,  it  is  virtually  extinct. 

Animals  in  Human  Perspective  explores 
popular  mvths  of  animals  as  reflected  in  films 
and  TV  shows.  It  is  as  much  an  exploration  of 
human  nature  as  it  is  an  investigation  of  animals. 
The  journev  begins  Thursday  evening,  October 
16,  and  runs  six  consecutive  Thursdays  through 
November  20.  Each  class  meeting  consists  of  ap- 
proximately one  hour  of  film  viewing  and  one 
hour  for  lecture  and  discussion.  "Planet  of  the 
Apes"  is  screened  in  its  entirety  and  analyzed  by 
an  expert  panel  of  discussants  during  the  last 
class  session.  Registration  details  appear  in  the 
Fall,  1980,  Courses  for  Adults  brochure. 


A  related  special  event  is  "Human 
Uniqueness  and  Animal  Nature"  on  Friday,  Oc- 
ttiberiy,  at  8:00  p.m.  in  James  Simpson  Theatre. 
This  lecture  is  presented  by  Stephen  Jay  Gould. 
One  of  the  world's  most  versatile  scientists, 
Professor  Gould  holds  appointments  in  geology, 
comparative  zoology,  biology,  and  the  history  of 
science  at  Harvard  University.  Equally  respected 
as  a  commentator  on  science  and  scientific  con- 
troversy, he  is  perhaps  most  widely  known  for 
his  Natural  Histori/  magazine  essays  on  evolu- 
tion. These  appear  there  under  the  general 
heading  "This  View  of  Life,"  and  many  were 
published  as  a  collection.  Ever  Since  Darwin:  Ref- 
lections in  Natural  History,  in  1977.  Dr  Gould's  lec- 
ture challenges  the  accepted  barriers  between 
humankind  and  nature  and  explores  why  the 
Western  world  has  yet  to  make  its  peace  with 
Darwin  and  evolutionary  theory.  Registration 
details  for  this  distinguished  lecture  appear  in 
the  October  Calendar  of  Events. 

Participants  in  the  ANIMALS  IN  HUMAN 
Perspective  course  have  the  opportunity  to  en- 
roll in  an  intensive  seminar  which  explores 
human  control  over  other  animals.  Using  the 
same  film  and  lecture  format  as  the  course,  the 
seminar  focuses  on  the  roles  and  future  of  zoos, 
controversy  surrounding  the  use  of  animals  in 
experiments,  animals  as  pets,  animals  as  used  for 
human  entertainment,  so-called  "wild"  animals, 
and  the  future  of  animals  in  a  world  dominated 
by  humans.  Each  of  these  issues  is  explored  with 
the  help  of  expert  commentators.  In  the  first 
seminar  session,  for  example,  the  Nova  film 
"Memories  from  Eden"  is  discussed  with  the  di- 
rectors of  the  Lincoln  Park  and  Brookfield  zoos. 
The  seminar  is  open  to  course  participants 
only.  D 


^-^♦'- 


I 


24 


rr^n^^™- 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 

Continued  from  ^:.  12 


Midwinter  Bald  Eagle  Survey 
On  Upper  Mississippi 

I'he  wintering  population  of  bdld  eagles 
ailing  the  Upper  Mississippi  River  appears 
to  be  stable,  according  to  recently  tabu- 
lated results  of  the  Midwinter  Bald  EagI 
Survey  conducted  by  Eagle  Vallev  En 
vironmentalists  (eve)  on  February  2  and  3 
1980.  eve's  survey  is  a  continuation  of  th 
midwinter  counts  run  for  nearlv  two  dec 
ades  by  Elton  Fawks,  of  East  Moline,  11 
linois.  . 

E\  E's  two-day  count  tallied  875  bald 
eagles  along  the  Mississippi  River  be- 
tween Minneapolis-St.  Paul,  and  Cairo, 
Illinois.  649  of  the  birds  were  adults,  198 
were  immatures,  and  28  were  not  clas- 
sified. These  figures  compare  to  922  bald 
eagles  counted  in  the  19-day  survey  spon- 
sored by  the  National  Wildlife  Federation 
in  January.  The  January  count  included 
668  adults,  208  immatures,  and  46  unclas- 
sified. 

"We  believe  the  eve  figures  present  a 
more  accurate  picture  of  the  wintering 
population  along  the  Mississippi  River," 
stated  Terry  Ingram,  eve's  executive  direc- 
tor. "A  count  made  over  nearly  three 
weeks  will  have  inaccuracies  because  of 
the  tremendous  mobility  of  these  birds. 
Many  might  be  counted  more  than  once, 
and  some  are  bound  to  be  missed.  Also, 
there  was  a  heavy  southward  migration  in 
January,  whereas  in  early  February  the 
population  was  more  settled.  A  two-day 
count  also  provides  stronger  data  on  con- 
centrations in  feeding  areas." 

Regarding  the  mobility  of  bald  eagles, 
Ingram  noted  the  difference  between 
counts  taken  two  days  apart  at  Cassvilie, 
Wisconsin.  "On  January  3,  an  aerial  sur- 
vey made  by  the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service  showed  19  adults  and  three  imma- 
tures in  the  Cassvilie  area.  On  January  5,  I 
counted  56  adults  and  four  immatures  in 
the  same  area  while  leading  a  bus  tour." 

Two  concentrations  of  bald  eagles 
sht)wn  in  both  counts  merit  special  atten- 
tit>n.  There  were  large  numbers  of  eagles 
in  the  vicinity  of  Cordova,  Illinois — 194  in 
E\'E's  February  count,  and  119  in  the  NWF 
January  count.  Both  surveys  revealed  that 
most  of  the  birds  (160  in  February)  were 
upstream  from  the  nuclear  power  plant 
near  Cordova  and  thus  not  feeding  in  the 
open  water  downstream  from  the  plant. 

"We  don't  know  why  so  many  birds 
are  concentrating  above  Cordova,"  said 
Ingram.  "Obviously  there's  a  major  food 
source.  But  we've  seen  only  small  patches 
of  open  water  upstream  from  the  power 
plant.  It  might  be  that  these  large  numbers 
are  the  result  of  an  increased  number  of 


observers  in  the  area.  There  may  be  an 
increase  in  the  fish  population  attracting 
the  eagles.  Or  there  may  be  fish  kills  tak- 
ing place — that  stretch  of  river  is  heavily 
industrialized.  If  fish  kills  are  occurring 
because  of  pollution,  we  need  to  find  the 
source  of  the  problem,  because  the  eagles 
may  be  picking  up  toxic  substances  in  their 
food." 

The  second  major  concentration  of 
wintering  bald  eagles  was  along  the  Il- 
linois River,  where  460  eagles  were 
counted  in  January.  The  February  count 
along  the  Illinois  River  had  to  be  cancelled 
at  the  last  minute. 

Ingram  noted  that  the  same  reasons 
for  the  concentrations  at  Cordova  —  more 
observers,  a  larger  food  supply,  or  fish 
kills — may  explain  the  large  number  of 
eagles  along  the  Illinois  River  "It  may  also 
be  part  of  the  Mississippi  River  population 
temporarily  shifted  over  to  the  Illinois 
River" 

Though  the  wintering  population  ap- 
pears to  be  stable,  Ingram  cautioned  that 
large  numbers  don't  necessarily  mean 
dangers  to  the  eagles'  survival  have 
ceased  to  exist.  "We  need  to  know  more 
about  historic  wintering  sites  so  we  can 
continue  to  identify  and  set  aside  land 
these  birds  need  to  help  them  survive  the 
stresses  of  winter,"  he  said.  "And  we  need 
to  know  more  about  what  and  where  they 
are  eating,  in  order  to  find  out  whether  or 
not  they're  picking  up  poisons  that  might 
affect  reproductivity." 


The  Living  Tree:  Nature's 
Own  Air  Conditioner 

It  mav  be  more  energy-wise  to  plant  trees 
than  to  add  a  few  inches  of  insulation,  says 
a  director  of  the  American  Society  of 
Home  Inspectors.  Research  in  New  En- 


gland determined  shade  trees  on  the 
south-southwestern  side  of  a  home  could 
save  as  much  as  $50  a  year  in  cooling  costs. 
A  large-leaved  deciduous  tree's  shade 
equals  a  half  ton  of  air-conditioning  ca- 
pacity. 

Every  day,  2,000  acres  of  land  in  the 
United  States  are  taken  from  rural  uses 
and  converted  into  urban  areas.  With 
populations  increasing,  a  good  question  to 
ask  is:  how  much  landscape  and  trees  do 
we  need  per  person?  Recommendations 
b\'  the  University  of  Utah's  Environmental 
Impact  Office  are  200  square  feet  of  live 
plant  area  per  person,  including  one  tree 
for  every  two  people,  plus  one  tree  for 
every  car  in  use.  Everv  fifth  tree  should  be 
an  evergreen. 


Algae  for  Food  and  Fuel 

Algae,  among  the  humblest  and  most 
abundant  of  earth's  organisms,  may  hold 
a  solution  to  two  of  the  world's  most  pres- 
sing scarcity  problems:  food  and  fuel.  Ac- 
cording to  Environment  magazine,  Israeli 
scientists  who  have  been  culti\ating  the 
plant  in  salty  desert  ponds  say  it  could  be 
the  "soybean  of  the  future,"  thanks  to  its 
high  protein  content  and  ability  to  thrive 
in  environments  that  are  hostile  to  other 
forms  of  life.  And  an  Australian  report 
predicts  that  algae  refined  to  produce 
methane  gas  or  ketones  could  shortlv 
supply  60  percent  of  that  nation's  motor 
fuel  needs. 


Cobra  Venom  May  Yield 
Effective  Snake  Antivenin 

Researchers  at  the  Universit\'  of  Idaho  say 
their  studies  of  cobra  venom  may  lead  to 
vaccines  capable  of  protecting  humans 
and  animals  against  all  forms  of  snakebite. 

Zoologists  Ken  Laurence  and  Darwin 
Vest  say  they  have  succeeded  in  protect- 
ing animals  against  the  lethal  effects  of 
cobra  venom  with  a  single  vaccination 
prior  to  injecting  the  \enom. 

A  by-product  of  their  research  they 
say,  is  a  faster  method  of  producing  an- 
tivenin to  counteract  effects  of  snakebites 
on  victims.  The  new  antivenin  appears  to 
be  more  effective  and  less  dangerous  than 
the  variety  now  on  the  market,  they 
report. 


HONOR  ROLL  OF  DONORS 

Major  Contributions  in  Support  of  Field  Museum's  Programs 
of  Research,  Education,  and  Exhibition 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  is  deeply  grateful 
to  its  many  donors  —  individuals,  corporations, 
and  foundations  —  who  annually  support  the 
work  of  the  Museum.  Their  gifts  help  ensure  that 
programs  of  exhibition  and  education  remain  at 
the  levels  of  excellence  that  the  public  has  come  to 
expect.  Donor  support  also  underlies  the  work  of 
the  Museum's  35  curator-scientists  who  make 
original  contributions  in  basic  research  in  the  fields 


of  anthropology,  botany,  geology,  and  zoology. 

We  wish  to  recognize  those  generous 
donors  who  have  helped  so  far  in  1980  to  meet  the 
current  budget.  By  way  of  recognition,  we  place  on 
the  Honor  Roll  of  Donors  the  following  who  have 
contributed  $1,000  or  more  during  the  period 
January  1  through  June  30, 1980,  and  extend  to  each 
our  heartfelt  thanks. 


Individuals — $5,000  and  over 

Anonymous 
D and R Fund 

(Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Rosenthal) 
Estate  of  John  W.  Leslie 
The  Martin  Fund,  Inc. 

(Mrs.  Jennifer  Martin) 
The  Oscar  G.  and  Elsa  S.  Mayer 

Charitable  Fund 

(Mr.  Oscar  G.  Mayer) 
Mr.  David  Sensibar 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jack  C.  Staehle 
Ruth  and  Vernon  Taylor  Foundation 

(Mr.  and  Mrs.  Phelps  Hoyt  Swift) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Blaine  J.  Yarrington 

Individuals— $l,000-$4, 999 

Anonymous 

Abra  Prentice  Anderson  Charitable 

Trust 

(Mrs.  Abra  Prentice  Anderson) 
Mrs.  Lester  Armour 
Blum-Kovler  Foundation 

(Mr.  Jonathon  Kovler) 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cameron  Brown 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roger  O.  Brown 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jerry  G.  Chambers 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Gaylord  Donnelley 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nicholas  Galitzine 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Lawrence  L.  German 
Grainger  Foundation 

(Mr  and  Mrs.  David  Grainger) 
Mr  John  W.  B.  Hadley 
Mrs.  Burton  W.  Hales 
26  Mr  and  Mrs.  Robert  S.  Hartman 


Dr  Helen  Holt 

The  H.  Earl  Hoover  Foundation 

(Mr  and  Mrs.  H.  Earl  Hoover) 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Riley  Jadwin 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Moses  Malkwin 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Richard  Moser 
Mrs.  Arthur  T  Moulding 
Dorothy  Wrigley  Offield  Charity 

Fund 

(Mr  Wrigley  Offield) 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Kenneth  O'Meara 
Ms.  Vera  Putnik 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Rome 
The  Arthur  Rubloff  Fund 

(Mr  Arthur  RublofO 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Samuel  Semerad 
Ruth  and  Vernon  Taylor  Foundation 

(Mr  William  T  Bartholomay) 
Ruth  and  Vernon  Taylor  Foundation 

(Mr  and  Mrs.  Theodore  Tieken,  Jr) 
Edmund  B.  Thorton  Family 
Foundation 

(Mr  Edward  B.  Thorton) 
Chester  D.  Tripp  Trust 
Mrs.  Chester  D.  Tripp 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Herbert  Ullmann 
Mr  and  Mrs.  Lee  F.  Wendell 
Howard  L.  Willett  Foundation,  Inc. 

(Mrs.  Howard  L.  Willett,  Jr) 
Louise  M.  Williams  Charitable  Trust 

(Mr  and  Mrs.  Albert  D.  Williams) 
Mr  and  Mrs.  E.  W.  Worcester 


Corporations  and  Foundations 
$5,000  and  over 

AT&T  Long  Lines 
The  Allstate  Foundation 


Borg-Warner  Foundation,  Inc. 
Chicago  Community  Trust 
Commonwealth  Edison  Company 
Consolidated  Foods  Corporation 
Esmark,  Incorporated  Foundation 
Ford  Motor  Company  Fund 
Illinois  Bell  Telephone  Co. 
Inland  Steel-Ryerson  Foundation, 

Inc. 
International  Minerals  and  Chemical 

Corporation 
Kraft,  Inc. 
John  D.  and  Catherine  T  MacArthur 

Foundation 
The  Northern  Trust  Company 
Peoples  Energy  Corporation 
Frederick  Henry  Prince  Testamentary 

Trust 
Sahara  Coal  Company,  Inc. 
The  A.  Montgomery  Ward 

Foundation 
Western  Electric  Fund 
Whirlpool  Foundation 

Corporations  and  Foundations 
$l,000-$4,999 

Alcoa  Foundation 

American  National  Bank  &  Trust 

Company  of  Chicago 
Bliss  &  Laughlin  Industries 
Leo  Burnett  Company,  Inc. 
Carson  Pirie  Scott  Foundation 
Chicago  Bridge  &  Iron  Foundation 
Clark  Equipment  Company 
Continental  Bank  Foundation 
Crane  Packing  Company 
Crum  and  Forster  Foundation 


HONOR  ROLL  OF  DONORS 


Corporations  and  Foundations 
$l,000-$4,999 

Dana  Corpciratinn  Foundation 
Fisher  Bodv  Division 

(General  Motors  Corporation) 
General  American  Transportation 

Corporation 
General  Binding  Corporation 
The  General  Tire  Foundation,  hic. 


Alexander  Grant  &  Company 

Interlake  Foundation 

Kemper  Educational  &  Charitable 

Fund 
Llovds  Bank  International 
Maremont  Corporation  Foundation 
Marsteller  Foundation 
John  Mohr  &  Sons 
The  L.  E.  Myers  Company 


Gust  E.  Newberg  Construction 

Company 
Power  Systems,  Inc. 
Pullman,  Inc.  Foundation 
Quaker  C^ats  Foundation 
Rockwell  International 
Shell  Companies  Foundation 
Uarco,  Incorporated 
United  States  Steel  Foundation,  Inc. 


September  &  October  at  Field  Museum 

(September  15  through  October  15 


New  Exhibit 

"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China:  An  Exhibition  from  the 
People's  Republic  of  China."  The  most  important  archeologi- 
cal  exhibit  ever  to  come  out  of  China  makes  its  only  Midwest 
showing  at  Field  Museum.  The  exhibit  features  recent  dis- 
coveries that  have  fundamentally  changed  our  knowledge  of 
ancient  Chinese  history  and  art.  The  105  treasures,  dating 
from  about  1800  B.C..  include  bronze  vessels,  jade  sculptures, 
and  eight  life-size  clay  figures  from  the  spectacular  "buried 
army"  of  China's  first  emperor  Exhibit  curator:  Bennet  Bron- 
son;  designer;  Clifford  Abrams.  Through  October  29.  Halls  26 
and  27.  2nd  floor 

Continuing  Exhibits 

"Fossil  Vertebrates."  There's  something  new  in  the  Museum's 
famous  "Dinosaur  Hall" — the  72-foot-long  apatosaurus  di- 
nosaur has  a  new  head!  When  it  was  recently  discovered  that 
all  apatosaurus  (formerly  called  brontosaurus)  specimens 
were  mounted  with  incorrect  heads.  Museum  staff  replaced 
the  old  head  with  a  cast  of  the  correct  skull.  You  can  also  see 
skeletons  of  other  prehistoric  animals,  the  renowned  Charles 
R.  Knight  murals,  and  a  life-size  diorama  of  a  Coal  Period 
forest.  Hall  38,  2nd  floor. 

"Hall  of  Useful  Plants."  Is  It  a  poison  or  a  medicine?  In  large 
doses,  curare,  a  plant  product,  can  be  fatal  to  man;  but  in  low 
doses.  It  Induces  muscle  relaxation,  a  condition  especially  de- 
sirable In  certain  surgical  procedures.  Other  medicinal  plant 
products  displayed  here  are  antibiotics,  digitalis,  and  quinine. 
You  can  also  find  out  about  the  origins  of  hallucinogens, 
mind-altering  drugs,  and  pacifiers  in  this  hall.  Hall  28,  2nd 
floor 


"Portraits  of  Man."  This  excellent  collection  of  lifelike  bronze 
statues  depicting  mankind  around  the  world  is  the  work 
of  Malvina  Hoffman  (1885-1966),  who  did  some  of  her 
earlier  work  under  Auguste  Rodin.  2nd  floor  balcony  and 
ground  floor 

New  Programs 

Free  Films  on  Ancient  China  are  offered  for  the  duration  of 
"The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China"  exhibit.  China:  The  Begin- 
nings discusses  the  search  for  the  origin  of  Chinese  civiliza- 
tion. Ch(na./-/undredSc/ioo/s  to  One  documents  the  warring 
between  the  states  and  the  formation  of  the  Qin  empire. X/an 
traces  the  history  of  the  ancient  imperial  city  of  that  name. 
Films  are  screened  each  Friday  Saturday  and  Sunday  In  Lec- 
ture Hall  I  at  1 1  a.m..  12;30  p.m..  and  2  p.m.,  respectively  Made 
possible  by  a  grant  from  the  Mational  Endowment  for  the 
Humanities. 

The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China  Lecture  Series.  Don't  miss  the 
last  two  programs  in  this  series  of  outstanding  lectures  by 
noted  speakers.  Fridays,  8  p,m.,  Simpson  Theatre,  Tickets 
(Members  $2,  nonmembers  53.50)  are  available  from  the 
Education  Department  (322-8854),  or  at  the  lecture  door. 
Sept.  26;  From  Warring  States  to  Empire:  China  During  the 
Zhou  and  Qin  Dynasties  with  Dr  Derk  Bodde,  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  Oct,  3;  Recent  Discoveries  in  Chinese  Bronze 
Age  Art:  New  Answers  and  Questions  with  Dr  Virginia  C. 
Kane,  University  of  Michigan, 

Third  Annual  Festival  of  Anthropology  on  Film.  Come  experi- 
ence the  cultures  of  the  world  in  one  weekend!  Fifty  fascinating 
films  will  examine  ritual  and  possession,  men  and  women, 
music  and  dance,  and  other  subjects.  A  world  leader  in  visual 

(Continued  on  back  couer)  27 


ILLI'iOIS     -NATURAL    HrSTORV 

SUR\(EY    LIB    RF    196 

NATLRAL    RESCLRCES    BUILDING 

URHA"^'i     ILL    €1301 


September  &  October  at  Field  Museum 


(Continued  from  inside  back  cover) 


anthropology,  Jean  Rouch  of  the  Musee  de  IHomme  in  Paris, 
will  give  the  keynote  lecture  and  lead  a  workshop  on  filmmak- 
ing techniques.  Order  your  tickets  in  advance  from  the  Educa- 
tion Department  (322-8854),  or  purchase  them  at  the  West 
Door  on  the  days  of  the  festival.  Saturday  and  Sunday,  Sep- 
tember 27  and  28,  10  a.m. -5  p.m.  (both  days).  Tickets:  one 
day:  Members  $7.  nonmembers  58;  both  days:  Members  $12, 
nonmembers  5 15.  For  film  schedules  see  pp.  13-16. 

Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series.  Explore  distant  corners 
of  the  world  every  Saturday  during  October  and  November  at 
2:30  p.m.  in  the  Simpson  Theatre.  Narrated  by  the  filmmakers 
themselves,  these  90-minute  film/lectures  are  recommended 
for  adults.  Admission  is  free  at  the  West  Door;  Members  re- 
ceive priority  seating.  Oct.  4:  England  with  Howard  and  Lucia 
Meyers.  October  11:  The  Great  Smoky  Mountains  with 
Richard  Kern. 

Fall  Journey:  "Fossils  in  the  Roor."  Did  you  know  that  you  can 
find  fossils  in  Museum  floors?  Discover  where  they  are  and 
what  they  are  in  this  self-guided  tour.  You'll  also  visit  the  fossil 
collections.  Free  Journey  pamphlets  are  available  at  Museum 
entrances. 

Courses  for  Adults  begin  October  14.  Enroll  now  for  Animals 
in  Human  Perspective.  This  special  Learning  Museum  course 
probes  our  favorite  ideas  about  the  animal  kingdom  from 


Su-Lin  the  panda,  and  the  Tsavo  man-eating  lions,  Saturday 
Sept.  20,  noon. 

•  "Subsistence  Societies  "  Film  Feature:  Qeros:  The  Shape  of 
Suruiual  examines  the  Peruvian  Indians  located  high  in  the 
Andes.  Saturday,  Sept,  20,  1  p.m. 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt"  concentrates  on  the 
Museum's  collection  of  Egyptian  artifacts,  and  concludes  with 
a  description  of  the  mummification  process;  45-minute  tour. 
Sunday  Sept.  21,  2:30  p.m. 

•  "Ancient  Ocean  Environments"  focuses  on  the  underwater 
world  of  ancient  invertebrate  animals.  Half-hour  tour.  Saturday, 
Sept,  27,  1:30  p,m, 

•  "Culture  and  History  of  Ancient  Egypt,"  Sunday,  Sept,  28, 
2:30  p,m, 

•  "China  Through  the  Ages  "  looks  at  the  inventions,  court  life, 
and  schools  of  thought  in  traditional  China.  30-minute  tour. 
Saturday  Oct.  4,  1:30  p.m. 

•  "Rocks  of  All  Ages"  Film  Feature:  This  Land  traces  the  de- 
velopment of  the  North  American  continent  from  a  lifeless 
expansion  of  rockto  the  coming  of  man.  Sunday,  Oct.  5, 1  p.m. 

•  "Stories  of  the  Field  Museum.'"  Saturday,  Oct.  11,  noon, 

•  "Clay  Dinosaurs,"  Sunday  Oct.  12,  11  a,m,-l  p.m, 

•  "Rocks  of  All  Ages"  Film  Feature:  Evidence  from  Ancient 
Life  examines  the  relation  between  plant  and  animal  evolution 
and  the  history  of  the  earth's  more  prominent  changes,  Sun- 
day Oct.  12,  1  p,m. 


3rd  Annual  FestiviU 
€rf  Anthropology  on  Film 


^o 


■^\V 


^^ 


September  27, 28 

Jean  Rouch  Keynote  Speaker 

seepages  13-16 


Jaws  to  Lassie.  Other  courses  explore  current  topics  in 
anthropology  botany  geology  and  zoology  All  courses  are 
noncredit.  and  require  advance  registration  by  mail.  Call 
322-8855.  For  further  details  see  pp.  22-25. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Each  Saturday  and  Sunday 
between  1 1  a.m.  and  3  p.m.,  you  can  participate  in  a  variety  of 
free  tours,  demonstrations,  and  films  on  natural  history  topics. 
Check  the  Weekend  Sheet  available  at  Museum  entrances  for 
locations  and  additional  programs. 

•  "Stories  of  the  Field  Museum  "  gives  the  fascinating  stories 
behind  some  of  the  best-known  exhibits,  including  Bushman, 


Continuing  Programs 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Individuals  with  an  interest  in  work- 
ing with  school  groups,  presenting  tours,  and  participating  in 
other  educational  programs  are  asked  to  contact  the  Volunteer 
Coordinator  at  922-9410,  ext,  360. 

September  and  October  Hours.  The  Museum  opens  daily  at  9 
a.m.  and  closes  at  5  p.m.  every  day  except  Friday  On  Fridays 
the  Museum  remains  open  until  9  p.m.  throughout  the  year. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  from  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m. 
Obtain  a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor 


Museum  telephone:  (312)  922-9410. 


I  ■  •  i>'i.'i« 


October 
1980 


FIELD  MaSEGM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY  BULLETIN 


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Field  Museum 
of  Natural  History 
Bulletin 


October  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  9 


EditorlDesigncr:  David  M.  Walsten 
Pwdiictioii:  Martha  Poulter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President:  E.  Leland  Webber 
Direetor:  Lorin  I.  Nevling,  Jr. 


Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

cfuiinium 
Mrs.  T.  Stiinton  .Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bcnven  Blair 

.Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy  Jr 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.  Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  InsuU,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pine,  Jr 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


FieU  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulli-lm  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly,  except 
combined  July/August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  Historv,  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive.  Chicago,  II.  60605.  Subscriptions;  S6.00  annually,  53.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription.  Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are 
their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scripts are  welcome.  Museum  phone:  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster;  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  U. 
60605.  ISSN:  0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


CONTENTS 

3  Field  Briefs 

4  Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Film  Lecture 

5  Endangered  and  Threatened  Species 

10  "Splitters"  and  "Lumpers" 

/n/  /■  W.  Holland 

11  Travels  in  an  Antique  Land 

text  by  Mrs.  Anthony  L.  Perrin 
photos  by  Riley  and  Corinne  Jadzvin 

16         Field  Museum  Tours  for  Members 

18         Iroquois  Sash  Inspires  Weaver 

20         Dear  Field  Museum 

Letters  from  Young  Dinosaur  Fans 

22         Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series 
24         Our  Environment 

26         October  and  November  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  Coming  Events 


COVER 

Wisconsin  lake  shoreline  in  autumn.  Photo  by  Robert  Brudd,  of 
Tinley  Park,  Illinois. 


Ownership,  Management  and  Circulation 

Filing  date:  Sept.  15, 1980.  Title:  Field  .Museum  of  Natural 
History  Bulletin.  Publication  no.  898940.  Frequency  of 
publication:  Monthly  except  for  combined  lulv  August 
issue.  Number  of  issues  published  annually:  11.  An- 
nual subscription  price:  $6.00.  Office:  Roosevelt  Rd.  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  111.  60605. 

Publisher:  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History.  Editor: 
David  M.  Walsten.  Known  bondholders,  mortgages, 
and  other  security  holders:  none.  Nonprofit  status  has 
not  changed  during  the  preceding  12  months. 


Av.  no. 

copies 

each  issue 

preceding 

12  mos. 

Total  copies  printed 51,106 

Paid  Circulation  (sales 

through  dealers, 

vendors,  carriers) None 

Paid  circulation  (mail 

subscriptions) 43,501 

Total  paid  circulation 43,501 

Free  distribution 268 

Total  distribution  43,769 

Office  use,  left  over 7,337 

Total  51,106 


Actual  no. 

copies 
single  issue 
nearest  to 
filing  date 

49,565 


None 


42,189 
42,189 
655 
42,844 
6,721 
49,565 


I  certify  that  the  statements  made  by  me  above  are 
correct  and  complete.  Lorin  I.  Nei'ling,  ]r.,  director. 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


Fredrick  A.  Schmi^k 
(right),  regional  pub- 
lic reltitioiif  manager 
for  Foster  and  Kleixr, 
a  Metromedia  Com- 
pany, f'rt'St'M/s  Field 
Museum'f  Public 
Relation^  Manager 
Mary  Cassai  and 
Field  Museum  Vice 
President  of  Develop- 
ment Thomas  R. 
Sanders  with  a  com- 
plimentary bill- 
board from  his 
company.  Nearly 
50  feet  long  and 
20  feet  high,  this 
"Great  Bronze  Age  of 
China"  display  has 
been  installed  just 
off  Chicago's  Outer 
Drive  on  Broadway, 
west  side  ot  the  street, 
south  of  Hollyu'ood 
Boulevard.  It  will 
remain  on  display 
throughout  the  ex- 
hibit, which  closes 
October  29.  Custom- 
made  and  hand- 
painted,  thisbillboard 
xoas  donated  through 
the  courtesy  of  Bert 
K.  Dart,  vice  presi- 
dent, regional  man- 
ager, Foster  and 
Kleiser. 


The  camera  of  Field 
Museum  photog- 
rapher Ron  Testa 
captures  the  silent 
splendor  of  life-size 
terracotta  figures  on 
vieu<  in  "The  Great 
Bronze  Age  of  China" 
exhibit. 


The  Great 
Bronze  Age  of  China 


Field  Museum  Aug.  20  -  Oct.2j 

AiNEXHIBIII0NFR0MTHEPFnPLE'<;RFPUPllCOFCI^ 


'The  Philippine  (Monkey-eating)  Eagle  Expedition" 

Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Film  Lecture 

Friday,  November  14,  8:00  p.m. 

James  Simpson  Theatre 


Field  Museum's  Fall  Ray  A.  Kroc  Environmental  Film  Lecture 
focuses  on  the  rare  and  endangered  Philippine  (Monkey-eating) 
Eagle.  "The  Philippine  (Monkey-eating)  Eagle  Expedition"  film 
makes  its  Chicago  premiere  at  Field  Museum.  Narrated  by 
filmmaker  Alan  Degen  of  F.R.E.E.,  Ltd.  (Films  and  Research  for 
an  Endangered  Environment.  Ltd.),  this  intense  documentary 
film  depicts  the  drama  of  adult  eagles  raising  their  young  amidst 
one  of  the  most  threatened  environments  on  earth.  These 
magnificent  predators  are  fighting  for  survival  in  the  tropical  rain 
forests  of  the  Philippines.  The  film  captures  the  intimacies 
eagles  share,  and  the  hazards  these  birds  face  in  the  wild.  The 
ravages  of  forest  destruction  and  human  encroachment  are 
pushing  this  second  largest  of  the  eagle  family  to  the  brink  of 
extinction. 

Endemic  to  the  Philippines,  this  eagle  once  ranged  over 


most  of  the  larger  Philippine  islands,  Luzon,  Mindanao,  Leyte, 
and  Samar.  Today,  its  population  is  reduced  to  less  than  500 
individual  birds  It  lays  only  one  egg  every  two  years,  and  the 
offspring  depends  on  its  parents  for  more  than  a  year  after 
learning  to  fly 

Alan  Degen,  a  filmmaker  and  naturalist  with  F.R.E.E., 
Ltd..  studied  wildlife  biology  at  Arizona  State  University  and  the 
University  of  Montana.  He  has  participated  in  three  expeditions 
to  South  America  to  study  the  breeding  of  the  Harpy  Eagle  and 
is  currently  involved  in  studying  the  Philippine  (Monkey-eating) 
Eagle. 

This  film  lecture  is  guaranteed  to  fascinate  audiences  of 
all  ages.  For  more  informafion,  see  the  November  Calendar  of 
Events,  or  call  322-8854. 


Immature  Philippine  (monkey-eating)  eagle 


Courtesy  F.R.EE..  Ltd. 


Endangered  Species  and  Threatened  Species  Lists  Updated 


The  official  U.S.  list  of  endangered  and  threatened  wildlife 
and  plants  worldwide  now  carries  773  species,  27b  of  \\  hich 
are  native  to  the  United  States. 

"That's  up  77  from  last  year,"  Paul  Opler  of  the  U.S. 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service's  Endangered  Species  Office  said, 
referring  to  the  previous  list  published  in  January  of  1979. 
"But  that  increase,"  he  was  quick  to  add,  "has  more  to  do 
with  impro\ed  research  than  the  continuing,  general  deterio- 
ration of  the  world's  wildlife  environment.  We're  simpl\' 
finding  more  plants  and  animals  that  need  to  be  classified." 

An  "endangered"  species  is  one  that  is  in  danger  of 
extinction  throughout  all  cir  a  significant  part  of  its  range. 
A  "threatened"  species  is  one  that  is  likeh*  to  become 
"endangered." 

The  additions  made  to  the  list  of  endangered  and 
threatened  species  in  the  last  year  and  a  half  come  from 
e\erv  part  of  the  earth.  Two  of  them  —  Guatemalan  fir  and 
the  Chilean  false  larch  —  are  the  first  foreign  plants  ever  to 
be  listed.  Other  species  include  the  Caribbean  monk  seal. 
West  African  manatee.  North  China  Sika  deer,  and  the  Kern 
(California)  primrose  sphinx  moth.  During  the  last  16 
months,  36  plants  (mostly  cacti),  29  mammals,  9  reptiles,  4 
fish,  1  bird,  and  2  insects  were  added  to  the  revised  list. 

The  basic  cause  for  endangerment  of  either  animals 
or  plants  is  loss  of  habitat.  Man\'  of  these  species  are  impor- 
tant for  economic,  commercial,  and  historic  reasons.  Some, 
such  as  a  number  of  cacti  native  to  the  southwestern  U.S., 
recently  have  become  extremely  popular  house  and  garden 
plants.  Others  have  suffered  exploitation  and  destruction  of 
their  habitats  for  a  much  longer  time. 

Since  at  least  the  time  of  the  ancient  Mayan  Empire, 
Indians  ha\e  burned  the  highland  forest  habitat  of  the 
Guatemalan  fir  to  plant  corn.  The  practice  is  still  followed, 
and  reproductit)n  of  the  rare  trees  is  further  limited  by  the 


grazing  of  sheep  and  goats. 

The  decline  of  the  Chilean  false  larch,  a  tree  that  may 
live  for  3,000  years  and  grow  to  be  150  feet  tall,  began  almost 
400  years  ago  when  the  Spanish  Conquistadores  learned 
of  the  amazing  durabilit\'  of  its  wood.  Wideh'  exported 
since  that  time,  it  has  bi'cn  nearh  eliminated  from  all 
accessible  sites. 

Seamen  of  those  times  replenished  their  ships'  stores 
with  fresh  meat  from  the  Caribbean  monk  seals  that  inha- 
bited the  waters  of  the  West  Indies.  Later,  the  seals  were 
taken  for  thi'  oil  and  pelt  trade.  But  it  was  modern-day 
commercial  fishermen,  who  saw  the  seals  as  fish  predators, 
that  may  have  delivered  the  final  blow  to  the  animal.  Mo 
monk  seals  have  been  officialh'  recorded  since  the  early 
1960s.  The  totoaba,  a  huge  sea  trout  that  grows  to  223 
pounds  and  lives  only  in  the  Gulf  of  California,  is  another 
\'aluable  animal  that  has  suffered  from  commercial  exploita- 
tion. In  190.S,  according  to  an  old  biological  survey  report, 
"totoaba  thronged  the  east  shore  of  Lower  California  and 
choked  the  mouth  of  the  Colorado  River."  Since  then, 
however,  it  has  been  fished  almost  to  the  point  of  extinction. 

Once  a  plant  or  animal  is  listed  as  threatened  or  en- 
dangered under  the  Endangered  Species  Act,  a  variet\'  of 
activities  invoh'ing  the  species  are  strictly  regulated.  For 
United  States  species,  laws  provide  for  protection  ot  its 
habitat  and  limit  the  conditions  under  \shich  it  ma\-  or  may 
not  be  taken,  or  used  in  interstate  commerce,  or  exported  to 
other  countries.  The  laws  also  cover  all  listed  foreign 
species,  controlling  how  an\'  ot  tht'm  ma\'  or  ma\'  not  be 
imported  into  the  United  States.  In  addition,  the  U.S. 
government  offers  technical  assistance  to  state  and  foreign 
governments  for  the  conservation  of  endangered  species. 
Since  the  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973  was  enacted, 
the  U.S.  list  has  almost  tripled  from  106  to  276. 


U.S.  World  List  of  Endangered  and  Threatened  Animals  and  Plants  as  of 

May  1,1980 


Category 

US. 

Mammals  35 

Birds   67 

Reptiles 12 

Amphibians   5 

Fishes 31 

Snails   2 

Clams  23 

Crustaceans 1 

Insects    6 

Plants  49 

Total  231 


Number 
Endangered  J 

Foreign 

251 

of 
species 

Total 

...  286    

. .  .  212    

U.S. 

3    ... 

3    ... 

Number  of 
Threatened  Species 

Foreign 
21     

145 

0    

55 

...     67    

. . .     14    

...     10    . . . 

0    

9 

2    ... 

0    

11 

...    42    

...       3    

...     25    

1     

12    ... 

0    

1 

5    ... 

0    ... 

0    ..  . 

0    

2 

0    

0 

0    

0 

...      6    

...    49    

705 

3    ... 

7    ... 

45 

0    

0 

2    

474 

23 

Total 

.  24 
3 

.  10 
2 

.  12 
5 
0 
0 
3 
9 
68 


Endangered  Species 

Vertebrates  of  Mexico,  Canada,  the  United  States  and  its  possessions,  and  the  Caribbean 

Vertebrate  population 
Common  name  Scientific  name  Historic  range  where  endangered 

MAMMALS 

Bat,  gray  Myotis  gnsescens  Central  and  SE  USA Entire 

Bat,  Hawaiian  hoary Lasiurus  cinereus USA,  (Hawaii)  Entire 

Bat,  Indiana  Myotissodalis  E,  and  Midwest  U.S.A Entire 

Bat,  Ozark  big-eared  Plecotus  townsendii  ingens    US  A.  (MO,  OK,  AR)       Entire 

Bat,  Virginia  big-eared  Plecotus  townsendii  virginianus   U,SA.(KY,WV Entire 

VA,  IN,  IL,  OH) 

Bear  Mexican  grizzly Ursus  arctos  nelsoni Mexico  Entire 

Bison, wood    Bison  b  athabascae Canada,  NW  USA Canada 

Bobcat   Felis  rulus  escuinape  central  Mexico       Entire 

Cougar,  eastern   Felis  concolor  cougar East,  No  Atner     Entire 

Deer,  Cedros  Island  mule  Odocoileus  hemionus  cedrosensis  Mexico  (Cedros  Island) Entire 

Deer.  Columbian  white-tailed  Odocoileus  virginianus  leucuws    U  S.A.  (WA,  OR)  Entire 

Deer,  key Odocoileus  virginianus clavium     USA(So.  FL)  Entire 

Dugong Dugong  dugong         E,  Afnca  to  so  Japan,  inci Entire 

USA,  (Trust  Territories) 

Ferret,  black-footed Mustela  nignpes West.  U.S.A. .  West.  Canada Entire 

Fox,  Northern  swift  Vulpesvelox  hebes      USA  (No  plains),  Canada    Canada 

Fox,  San  Joaquin  kit V.  macrotis  mutica       U.S.A.  (California)  Entire 

Jaguar   Pantheraonca     U.S.A.  (TX,  NM,  AZ),  Cent Mexico 

and  So.  America  southward 

Jaguarundi     Felis  yagouaroundi  cacomitii USA  (TX).  Mexico  Entire 

Jaguarundi     F  yagouaroundi  fossata  Mexico,  Nicaragua Entire 

Jaguarundi  F  yagouaroundi  tolteca USA.  (AZ),  Mexico       Entire 

Manatee,  West  Indian  (Florida) Trichechus  manatus USA.  (S  E).  Caribbean Entire 

Sea.  South  America 
Margay    Felis  wiedii  U.S.A.  (NM,  AZ),  Central Mexico 

and  South  America  southward 

Monkey  howler Alouatta  villosa     Mexico  to  So.  America  Entire 

Mouse,  salt  marsh  harvest Reithrodontomys  raviventris U  S  A  (CA)  Entire 

Ocelot  Felis  pardalis  SW  USA,  Central  and Mexico 

So  America  southward 

Panther  Florida   Felis  concolor  coryi  USA  (UXand  AR  eastto        Entire 

SC  and  FL) 

Prairie  dog.  Mexican  Cynomys  mexicanus     Mexico  Entire 

Praine  dog,  Utah  C- parvidens  U.S.A.  (Utah)  Entire 

Pronghorn,  peninsular    Antilocapra  americana  peninsularis  Mexico  (Baja  California) Entire 

Pronghorn.  Sonoran A.  americana  sononensis    USA,  (AZ),  Mexico  Entire 

Rabbit,  volcano       Romerolagus  diazi       Mexico         Entire 

Rat,  Morro  Bay  kangaroo  Dipodomys  heermanni U.S.A.  (CA)  Entire 

Seal.  Caribbean  monk  Monactius  tropicalus   Caribbean  Sea,  Gulf  of  Mexico Entire 

Seal,  Hawaiian  monk M  schauinslandi  Hawaiian  archipelago     Entire 

Solenodon,  Cuban  Atopogale  cubana Cuba         Entire 

Solenodon,  Haitian  Solenodon  paradoxus  Dominican  Republic,  Haiti       Entire 

Squirrel.  Delmarva  Peninsula  fox  Sciurus  niger  cinereus  USA,  (DelMarVa  Peninsula  Entire 

toS.E  PA) 
Tapir,  Central  American  Tapirus  bairdii     So,  Mexico  to  Colombia  and    Entire 

Ecuador 

Whale,  blue  Balaenoptera  musculus       Oceanic  Entire 

Whale,  bowhead Balaena  mysticetus        Oceanic  (No,  latitudes  only) Entire 

Whale,  finback Balaenoptera  physalus  Oceanic  Entire 

Whale,  gray  Eschrichtius  robustus  No.  Pacific:  coastal  and  Entire 

Bering  Sea 

Whale,  humpback Megaptera  novaeangliae Oceanic  Entire 

Whale,  right    Balaena  glacialis  Oceanic  Entire 

Whale,  Sei  Balaenoptera  borealis  Oceanic  Entire 

Whale,  sperm Physeter  catodon   Oceanic  Entire 

Wolf,  gray  Cams  lupus  Holarctic U.S.A.  (lower 

48  states  except 
MN),  Mexico 

Wolf,  red C  rufus     U.S.A.  (SE.  west  to  cent.  TX)  Entire 

BIRDS 

Akepa.  Hawaii  (honeycreeper) Loxops  coccinea  coccinea U.S.A,  (Hawaii)  Entire 

Akepa.  Maui  (honeycreeper)  L  coccinea  ochracea  Hawaii  Entire 

Akialoa,  Kuai  (honeycreeper) Hemignathus  procerus  Hawaii  Entire 

Akipolaau  (honeycreeper)  H.  wilsoni Hawaii     Entire 

Albatross,  short-tailed    Diomedea  albatrus  No  Pacific,  Japan,  U,S.S.R,,  Entire  except 

U.S.A.  (AK,  CA,  HA,  OR,  WA)  U.S.A. 

Blackbird,  yellow-shouldered Agelaius  xanthomus Puerto  Rico  Entire 

Bobwhite,  masked  (quail) Colinus  virginianus  ridgwayi U.S.A.  (AZ),  Mexico  (Sonora)   Entire 

Cahow  (Bermuda  petrel) Pterodroma  cahow  N.  Atlantic,  Bermuda  Entire 

Condor  California    Gymnogyps  californianus     USA.  (OR,  CA),  Mexico Entire 

(Baia  California) 
Coot.  Hawaiian  Fulica  americana  alai  Hawaii Entire 


Common  name 


Scientific  name 


Crane.  Cuba  sandhill  Grus  canadensis  nesiotes 

Crane.  Mississippi  sandhill Grus  canadensis  pulla 

Crane,  whooping  Grus  amencana 


Creeper  Hawaiian 
Creeper.  Molokai  (Kakawahie) 
Creeper.  Oahu  (Alauwahio) 
Crow.  Hawaiian  (Alala) 
Curassow.  Tnnidad.  white-headed 

Curlew.  Eskimo       

Dove.  Grenada  

Dove.  Palau  ground 

Duck.  Hawaiian  (Koloa) 

Duck,  Laysan  

Eagle,  Harpy  

Eagle,  bald   


Loxops  maculata  mans 
Loxops  maculata  flammea 
Loxops  maculata  maculata 

Corvus  tropicus     

Pipile  pipile  pipile 

Numenius  borealis  

Leptotila  welisi 

Gallicolumba  canifrons 
Anas  wyvilliana 
Anas  laysanensis 
Harpia  harpyja  . 

Haliaeetus  leucocephalus 


Historic  range 

West  Indies.  Cuba 

Mississippi 

Canada,  USA  (Rockies  to 

Carolinas).  Mexico 
Hawaii 

Hawaii  

Hawaii  

Hawaii 

West  Indies.  Trinidad 

Alaska.  No.  Canada  to  Argentina 

West  Indies.  Grenada 

West  Pacific,  Palau  Islands 

Hawaii 

Hawaii  


Vertebrate  population 
where  endangered 

Entire 
Entire 
Entire 


Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 


Mexico  south  to  Argentina    Entire 


N.  America  south  to  No.  Mexico 


Falcon.  American  peregrine 
Falcon,  Arctic  peregrine 


Lower  48  slates 
except  WA,  OR,  Ml. 
WI.MI 


Hawaii  

West  Indies.  Grenada 

West  Pacific,  Palau  Islands 

West  Pacific,  Marianas  Islands  , 

Hawaii 

U.S. A  (AK,  CA.  OR.  WA),  Japan 

Hawaii  

Mexico  


Faico  peregrinus  anatum    Canada,  USA,  Mexico 

FaIco  peregnnus  tundnus  Alaska  to  Greenland,  so.  to 

Argentina 

Finch,  Laysan  (Honeycreeper) Telespyza  (-Psittirostra)       Hawaii 

cantans 

Finch.  Nihoa  (honeycreeper)  Telespyza  (-Psittirostra)  ultima 

Flycatcher.  Euler  s Empidonax  euleri  johnstonei 

Flycatcher.  Palau  fantail Rhipidura  lepida         

Flycatcher.  Tinian  monarch Monarcha  takatsukasae  

Gallinule.  Hawaiian  Gallinula  chloropus  sandvicensis 

Goose.  Aleutian  Canada Branta  canadensis  leucopareia 

Goose.  Hawaiian  ( Nene) Branta  sandvicensis  

Crackle,  slender-billed    Cassidix  palustris 

Guan.  horned  Oreophasis  derbianus  

Hawk.  Hawaiian  (Lo)       Buteo solitanus  

Honeycreeper,  crested     Palmeria  dolei  

(Akohekohe) 

Kite.  Cuba  hook-billed       Chondrohierax  uncinatus  wilsonii 

Kite.  Grenada  hook-billed Chondrohierax  uncinatus  mirus    

Kite.  Everglade  (snail  kite) Rostrhamus  sociabilis  plumbeus  

Mallard.  Marianas  Anas  oustaleti  

Megapode.  La  Perouse's  Megapodius  laperouse 

Millerbird.  Nihoa  (willow  warbler) Acrocephalus  tamiliahs  kingi 

Nukupuu  (honeycreeper)  Hemignathus  lucidus  Hawaii 

Oo.  Kauai  (Oo  Aa)  (honeyeater)  Moho  braccatus        Hawaii Entire 

Ou  (honeycreeper)  Psittirostra  psittacea  Hawaii Entire 

Owl.  Palau       Otus  podargina     Palau  Islands  Entire 

Pallia  (Honeycreeper) Psittirostra  bailleui     Hawaii         Entire 

Parrot.  Bahaman  or  Cuban Amazona  leucocephala  Cuba.  Bahamas,  Caymans Entire 


Entire 
Entire 

Entire 

Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
. .  Entire 
. .    Entire 

Guatemala,  Mexico Entire 

Hawaii  Entire 

Hawaii  Entire 

West  Indies:  Cuba    Entire 

West  Indies:  Grenada Entire 


Florida  

Guam,  Mananas  Island 
Palau  Island,  Mananas  Island 
Hawaii 


Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 


Parrot,  imperial      Amazona  impenalis 

Parrot,  Puerto  Rican  Amazona  vittata 

Parrot,  red-necked  Amazona  arausiaca 

Parrot.  St.  Lucia    Amazona  versicolor 

Parrot.  St  Vincent Amazona  guildingii 

Parrot,  thick-billed    Rhynchopsitta  pachyryncha  Mexico.  AZ 

Parrotbill.  Maui  (honeycreeper)  Pseudonestor  xanthophrys Hawaii 


Pelican,  brown 


Pelecanus  accidentalis 


Dominica      Entire 

Puerto  Rico  Entire 

Dominica    Entire 

St.  Lucia Entire 

St.  Vincent  Entire 

NM    Mexico 

Entire 

Entire 


Carolinas  to  TX.  CA:  West  Indies. 
Cent  Amenca,  coastal  So.  America 

Hawaii         Entire 

Puerto  Rico  Entire 

Hawaii Entire 

Texas Entire 


Petrel.  Hawaiian  dark-rumped Pterodroma  phaeopygia  sandwichensis 

Pigeon.  Puerto  Rican  plain     Colomba  inornata  welmorei 

Poo-uli     Melamprosops  phaeosoma     

Prairie  chicken,  Attwater's  Tympanuchus  cupido  attwrateri  

greater 

Quail,  Merriams  Montezuma Cyrtonyx  montezumae  merriami  Mexico  (Vera  Cruz) Entire 

Ouetzel,  resplendent Pharomachrus  mocinno      Mexico  to  Panama Entire 

Rail.  California  clapper Rallus  longirostnsi  obseletus  California         Entire 

Rail.  !ight-footed  clapper Rallus  longirostnsi  levipes  California.  Ba|a  California Entire 

Rail.  Yuma  clapper  Rallus  longirostnsi  yumanensis  Mexico,  U.S.A.  (AZ,  CA)  Entire 


Shrike,  San  Clemente  loggerhead  Lanius  Iddovicianus  mearnsi 

Sparrow.  Cape  Sable  seaside    Ammospiza  maritima  mirabilis  

Sparrow,  dusky  seaside  Ammospiza  manlima  nigrescens  . . 

Sparrow.  Santa  Barara  song  Melospiza  melodia  graminea  

Starling.  Ponape  mountain  Aplonis  pelzelni  

Stilt.  Hawaiian  Himantopus  himantopus  knudseni . 

Tern.  California  least       Sterna  albilrons  browni        

Thrasher  white-breasted  Rhamphocincius  brachyurus  

Thrush,  large  Kauai  Phaeornis obscurus  myadestina  ... 

Thrush.  Molokai  (Olomau) Phaeornis  obscurus  rutha      

Thrush,  small  Kauai  (Pauiohi)  Phaeornis  palmeri  

Trembler  Martinique  brown     Cinclocerthia  ruficauda  gutturalis  . . 

(Thrasher) 


California Entire 

Florida Entire 

Florida          Entire 

California     Entire 

Caroline  Island      Entire 

Hawaii                   Entire 

Mexico,  California  Entire 

St  Lucia.  Martinique  Entire 

Hawaii Entire 

Hawaii Entire 

Hawaii        Entire 

Martinique   Entire 


Vertebrate  population 
Common  name  Scientific  name  Historic  range  where  endangered 

Warbler  (wood).  Bachman's Vermivora  bachmanii Cuba,  S,E.  U.S.A Entire 

Warbler  (wood),  Barbados  yellow Dendroica  petechia  petechia  Barbados  Entire 

Warbler  (wood),  Kirtland's  Denroica  kirtlandii  U.S.A.  (principally  Ml),  Entire 

Canada.  Bahamas 

Warbler  (wood).  Semper's        Leucopeza  sempeh   St.  Lucia  Entire 

Whip-poor-will,  Puerto  Rican  Capnmulgus  noctitherus Puerto  Rico  Entire 

White-eye,  Ponape  great  Rukia.  longirostra  (sanfordi)  Caroline  Islands  Entire 

Woodpecker  imperial     Campephilus  imperialis Mexico  Entire 

Woodpecker  ivory-billed Campephilus  principalis U  S.A.  (southcentral  and Entire 

southeastern),  Cuba 

Woodpecker  red-cockaded Picoides  (-Dendrocopus)  borealis USA  (southcentral  and  Entire 

southeastern) 

Wren.  Guadeloupe  house  Troglodytes  aedon  guadelupensis Guadeloupe Entire 

Wren.  St.  Lucia  house  Troglodytes  aedon  mesoleucus St.  Lucia Entire 

REPTILES 

Alligator.  American  Alligator  mississippiensis    Southeastern  U.S.A.  Wherever  found  in 

wild  except  where 
listed  as  threa- 
tened 

Alligator  Amencan  Alligator  mississippiensis Southeastern  USA  In  captivity 

wherever  found 

Anole,  Culebra  giant       Anolis  rooseveiti Puerto  Rico  (Culebra  Island)    Entire 

Boa,  Jamaican       Epicrates  subflavus    Jamaica     Entire 

Boa,  Puerto  Rico    Epicrates  inornatus   Puerto  Rico  Entire 

Boa,  Virgin  Islands  tree  Epicrates  monensis  granti    U.S.  and  British  Virgin  Islands  Entire 

Chuckwalla.  San  Esteban  Island  Sauromalus  varius  Mexico  Entire 

Crocodile.  Amencan  Crocodylus  acutus    Flonda,  Mexico.  So.  Amenca,  Entire 

Cent.  America,  Caribbean 

Crocodile,  Cuban     Crocodylus  rhombifer Cuba      Entire 

Crocodile,  Morelefs Crocodylus  moreleti   Mexico.  Belize,  Guatemala  Entire 

Iguana,  Anegada  ground  Cyclura  pinguis Anegada  Island  (British  Virgin  Entire 

Islands) 

Lizard,  blunt-nosed  leopard  Crotaphytus  silus California         Entire 

Lizard,  St  Croix  ground  Ameiva  polops   Green  Cay  Protestant  Cay       Entire 

(US.  Virgin  Islands) 

Snake.  San  Francisco  garter  Thamnophis  sirtalis  tetrataenia California  Entire 

Tortoise.  Bolson  Gopherus  flavomarginatus  Mexico Entire 

Turtle,  aquatic  box Terrapene  coahuila        Mexico Entire 

Turtle.  Cuatro  cienegas  softshell  Trionyxater Mexico  .  Entire 

Turtle,  green  sea  Chelonia  mydas  circumglobal  in  tropical  and   Breeding  colony 

temperate  seas  and  oceans  populations  in 

Flonda  and  on 
Pacific  coast 
of  Mexico 

Turtle,  hawksbill  sea  (-carey)  Eretmochelys  imbricata Tropical  seas Entire 

Turtle.  Kemp s  (-Atlantic)         Lepidochelys kempii    Tropical  and  moderate  seas Entire 

Ridley  sea 

Turtle,  leatherback  sea   Dermochelys  coriacea Tropical,  temperate,  and  Entire 

subpolar  seas 

Turtle,  Olive  (Pacific)  Lepidochelys  otivacea  Circumglobal  in  tropical  and    Breeding  colony 

Ridley  sea  temperate  seas  and  oceans  populations  on 

Pacific  coast 
Mexico 

Turtle.  Plymouth  red-bellied  Chrysomys  (-Pseudemys)  rubriventris Massachusetts  Entire 

bangs! 
AMPHIBIANS 

Salamander,  desert  slender  Batrachoseps  aridus  California Entire 

Salamander,  Santa  Cruz  long-toed  Ambystoma  macrodaclylum  croceum  California Entire 

Salamander.  Texas  blind Typhylomolge  rathbuni  Texas Entire 

Toad,  Houston        Bufo  houstonensis  Texas Entire 

Treefrog,  pine  barrens  Hyla  andersonii FL,  AL,  NC,  SC,  NJ Entire 

FISHES 

Blindcat.  Mexican Prietella  phreatophila  Mexico Entire 

Bonytail,  Pahranagat Gila  robusta  jordani  Nevada Entire 

Chub,  bonytail  Gilaelegans  AZ.  CA,  CO.  NV,  UT,  WY Entire 

Chub,  humpback Gila  cypha  CA  Entire 

Cisco,  longjaw Coregonus  alpenae  Lakes  Michigan.  Huron.  Ene     Entire 

Cui-ul Chasmistes  cujus  Nevada  Entire 

Dace,  Kendall  Warm  Springs Rhinichthys  osculus  thermalis Wyoming    Entire 

Dace,  Moapa  Moapa  coriaces Nevada Entire 

Darter,  fountain  Ethiostoma  fonticola Texas         Entire 

Darter.  Maryland Ethiostoma  sellare Maryland     Entire 

Darter.  Okaloosa  Etheostoma  okaloosae Florida  Entire 

Darter.snail  Percina tanasi  Tennessee    Entire 

Darter,  watercress   Etheostoma  nuchale  Alabama  Entire 

Gambusia,  Big  Bend     Gambusia  gaigei Texas Entire 

Gambusia,  Clear  Creek Gambusia  heterochir Texas Entire 


Common  name  Scientific  name  Historic  range 

Gambusia,  Goodenough  Gambusia  amistadensis  Texas 

Gambusia,  Pecos    Gambusia  nobilis  New  Mexico,  Texas 

Killifish,  Pahrump Empetnchthys  latos  Nevada 

Madtom.  Scioto Noturus  trautmani  Ohio 

Pil<e,  blue       Stizosledion  vitreum  glaucum Lakes  Erie  and  Ontario . 

Pupflsh,  Comanche  Springs Cyprinodon  elegans    Texas 


Pupfish.  Devil's  Hole 

Pupfish,  Owens  River     

Pupfish,  Tecopa  

Pupfish.  Warm  Springs    

Squawfish.  Colorado  River 
Stickleback,  unarmed  Ihreespine 


Cyrpinodon  diabolis   Nevada  , 

Cyprinodon radiosus Calif,    .,, 

Cypnnodon  nevadensis  calidae  Calif.     ,. 

Cyprinodon  nevadensis  pectoralis  Nevada 

Ptychocheilus  lucius    

Gasterosterus  aculeatus  williamsoni 


Sturgeon,  shortnose  Acipenser  brevirostrum 


AZ,  CA,  CO,  MN,  NV,  UT,  WY 

Calif. 

USA.  and  Canada  (Atlaniic 

coast) 
AZ,  NM,  f^exico  


Topminnow,  Gila  Poecilliopsis  occidentalis      

Totoaba  (seatrout  or  weakflsh)  Cynoscion  macodonaldi     IVIexico  (Gulf  of  California) 

Trout,  Gila  Salmo  gilae  New  Mexico 

Woundfln  Plagopterus  argentissimus AZ,  NV,  UT 


Vertebrate  population 
where  endangered 

Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 

Entire 
Entire 
Entire 
Entire 


Threatened  Species 

Vertebrates  of  Mexico,  Canada,  the  United  States  and  its  possessions,  and  the  Caribbean 


Common  name 


Scientific  name 


Historic  range 


Vertebrate  population 
where  threatened 


Canada,  western  US  A Lower  48  states 

Mexico,  Belize,  Guatemala    Entire 


MAMMALS 

Bear  brown  or  grizzly        Ursus  arctos  horribilis  

Monkey,  black  howler  Alouatta  pigra        

Otter  southern  sea Enhydra  lutris  nereis  West  Coast  U.S. A  ( WA)  south Entire 

to  Mexico  (Ba)a  Calif.) 

Wolf,  gray    Canis  lupus  

BIRDS 

Eagle,  bald  Haliaeetus  leucocephalus  


Holarctic 


No.  America  south  to 

northern  Mexico 

Sheanwater,  Newell's  Manx   Puffinus  puffinus  newelli Hawaii  ' 

Sparrow,  San  Clemente  sage    Amphispiza  belli  clementeae Calif 

REPTILES 

Alligator  Amencan  Alligator  mississippiensis S.E  USA 


USA  (MN) 


USA  (WA. 
OR.MN,  WI,MI) 
Entire 
Entire 

USA  (FL,  SC,  TX,  and 
certain  areas  of 
GA,  LA) 


Boa,  Mona  Epicrates  monensis  monensis  Puerto  Rico  Entire 

Iguana,  Mona  ground      Cyclura  steinegen  Mona  Island  (Puerto  Rico)  Entire 

Lizard,  island  night      Klaubenna  riversiana  Calif Entire 

Rattlesnake,  New  Mexico Crolalus  willardi  obscurus  New  Mexico,  Mexico  Entire 

ridge-nosed 

Snake,  Atlantic  salt  marsh        Nerodia  fasciata  taeniata  Flonda Entire 

Snake,  eastern  indigo      Drymarchon  corals  couperi  AL,  FL,  GA,  MS,  SC     Entire 

Turtle,  green  sea  Chelonia  mydas  Circumglobal  intropi-     Wherever  found  except 


cal  and  temperate  seas 
and  oceans 
Turtle,  loggerhead  sea  Caretta  caretta Circumglobal  in  tropi- 
cal and  temperate  seas 


Turtle,  Olive  (Pacific)  Lepidochelys  olivacea 

Ridley  sea 


AMPHIBIANS 

Coqui .  golden        Eleutherodactylus  jaspen 

Salamander  Red  Hills       Phaeognathus  hubrichti 

FISHES 

Cavefish,  Alabama Speoplatyrhinus  poulsoni 

Chub,  slender Hybopsis  cahni 


and  oceans 
Circumglobal  in  tropical 
and  temperate  seas 
and  oceans 

Puerto  Rico 
Alabama 


where  listed  as 

endangered 

Entire 


Wherever  found  except 
where  listed  as 
endangered 

Entire 
Entire 


Alabama Entire 

TN,VA     Entire 


Chub,spotfin Hybopsis  monacha  AL  GA,  NC,  TN,  VA  Entire 

Darter  bayou  Etheosloma  rubrum 

Darter,  leopard Percina  pantherina 

Darter  slackwaler  Etheosloma  boschungi 


MS,  Entire 

AR  OK Entire 

AL,  TN Entire 


Madtom,  yellowfin  Noturus  llavipinnis GA,  TN,  VA Entire 


Trout,  Arizona         Salmo  apache     

Trout,  greenback  cutthroat        Salmo  clarki  stomias    .... 

Trout,  Lahontan  cutthroat        Salmo  clarki  henshawi  . . . 

Trout,  Little  Kern  golden Salmo  aguabonila  white! 

Trout,  Paiute  cutthroat     Salmo  clarki  seleniris 


AZ  Entire 

CO      Entire 

CA,  NV Entire 

CA       Entire 

CA       Entire 


Splitters"  and 
''Lumpers" 


byW.J.  HOLLAMD 

^~»  \  fiv  true  naturalist  is  called  upon  to  exercise 
f  \  the  tacuitv  of  discrimination  and  the  faculty 
of  generalization.  His  work  trains  him  to 
detect  dissimilarities  on  the  one  hand  and  like- 
nesses on  the  other.  His  judgments  as  to  likeness 
are  expressed  in  the  genera,  the  families,  the 
orders,  which  he  proposes.  His  judgment  as  to 
dissimilarities  is  most  frequently  expressed  in 
his  views  as  to  species. 

When  the  two  faculties  of  discrimination 
and  generalization  are  well  balanced  and  accom- 
panied by  the  habit  of  patient  obser\'ation,  ideal 
conditions  are  reached,  and  the  work  of  the 
naturalist  in  classification  may  be  expected  to 
stand  the  test  of  time.  But  where,  as  is  often  the 
case,  one  of  these  faculties  is  exalted  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other,  there  are  certain  to  result  per- 
versions, which  will  inevitably  cause  trouble  to 
other  students. 

When  a  man  cultivates  the  habit  of  dis- 
crimination to  excess,  he  is  apt  to  become,  so  far 
as  his  labors  as  a  systematist  are  concerned,  "a 
splitter."  A  "splitter"  magnifies  the  importance 
of  trivial  details;  he  regards  minute  differences 
with  interest;  he  searches  with  more  than 
microscopic  zeal  after  the  little  things  and  leaves 
out  of  sight  the  lines  of  general  resemblance. 

Huber,  the  celebrated  naturalist,  said  that 
by  patient  observation  he  had  come  to  be  able  to 
recognize  the  different  ants  in  a  hill,  and,  as  one 
by  one  they  emerged  from  their  subterranean 
galleries,  he  knew  them,  as  a  man  living  upon  a 
certain  thoroughfare  in  a  great  city  comes  at  last 
to  know  by  sight  the  men  and  women  who  are  in 
the  habit  of  daily  passing  his  windows.  No  doubt 
the  critical  eye  can  detect  as  great  individual  dif- 
ferences in  the  lower  animal  world  as  are  to  be 
detected  among  men.  A  student  comes  to  apply 
himself  with  great  zeal  to  searching  out  and  de- 
scribing these  differences,  and  when  he  under- 
takes to  say  that  because  of  them  one  form 
should  be  separated  specifically  from  another  he 
becomes  "a  splitter." 


10 


I  recall  an  entomologist  whose  chief 
weapon  of  research  was  a  big  microscope.  He 
would  take  a  minute  insect  and  study  it  until  he 
was  able  to  nimiber  the  hairs  upon  its  head.  Then 
he  would  describe  it,  giving  it  a  specific  name. 
The  next  specimen  he  would  subject  to  the  same 
critical  process,  and  if  the  number  of  hairs  was 
not  just  the  same,  or  a  small  wart  was  detected 
here  or  there,  or  a  bristle  grew  in  a  place  where  a 
bristle  did  not  grow  in  the  specimen  previously 
examined,  it  too,  was  described  and  a  specific 
name  was  given  it.  It  was  as  if  a  man,  sitting 
and  looking  out  on  the  throng  upon  Broadway, 
should  resolve  to  give  every  individual  a  specific 
name  and  should  declare  he  had  seen  as  many 
species  of  men  as  he  had  seen  men  passing  his 
window.  The  labors  of  such  naturalists  may  be 
highly  entertaining  to  themselves,  but  they  are, 
to  say  the  least,  provocative  of  unpleasant 
feelings  in  the  minds  of  others  who  come  after 
them  and  are  compelled  to  deal  with  and  review 
their  labors. 


7 he  "lumper,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  man 
who  detects  no  differences.  "All  cocoons 
look  alike  to  me!"  he  says.  Any  two  moths 
which  are  of  approximately  the  same  size  and 
the  same  color,  are,  by  him,  declared  to  belong  to 
the  same  species.  Questions  of  structure  do 
not  trouble  him.  General  resemblances  are  the 
only  things  with  which  he  deals.  No  matter  if 
eggs,  larvae,  legs,  veins,  and  antennae  are  differ- 
ent it  is  "all  one  thing"  to  him.  His  genera  are 
"magazines,"  into  which  he  stuffs  species 
promiscuously. 

The  "lumper"  is  the  horror  of  the  "split- 
ter," the  "splitter"  is  anathema  to  the  "lumper"; 
both  are  the  source  of  genuine  grief  and  much 
hardship  to  conscientious  men,  who  are  the  pos- 
sessors of  normally  constituted  minds  and  truly 
scientific  habits.  Nevertheless,  we  are  certain  to 
have  both  "splitters"  and  "lumpers"  in  the 
camps  of  science  until  time  is  no  more.  "This 
kind  goeth  not  forth"  even  for  "fasting  and 
prayer." 


From  The  Moth  Biiok  il903),  Doubkday.  Pa^c  mid  Co.. 
rcisMied  (1968)  by  Dover  Publkiitionf,  New  York.  William 
Jacob  Holland  (1848-1932)  was  director  of  the  Canie\;ie 
Mufeum  1898-1922  and  aho  author  of  The  Butterfly  Book 
(1898).  This  and  The  Moth  Book  were  for  many  years  the 
chief  field  guides  for  North  American  lepidopterists. 


Travels  in  an  Antique  Land 

A  Participant  in  Field  Museum's  1980  E^^yptTbur 
Recounts  Her  Adventures 


by  MRS.  ANTHONY  L  PERRIN 

photos  by  RileyandCorimme  jADwirn 
Egypt  Tour  Participants 


February  1.  As  though  heading  for  the  Missis- 
sippi, the  captain  of  our  DC-10  announces  on  the 
intercom:  "We  are  going  down  to  Cairo."  But 
his  blase  tone  fails  to  put  a  damper  on  our 
excitement. 

Egypt  at  last!  "Welcome!"  say  smiling 
Egyptians,  "Welcome  to  Egypt!"  The  long  flight 
is  forgotten.  Aboard  the  bus  to  Hotel  Mena 
House  we  pass  goats,  carts,  donkeys,  cars;  some 
cars  are  wrapped  in  white  bedspreads  —  our  first 
mummies.  The  hotel  balcony  looks  out  on 
pyramids  rising  behind  palm  trees;  but  they  can't 
be  real:  I  must  be  dreaming! 

February  2.  Off  to  Cairo  Museum.  Two  essentials: 
a  heavy  sweater  and  a  guide  —lucky  to  have 
both!  Amazed  at  variety  of  Egyptian  art: 
strength,  tenderness,  vitality.  Lunch  at  Filfila 
Restaurant. . . .  Unidentified  object'^  in  smoky 
cauldron,  turns  out  to  be  delicious.  Medieval 
Cairo  in  afternoon.  Stop  in  bazaar:  crowded. 


oriental.  I  order  a  gold  cartouche;  my  name 

in  hieroglyphs  starts  with  a  snake! 

Februarys.  BustoMedum,  with  its  early  pyramid 
standing  alone  in  the  desert.  I  climb  up  ladder 
into  a  black  hole.  It's  a  long  way  down,  then  up 
inside  the  pyramid.  Clad  to  have  a  flashlight,  but 
regret  my  touch  of  claustrophobia.  Braver  souls 
crawl  backwards  into  the  burial  chamber  of  the 
newly  discovered  tomb.  I  admire,  but  do  not 
follow.  I  see  now  what  the  brochure  meant  by 
"strenuous  trip."  We  drive  through  green 
Faiyum,  a  region  farmed  since  predvnastic 
times.  Admire  oxen  for  their  stolid  patience  as 
they  plod  in  monotonous  circles,  drawing  water. 
We  board  the  Rei'  Vacance^,  the  Nile  Ri\'er  ship 
which  is  to  be  our  home  base  for  the  next  several 
days  and  nights.  On  the  river  bank  we  see  egrets, 
camels,  sugarcane. 


February  4,  A  line  of  donkeys  and  boys  wait 


for 


11 


'>- 


Mrs.  DelNord,  tour  leader,  and  Mrs.  Rilcy  ladwin  heforc  the  Crcut  bphinx. 


us  at  Bani  Hasan.  Black-clothed  women  carry 
glazed  jugs  of  water  on  their  heads.  I  ride  to 
rock-cut  tombs  on  a  lively  donkey.  A  boy  joins 
me  on  the  donkey's  back,  asking  for  candy. 
1  teach  him  "Yankee  Doodle."  He  belts  it  out 
immediately  —  very  bright.  Painted  scenes  in 
tombs  are  hard  to  see.  Sail  to  Tuna  el  Gebel 
("Rocky  Sand").  In  300  B.C.  tomb  of  Petosiris — 
rare  mix  of  Hellenistic  and  Egyptian  style.  Walk 
across  shard-strewn  desert  to  baboon  graveyard. 
Catacombs  for  ibises  as  well  —  Egypt  is  full  of 
surprises.  As  the  sun  goes  down,  we  reach  Akh- 
naton  border  stela,  edge  of  capital  founded  by 
the  pharaoh  whom  Breasted  called  "the  first 
individual  in  history."  Nefertiti  stands  beside 
him  on  the  lonely  sand. 

February  5.  Nothing  is  left  of  Tell  el  Anarna,  Akh- 
naton's  city.  After  his  death,  palaces,  gardens, 
and  zoo  were  abandoned,  then  destroyed.  The 
old  Amon  religion  was  reinstated  and  the  ex- 
periment with  monotheism  eventually  forgot- 
ten. High  up  in  the  rocks,  we  visit  four  tombs. 
Interesting  question  about  Nefertiti  arises:  Did 
she  ever  reign  as  pharaoh?  Hard  to  imagine  a 
false  beard  dangling  from  her  beautiful  chin. 

February  6.  Awoke  to  see  from  the  ship  window  a 
man  standing  so  still  in  his  skiff,  he  looked  like  a 
reed  growing  in  the  river.  Behind  him,  mist  rose 
from  giant  cliffs.  All  day  we  move  up  the  Nile, 
our  slow  pace  matching  the  timeless  calm  of  life 
along  the  banks.  Gaff-rigged  feluccas  slip  into 
the  current,  women  bend  over  their  wash,  chil- 
dren's galabeahs  float  in  the  morning  breeze. 
There  is  no  hurry  —  it  has  been  like  this  since 
long  before  Greece  began.  The  continuity  run- 
ning through  Egyptian  art  is  reflected  in  rural 
life.  Though  the  river  depth  changes  constantly, 
the  Nile  has  no  channel  markers.  Our  ship  makes 
its  own  meander  within  the  river's  larger  one. 


Snake  charmer  with  cobra 


February'.  Awakened  at  5:30,  in  busby  6:00  and 
off  for  what  many  consider  one  of  the  greatest 
sites  in  Egypt:  Abydos,  center  of  the  cult  of 
Osiris,  god  of  the  dead.  Everyone  wanted  to  be 
buried  there.  If  this  was  inconvenient,  one's 
mummv  could  \'isit  briefly.  We  had  a  picnic 
breakfast  outside,  by  the  temple.  Three  things  to 
see:  Osirion,  being  excavated;  the  temple  of 
Ramses  II,  with  splendid  wall  reliefs;  and  the 
best  of  all:  the  temple  of  Seti,  Ramses's  father.  Bas 
reliefs  look  as  though  carved  in  butter,  and  the 
paint!  It  is  shiny  (no  one  knows  why)  —  brilliant 
blues,  greens,  and  rich  terracotta  —  colors  as 
bright  as  the  land  outside.  Hypostyle  hall  strange 
to  our  Mies  van  der  Rohe-trained  eyes:  24 
papyrus  columns  clustered  like  plants  in  a  field 
(which  they  represent).  Decorative  as  well  as 
supportive.  How  wonderfully  wasteful  Egyptian 
architects  were! 


February  8.  Up  and  out  .it  7:00  tor  the  temple 
of  Hathor,  at  Dendera.  Hatlioi  has  cow's  ears, 
sometimes  horns,  otherwise  nice-looking — the 
Egyptian  Aphrodite.  Dendera  is  1st  century  H.c, 
cluttered,  horror  vaciii.  1  adies  have  late  Kenoir 
figures,  everyone  sports  dimpled  knees.  Up- 
stairs is  spicy  representation  of  Isis  bringing 
Osiris  back  to  life.  Other  tours  do  not  always  visit 
this  X-rated  roomi 

Back  to  ship,  lie  in  sun  and  ponder  some 
Egyptian  mysteries:  Why  do  only  prisoners,  the 
lower  classes,  and  prepositions  face  forward? 
Why  did  ancient  Egyptian  ladies  think  it  was  nice 
to  wear  cones  of  fat  on  their  heads  when  going  to 
a  party?  These  dripped  in  the  heat,  gluing  their 
dresses  to  them.  But  no  one  wore  much  in  B.C. 
Was  it  warmer?  We  need  sweaters. 

In  the  e\ening,  a  lecture  bv  Don  Whit- 
comb,  assistant  curator  of  Middle  Eastern  ar- 
cheology at  Field  Museum.  He  had  just  travelled 
from  the  Red  Sea  coast  and  gave  us  an  in- 
progress  report  on  his  excavations  at  Quseir 
al-Qadim,  a  Roman  and  Islamic  port. 

February  9.  First  day  at  Luxor,  the  site  of  ancient 
Thebes,  with  its  magically  fresh  colors  of  kings' 
tombs,  variety  of  styles.  Temple  of  Queen  Hat- 
shepsut  the  best,  wonderful  painting  of  expedi- 
tion to  Punt.  Thanks  to  our  guide,  Del  Nord*  we 
\isit  a  private  excavation,  talk  to  archeologists. 
Tomb  visits  involve  long  descents  into  dusty 
rooms.  Often  we  must  cross  a  narrow  bridge 
o\er  an  interior  pit,  meant  to  foil  robbers,  but 
didn't.  Some  of  us  climb  a  high  ridge  above  the 
temple.  Great  view,  looks  like  southwestern 
U.S.  At  noon,  I  bargain  for  two  tangerines. 
Accosted  by  little  girl  carrying  basket,  in  which, 
for  a  fee,  I  must  put  my  rinds.  More  Egyptian 
ingenuity!  I  comply. 

Next,  the  mortuary  temple  of  ubiquitous 
Ramses,  alias  Ozymandias.  Shelley's  "shattered 
\isage"  is  here.  Goose-bumps  rise  with  the 
familiar  "1  met  a  traveller  in  an  antique  land," 
which  I  read  aloud  in  this  place  I  never  in  my 
wildest  dreams  thought  to  see. 

Shadows  lengthen,  we  droop,  but  there 
is  much  more!  Over  the  river  and  into  horse- 
drawn,  two-wheeled  caleches  —  the  Luxor  taxis- 
and  head  for  Chicago  House.  Its  great  library 
and  lovely  grounds  are  maintained  by  the  Uni- 


versity of  Chicago's  Oriental  Institute.  Director 
l.anny  Bell  shows  us  how  what  seem  like  hope- 
lessly damaged  hieroglyphs  are  finally  read  by 
painstaking  plotting  of  photos  and  drawings. 
Admire  the  patience  of  Egyptologists  —  they 
rarely  expect  to  finish  projects  within  their 
own  lifetime.  Generous,  this  passing  on  of 
research  —  Egyptian  continuity. 

On  to  Karnak  for  "sound  and  light"  per- 
formance. Huge  crowd.  As  night  falls,,  Richard 
Burton  reads  ancient  hymn  to  sun  god.  Didn't 
expect  to  like  Karnak's  superhuman  scale,  but 
find  it  wonderful.  After  dinner,  we  crawl  to  anti- 
que shop  to  buy  shawabti  figurine  (servant  for 
tomb).  Neither  dealer  or  shawabti  very  nice;  de- 
cide instead  to  buy  chocolate  shawabti  from  Bos- 
ton Museum.  Thebes  is  like  going  to  the  Met- 
ropolitan, Louvre,  and  the  National  Gallerv  all  in 
one  day.  Fall  into  bed  in  catatonic  condition. 
Sleep  surrounded  by  pharaohs,  mostly  Ramses. 

February  10.  Up  at  6:00,  ready  for  ferry  to 

west  bank,  where  dead — called  "westerners" — 


View  from  guest 
room  of  Mena 
House  Hotel,  Cairo. 


•Mrs.  Del  Nord,  Ph.D.  candidate  in  Egyptology,  Depart- 
ment of  Near  Eastern  Languages  and  Civilizations,  tlie 
Oriental  Institute,  The  University  of  Chicago.  Mrs.  Nord 
will  also  be  co-leader  of  the  Museum's  February,  1981,  Egypt 
tour,  her  fifth  since  the  tours  program  was  initiated. 


Abu  Simbel 


14 


were  always  buried.  Moneychangers,  hawkers 
of  necklaces  and  20th-century  scarabs  come 
aboard.  A  walking  emporium  parades  huge 
pillar  of  tennis  hats  on  top  of  his  turban. 

Quick  stop  at  Colossi  of  Memnon  —  bad 
shape,  looks  better  from  back.  Three  boys  race 
camels  past  us  as  we  drive  to  tombs  of  nobles. 
These  tombs  are  better  than  those  of  the  kings  — 
full  of  genre  scenes:  gardens,  harvest,  sailing, 
lively  insight  into  daily  life.  The  best  tomb  has 
undulating  rock  ceilings  painted  with  grape 
vines;  it's  like  being  in  an  arbor.  See  five  tombs, 
like  them  all.  But  to  get  there  we  pass  through  an 
impoverished  village.  Children  run  barefoot 
over  litter;  on  almost  every  small  back  a  baby 
is  strapped.  More  than  time  separates  ancient 
and  modern  Egypt. 

After  lunch  we  trot  off  in  a  caleche  for 
Karnak.  Shiny  brass  hands  of  Fatima  hang  from 
the  harness.  Lanny  Bell  takes  us  into  French 
archeological  dig:  a  lovely  Middle  Kingdom 
temple,  with  reliefs  that  look  as  though  cut 
from  ivory.  Karnak  was  under  construction  for 
2,000  years  —  Must  try  and  be  more  patient 
with  home  projects!  I  feel  dwarfed.  Champol- 
lion  wrote  in  the  early  1800s  that  the  ancient 
Egyptians  "conceived  like  men  a  hundred 
feet  high."  True. 

February  11.  The  galabeahs  ordered  24  hours  ago 


(we  were  measured  in  the  middle  of  the  street) 
have  been  delivered  by  Mr.  Moharib.  "Shukron, 
thank  you!"  They  look  wonderful!  Sorry  to  leave 
Luxor.  It  has  a  gentle  English  holiday  atmos- 
phere. The  ghosts  of  all  the  visitors  who  brought 
their  ill  health  or  their  curiosity  to  be  cured  by  the 
magic  of  Thebes  float  around  the  old  winter 
palace.  Their  footsteps  echo  on  the  sidewalk, 
while  the  loveliest  sunsets  in  Egypt  redden  the 
river  and  the  necropolis. 

We're  off  for  Esna,  the  main  camel  market 
of  Egypt,  to  look  at  a  Ptolemaic  temple.  Walk 
through  the  streets  lined  with  open  shops;  in  one 
a  man  irons  clothes  with  his  feetl  The  temple  has 
the  greatest  variety  of  capitals  anywhere.  A  little 
frog  perches  on  one.  By  100  B.C.  the  artists  were 
out  of  touch  with  the  old  ways, the  iconography 
was  confused  —  very  hard  on  the  tourist  who  has 
just  gotten  the  hang  of  it. 

In  the  afternoon  we  reach  Edfu,  temple 
of  Horus.  Except  for  granite  statue  of  god  (very 
snobby  face),  don't  like  temple,  which  is  heavy, 
cold.  Horus  and  Hathor  had  sacred  marriage. 
Saw  each  other  same  time  each  year  at  Dendera.  I 
drive  caleche  back  to  ship,  but  on  the  way  get 
stuck  in  a  sand  pile  while  avoiding  a  truck.  Our 
ship's  chef  has  created  an  Egyptian  feast.  Egyp- 
tian folk  music  after  dinner,  with  a  Nubian 
singer:  the  fantastic  beat  pulls  us  onto  the 
dance  floor. 


Februnry  12.  We  kind  .it  Kom  Ombo,  temple  of  the 
crocodile  god.  Miimmitied  crocs  in  chapel  (no 
comment!).  Site  too  good  tor  occupants.  Our  last 
day  on  ship,  and  we  enjoy  the  sunonour  way  to 
Aswan.  Very  pretty;  river  split  by  islands.  We 
board  feluccas  for  ride  to  museum.  There  is  no 
wind,  so  we  are  rowed  with  long,  bladeless,  im- 
practical oars.  Are  sails  made  of  old  pajamas? 
The  air  of  Aswan  has  a  special  quality,  just  as  old 
guidebooks  say;  feel  marvelous.  Steep  climb  to 
tombs.  Full  of  huge  pits,  no  railings,  and,  ugh!, 
some  human  bones  in  Nubian  baskets.  But  never 
mind!  Wall  paintings  of  dancing  girls  and  a  relief 
of  a  dog  —  fine  as  a  Degas  —  compensate.  Out- 
side, we  gaze  down  at  Aswan,  across  a  Nile  dot- 
ted with  feluccas  that  float  like  feathers  between 
the  islands.  We  \isit  a  bazaar,  always  fun.  E\en 
late  at  night  bazaars  are  safe;  nothing  more  sinis- 
ter than  a  long-haired  goat  will  follow  you. 

February/ 13.  We  bid  goodbye  to  the  ship.  Swal- 
lows fill  the  morning  air  as  a  bus  takes  us  to  fam- 
ous dam  and  granite  quarry,  source  of  all  stone 
for  obelisks  (a  long  way  to  Cleopatra's  Needle  in 
Central  Park!).  Arrive  at  airport  for  flight  to  Abu 
Simbel.  Push,  shove,  we  are  surrounded  by  at 
least  five  languages.  Abu  Simbel  is  very  hot; 
Lake  Nasser  is  glassy,  weird,  floating  over 
desert.  Will  anything  ever  grow  here?  Dam  not 
100%  success,  but  redeemed  temples  are. 

February  14.  Having  flown  back  to  Cairo,  we  are 
off  to  Saqqara,  favorite  of  Egyptologists.  Here  is 
Zoser's  pyramid,  the  earliest  large  stone  building 
in  the  world.  Here  are  reliefs  and  paintings  of 
such  high  quality  they  make  everything  else  look 
clumsv  and  cluttered  bv  comparison.  Everywhere, 
repeated  shapes  create  such  a  strong  sense 
of  rhythm,  you  feel  yourself  bending  with  the 
frieze  of  dancers,  walking  behind  the  solemn 
cattle,  or  climbing  the  riggings  with  an  ancient 
sailor.  You  can  almost  hear  the  fish  plop  beneath 
the  bows  of  little  boats  just  like  the  ones  we  have 
been  passing  all  week.  A  real  Sahara  sandstorm 
comes  up;  our  driver  turns  into  a  weatherman: 
"Before  rainy,  must  be  windy.  After  rainy,  no 
more  windy."  He  was  right. 

February  15.  Pyramids  don't  look  right  sur- 
rounded by  crowds;  they  are  architecture  meant 
for  isolation.  Best  to  visit  them  early  in  the 
morning,  or  late  at  night;  but  never,  never  on 
Friday  —  the  Muslim  holy  day.  Half  of  Cairo 
comes  then  to  the  pyramids  with  picnics.  Do  not 
think  this  is  what  old  Cheops  had  in  mind. 

Our  great  treat  is  a  private  view  of  the 
•'unerary  boat  uncovered  in  1954.  Hassan  Nassif, 
director  of  antiquities  at  Giza,  shows  us  the 
enormous,  double-ended  craft.  Built  entirely  of 


Mrs.  jadu'in  Mf.-  out  ixW'' >  ■yi"''  modeof  trmtiportiitioii. 


cedar  from  Lebanon,  lashed  together  with  hemp 
(no  nails),  it  has  been  painstakingly  rebuilt. 
Now,  under  its  protective  sky  of  glass,  it  seems  to 
float  once  more,  ready  to  take  a  pharaoh  proudly 
up  the  Nile.  A  fantastic  sight,  strangely  moving. 

February  16.  "Cairo  itself  cannot  properly 
be  called  a  health  resort."  Mr.  Baedeker,  you 
should  see  it  now,  with  a  density  of  over  250,000 
people  per  square  mile  in  some  sections.  Every 
20  seconds  a  baby  is  born.  The  Nile's  green 
strip  seems  far  away  as  we  elbow  our  way 
through  Tahrir  Square  and  back  to  the  museum. 
A  good  place  to  begin  and  to  end  a  trip  to  Egypt. 
Now  the  halls  are  filled  with  old  friends: 
Tuthmose,  Amenhotep,  strange,  flabby  Akhna- 
ton,  and  nice  Hatshepsut.  For  the  last  time  we 
admire  their  elongated  toes  and  the  delicate  feet 
that  walk  with  such  confidence  and  grace.  A 
single  stone  hand  rests  on  a  shoulder  and  says  all 
there  is  to  know  of  tenderness. 

Now  there  is  packing  to  do,  and  a  shift  of 
gears  to  ready  ourselves  for  the  long  trip  home. 

February  17.  Thousands  of  feet  below  us,  Egypt 
slips  away.  Three  weeks  ago  it  was  sand  and  a 
river,  a  list  of  gods  and  pharaohs,  an  itinerary 
through  unknown  territory.  Now  we  see  it, 
"appearing  and  shining,  far  off  yet  close  at 
hand."— Akhnaton's  words.  This  trip  and  Del 
Nord  have  opened  up  a  whole  country  for  us. 
Like  Howard  Carter,  King  Tuts  discoverer,  we 
have  seen  "wonderful  things." 


FIELD 
MUSEUM 
TDUF3* 

Field  Museum  Tours  1981  program  offers 
Members  a  choice  selection  of  interesting 
and  fascinating  destinations  under  tfie 
leadersfiip  of  Museum  scientists.  Eachi  is 
designed  with  the  aim  of  expanding  your 
knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  region 
visited,  as  well  as  to  enhance  your  pleasures 
of  travel.  Tour  groups  are  small  (about  25) 
and  your  travel  companions  are  people  with 
similar  interests.  A  tour  escort  accompanies 
each  group  to  care  for  your  every  need  and  to 
oversee  the  operational  aspect  of  the  trip. 
Orientation  sessions  before  departure  give 
you  a  chance  to  clear  up  any  questions  about 
the  itinerary,  and  to  meet  the  lecturer  and 
your  co-travelers. 

Papua  Mew  Guinea 

May  1-17 

A  land  untouched  by  time ...  of  rain  forests 
and  coral-encrusted  coasts... of  butterflies 
and  bamboo  bands,  birds  of  paradise,  and 
orchids.  It  is  a  land  of  a  thousand  tribes, 
each  different  and  distinct,  each  following 
age-old  traditions... a  brand  new  land,  yet 
inhabited  by  man  for  over  50.000  years! 

ITINERARY: 

May  1:  Early  morning  departure  for  non- 
stop flight  to  Honolulu.  Transfer  to 
llikai  Hotel.  Balance  of  day  and  evening  at 
leisure.  2:  Early  morning  departure  by  Air 
Niugini.  A  day  is  lost  as  we  cross  the  Inter- 
national Date  Line.  3:  Morning  arrival  at 
Port  Moresby  to  connect  with  flight  for 
Madang.  Transfer  to  charming  Madang  Re- 
sort Hotel.  Remainder  of  day  at  leisure.  4: 
Morning  transfer  to  cruise  boat  for  tour  of 
Madang  harbor.  On  Siar  Island  we  enjoy  a 
bountiful  barbeque  lunch  while  entertained 
by  a  tuneful  bamboo  band.  An  afternoon 
drive  takes  us  along  the  boulevards  of 
Madang  township.  5:  An  idyllic  drive  this 
morning,  up  north  coast  road  past  planta- 
tions and  coastal  villages,  with  frequent 
stops.  Lunch  at  Bogia  Hotel,  then  a  Ramu 
River  canoe  trip.  Late  afternoon  we  board 
our  trim,  newly  refitted  cruise  ship,  Melane- 
sian  Explorer.  6-9:  Cruising  the  Sepik  River. 
The  Sepik  forms  a  natural  highway  for  vil- 
lages along  the  banks  and  for  the  immense 
water-oriented  wildlife  populations  that  re- 
side here:  we  glimpse  the  stirring  activity  as 
we  glide  along.  10:  Morning  departure  by 
charter  flight  from  Ambunti  on  the  Sepik  to 
Mt.  Hagen.  Western  Highlands  commercial 
center.  Overnight  at  Minj  Hotel.  11:  We  visit 
the  spectacular  Nondugl  Sanctuary,  Papua 
New  Guinea's  highest  bird  sanctuary,  in 
16  Baiyer  River  Valley.  12:  Morning  visit  to 


India:  Taj  Mahal 


Paree  Gap  and  village  for  closer  look  at 
unique  gardening  technique  on  steep 
mountain  slopes  and  for  views  of  spec- 
tacular Chimbu  Gorge.  Afternoon  visit  to 
Chimbu  Province  villages.  Overnight  at 
Minj  Hotel.  13:  More  motoring  adventures. 
We  pass  the  villages  of  Sina  Sina.  Chuave 
(limestone  caves  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Elim- 
bari  are  traditional  burial  grounds),  and 
Watabung  on  our  way  to  the  summit  of  the 
Daulo  Pass;  there  we  take  in  panoramic 
view  of  Goroka  Valley  coffee  plantations. 
Overnight  at  Bird  of  Paradise  Hotel.  14: 
Morning  tour  of  Goroka  and  of  McCarthy 
Museum.  Depart  Goroka  in  afternoon  by  Air 
Miugini  for  Port  Moresby  with  transfer  to 
Travelodge.  15:  Port  Moresby  high  points 
featured  on  our  morning  tour  are  the  Na- 
tional Museum,  the  University  of  Papua 
New  Guinea,  and  the  National  Capital  Dis- 
trict. Free  afternoon  to  pack  or  purchase 
last  minute  souvenirs.  Late  evening  depar- 
ture. We  regain  the  day  we  lost  en  route 
when  we  cross  the  I.D.L.  Noon  arrival  in 
Honolulu  and  transfer  to  llikai  Hotel.  Bal- 
ance of  day  at  leisure.  16:  Afternoon  de- 
parture from  Honolulu  for  overnight  flight 
to  Chicago.  17:  Early  morning  arrival 
O'Hare  Airport.  The  cost  of  this  tour  is 
$4,461.  including  a  $300  contribution  to 
Field  Museum.  Possibly  the  most  stimulat- 
ing single  travel  experience  the  present 
world  has  to  offer.  Dr  Phillip  Lewis,  curator 


Baja  California:  surfacing  whale 


of  primitive  art  and  Melanesian  ethnology, 
our  Field  Museum  lecturer,  and  Jeff  Lever- 
sidge,  a  well  known  authority  on  the  Sepik 
River  will  be  your  guides.  Early  registration 
is  suggested.  A  more  detailed  itinerary  is 
available  on  request. 

Baja  California 

January  31-February  14,  1981 

Less  thafh  50  Miles  South  of  the  G.S.- 
Mexico border  begins  a  peaceful  world 
of  subtropical  beauty — the  Sea  of  Cortez 
(Gulf  of  California).  Some  600  miles  long, 
but  generally  less  than  95  miles  wide,  this 
gulf  is  a  paradise  for  marine  vertebrate  and 
invertebrate  life  —  and  for  those  of  us  who 
enjoy  its  study  Field  Museum  members  will 
have  the  opportunity  to  know  this  sea  of 
wonders  in  a  15-day  voyage  that  will  all  but 
complete  the  circumnavigation  of  the 
peninsula  of  Baja  California. 

Beginning  in  the  north  end  of  the  gulf 
at  Puerto  Penasco.  we  will  spend  7  days 
exploring  the  natural  history  of  the  Sea  of 
Cortez.  examining  consequences  of  terres- 
trial aridity  and  aquatic  richness,  observing 
changes  as  one  moves  from  the  warm- 
temperate  north  end  to  the  subtropical  sur- 
roundings of  La  Paz  and  Cabo  San  Lucas. 
In  the  Canal  de  Ballenas — the  Channel  of 
Whales  —  we  may  catch  sight  of  the  second 
largest  of  the  great  whales,  the  finback.  We 
will  also  see  countless  sea  lions,  pelicans, 
cormorants,  boobies,  and  frigate  birds. 
Walking  tours  on  several  islands  will  afford 
first-hand  experience  with  the  flora  and 
fauna.  Lovers  of  marine  life  will  have  ample 
opportunities  for  snorkeling.  fish  watching, 
or  just  beach  walking.  After  a  morning  in  La 
Paz.  the  fabled  150-year-old  capital  of  the 
territory  of  Baja  California  Sur.  our  last  full 
day  in  the  gulf  will  be  divided  between  ex- 
ploration of  Isia  Espiritu  Santo  —  "the  most 
beautiful  island  in  the  gulf, "  and  a  search 
at  Gorda  Banks  for  the  giant  plankton- 
eating  whale  shark,  which  may  reach 
60  feet  in  length. 


A  moment  of  high  excitement  will  be 
the  rounding  of  the  spectacular  lands  end 
at  Cabo  San  Lucas,  marking  our  entry  into 
the  open  Pacific  and  offering  the  chance 
to  contrast  the  Sea  of  Cortez  witfi  the  outer 
coast  of  Baja.  bathed  in  the  cooler  waters 
of  the  California  Current. 

A  main  objective  for  the  outer  coast 
segment  of  the  tour  is  to  visit  the  breeding 
and  calving  grounds  of  the  California  gray 
whale.  This  species  may  travel  more  thian 
]  1.000  miles  annually  between  winter  calv- 
ing grounds  in  Baja  California  and  summer 
feeding  grounds  as  far  north  as  the  Chuk- 
chi Sea — the  longest  migration  of  any 
mammal.  Once  hunted  nearly  to  extinction, 
with  protection  the  species  has  rebounded.- 
and  the  current  population  is  estimated 
at  15.000.  We  will  first  see  gray  whales  in 
Magdalena  Bay  astride  the  boundary 
between  the  subtropical  waters  through 
which  we  have  sailed  and  the  cooler  warm- 
temperate  waters  to  the  north.  In  Laguna 
San  Ignacio  the  main  attraction  will  be 
the  gray  whales,  which  we  should  be  able 
to  observe  at  very  close  (but  safe)  range. 
Equally  attractive  will  be  the  diverse  bird 
life  of  the  fringing  mangrove  lagoons  and 
marshes.  At  the  island  group  of  San  Be- 
nitos  we  will  meet  among  the  largest  (3 
tons)  of  all  pinnipeds,  the  northern  elephant 
seal.  After  a  visit  to  the  rookeries  of  Isia  San 
Martin  and  a  final  chance  to  see  the  spouts 
of  migrating  whales,  we  end  our  1.400-mile 
voyage  in  San  Diego. 

The  tour  will  be  led  by  Dr.  Robert  Karl 
Johnson,  associate  curator  and  head  of 
the  Division  of  Fishes  at  Field  Museum.  A 
graduate  of  Scripps  Institution  of  Oceanog- 
raphy Johnson  has  had  considerable  field 
experience  in  the  Gulf  of  California  and 
along  the  outer  coast  of  Baja  California. 
Special  Expeditions,  a  division  of  Lindblad 
Travel,  operators  of  the  ship  to  be  used,  will 
provide  several  additional  naturalists  whose 
expertise  will  further  enrich  our  experience. 
Our  home  for  the  voyage  is  the  one-class, 
fully  air-conditioned  143.5-foot  MVPacf/Jc 
Northwest  Explorer  built  in  1980,  regis- 
tered in  the  U.S..  and  fully  certified  by  the 
Coast  Guard.  All  39  cabins  are  on  the 
outside,  and  all  have  private  facilities. 

Cost  of  the  Baja  tour  varies  with 
the  type  of  stateroom  accommodations, 
according  to  the  following  schedule:  lower 
deck,  double  cabin:  ^2,100;  upper  deck, 
double  cabin:  ^2,380;  main  deck,  double 
cabin:  $2,520;  upper  deck  cabins    Car- 
men," "Catalina,"  "Cedros,"  and  "Mag- 
dalena":  $2,800;  bridge  deck  cabins: 
52.800.  Single  accommodations  are  also 
available  upon  request.  The  above  prices 
include  surface  transportation  from  Los 
Angeles  to  Puerto  Penasco,  Mexico,  and 
San  Diego  to  Los  Angeles  and  transfers. 
Transportation  between  Los  Angeles  and 
Chicago  (or  other  point  of  origin)  is  not  in- 
cluded. Upon  receipt  of  reservations,  round 
trip  air  tickets  (between  Chicago  and  Los 
Angeles)  will  be  purchased  at  the  lowest 
available  rate.  Early  reservations  are  advisa- 
ble for  lowest  air  fares.  Tour  participants 
may  elect  to  make  separate  air  arrange- 
ments. Deadline  for  reservations  is 
October  31. 


Egypt  Karnak 

India 

January  21-February  12 

Now  Is  THF  Time  to  take  that  long-awaited 
tour  of  India  —  a  country  that  must  be  ex- 
perienced to  be  believed.  The  sheerly  rising, 
snow-peaked  Himalayas  form  a  backdrop, 
unreal  in  its  wall-like  abruptness,  to  the 
valley  of  Kathmandu.  Ancient  temples 
freeze  still  living  theologies  into  stone;  the 
eloquent  marble  geometry  of  the  Taj  Mahal, 
the  many-armed  deities  of  Hinduism,  and 
the  serene  face  of  the  teaching  Buddha 
form  a  living  link  with  the  past. 

iTirSERARY; 

Jan.  21:  Depart  Chicago.  OHare  Airport  via 
United  Airlines.  Gateway  city  is  New  York. 
22:  Arrive  London.  Overnight  at  Hotel 
Sheraton  Heathrow.  Day  at  leisure.  23:  Air 
India  flight  to  Delhi.  Overnight  at  Maurya 
Sheraton  Hotel.  24:  Day  at  leisure.  Late 
afternoon  visit  to  Delhi  Zoo.  Evening  cock- 
tail reception.  25:  Morning  excursion  to 
Sultanpur  Bird  Sanctuary.  Afternoon  sight- 


seeing of  Old  and  New  Delhi.  26:  Republic 
Day  spectacular  celebrations  —  India's 
greatest  national  festival.  Special  seats  re- 
served for  our  group.  Remainder  of  day  at 
leisure.  27:  Early  morning  flight.  Accom- 
modations at  Kanha  National  Park  Forest 
Rest  House.  28:  Full  day  at  Kanha  Park. 
29:  Morning  exploration  of  Kanha  Park  on 
elephant  back.  Evening  flight  from  Nagpur 
to  Calcutta.  Overnight  at  Airport  Hotel.  30: 
Early  morning  flight  to  Jorhat.  Ejccursion  to 
Kaziranga  Park.  Overnight  at  Forest  Lodge. 
31:  Full  day  to  view  at  close  range  wildlife 
of  Kaziranga  Park  on  elephant  back. 
Feb.  I:  Flight  from  Calcutta  to 
Kathmandu.  Overnight  at  Hotel  Oberoi 
Soaltee.  2:  Morning  flight  over  Mount 
Everest  and  Himalayan  region.  Afternoon 
tour  to  Godaveri  Botanical  Gardens.  3: 
Flight  from  Kathmandu  to  Pokra.  Accom- 
modations at  Fishtail  Lodge  on  shores  of 
Phewa  Tal;  beautiful  view  of  mountains 
from  the  lake.  4:  Flight  from  Pokra  to  Kath- 
mandu. Hotel  Oberoi  Soaltee.  Afternoon 
sightseeing  tour  of  the  city.  5:  Mid-after- 

For  more  exciting  tours  see  page  26. 


Hew  Guinea:  masked  dancer 


Right;  Life-size 
mannequin  in  case 
12,  Hall  5,  repre- 
senting Iroquois 
man,  wears  sash  (cat. 
no.  155666)  described 
hy  Mae  Louise  Rins: 
as  "the  finest  exam 
pie  of  fingerweaving  I 
have  ei'er  encoun 
tered."The  sash  was 
acquired  by  the 
Museum  in  1926. 

Left;  Detail  of 

Ring's  reproduction 

of  Field  Museum  > 

Iroquois  sash 

#155666  shown  on 

the  mannequin  at 

right.  The  sash  wa> 

fashioned  from  28b 

single-ply  wool 

18  strands. 


Iroquois  Sash 
Inspires  Weaver 

Museum  Visitor 
Duplicates  Exhibit  Specimen 


It  Is  Both  Commonplace  and  natural  for 
museum  visitors  to  express  admiration  for  the 
native  works  of  art  that  they  see  in  the  halls 
featuring  ethnological  materials.  But  seldom  is 
a  visitor  so  intrigued  that  he  or  she  comes  back 
to  study  the  same  article  time  and  time  again, 
takes  notes  on  it,  perhaps  makes  sketches,  or 
even  photographs  the  piece  with  the  intentions 
of  attempting  to  faithfully  duplicate  it  with  one's 
own  hands. 

This  was  the  case,  however,  with  Miss 
Mae  Louise  Ring,  of  Dutton,  Michigan,  who  has 
had  a  longstanding  interest  in  textile  crafts  of 
Native  North  Americans. 

Several  years  ago.  Miss  Ring  took  special 
notice  of  a  colorful  sash  worn  about  the  body 
of  a  mannequin  representing  an  Iroquois  man 
in  case  12,  Hall  5,  the  hall  of  Indians  of  Eastern 
North  America.  Acquired  by  the  Museum 
from  an  upstate  New  York  locality  in  1926,  the 
Iroquois  sash  (cat.  no.  155666)  is  woven  of  wool 
strands  variously  colored  red,  blue,  green,  and 
yellow.  The  sash,  says  Miss  Ring,  was  the  finest 
example  of  fingerweaving  she  had  ever  encoun- 
tered. As  an  experienced  weaver,  her  decision  to 
duplicate  the  piece  was  perhaps  not  remarkable, 
but  the  time,  patience,  and  care  which  her  pro- 
ject ultimately  entailed  is  cause  for  admiration. 

In  duplicating  the  piece.  Miss  Ring 
used  286  fragile,  single-ply  wool  strands.  These 
had  to  be  spliced,  and  the  constant  handling  of 


Mm  Loiii^i'  l\in\i  with  her  liand-innde  Srts/i.  Rin-^  /s 
accomplished  m  a  variety  of  Native  American  textile  crafts 
and  IS  a  potter  as  well.  She  has  designed  and  made  clothing; 
for  diorama  exhibits  of  Natii^e  American  culture  in  the 
Grand  Rapids  Public  Museum,  Michi^;an. 

the  strands,  she  remarks,  caused  a  problem  in 
maintaining  tension  for  pattern  shape  —  a  diffi- 
culty that  any  fingerweaver  is  familiar  with.  Her 
finished  sash  is  41  inches  long  (plus  extremely 
long  fringes)  and  8  inches  wide;  nearly  70 
hours  were  required  to  complete  the  weaving. 
The  only  tools  used,  of  course,  were  her 
own  fingers. 

Such  sashes  may  ha\e  made  their 
first  appearance  about  A.D.  1500,   Ring's 
research  reveals.  "The  first  use  of  this  type  of 
sash,"  she  notes,  "was  functional,  as  for  secur- 
ing clothing,  carrying  burdens,  for  wrapping 
bundles,  and  as  trade  items.  Later  thev  were 
created  for  decorati\e  purposes;  the  position 
on  the  body  where  the  sash  was  worn  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  secured  often  had  a  spe- 
cial symbolic  significance.  Now  such  sashes  are 
used  as  part  of  traditional  dress  and  in  costumes 
for  dances  and  other  ceremonial  functions,  the 
colors  and  the  pattern  \arying  accorciing  to  the 
dancer's  place  of  origin."  D 


^/*V> 


Ahom  Hall5 
are  the  examples 
of  fm^eiweavin^ 
shown  on  these 
fi\'i(  rt's.  Top: 
Winneba^^o,  ii'itit 
wool  midnff  sash 
( #155667)  in  blue, 
yellow,  and  laven- 
der on  red  back- 
ground. Bottom: 
Sauk  and  Fox  with 
red,  blue,  and  pur- 
ple midriff  sasli 
( #155628)  also  of 
wool.  Both  pieces 
were  acquired  by 
Field  Museum 
in  1926. 


19 


Dear 
FItio 


Several  Months  Ago.  the  shelves  of  grocery  stores  across 
the  nation  began  to  carry  dinosaurs  —  pictures  of  them,  at 
any  rate  —  on  boxes  of  Life  Cereal,  manufactured  by  tiie 
Quaker  Oats  Company. 

The  re\erse  side  of  the  boxes  carried  brief  descrip- 
tions of  these  ancient  behemoths,  as  well  as  portraits  of 
them,  and  readers  were  invited  to  write  for  further  informa- 
tion to  Field  Museum,  where  dinosaur  reconstructions  are 
some  of  the  most  popular  exhibits.  From  among  the  many 
hundreds  of  letters  recei\ed  (nearh'  all  from  children),  the 
following  were  selected  ioi  Bulletin  readers  to  share  with  us: 


Dear  Field  Miifeum:  1  am  W  \/ears  old  and  in  the  5th  ^rade.  1 
want  to  knoiv  hoic  yon  put  dinosaur  bonef  to^^ether  ami,  also  how 
do  you  make  your  dinosaur  bones  stand  zcithout  falling?  1  live 
in  Twin  Falls,  Idaho.  Some  day  I  loant  to  come  and  see  your 
Museum.  1  love  studing  dinosaurs,  lu  school  1  have  studied  it 
4  times  We  also  made  a  notebook  on  dinosaurs.  Truly  yours, 
T.].,  P.S.  Thankyou.  Twin  Falls,  ID 

Dear  Field  Museum  Please  send  me  a  example  of  a  Prehistoric 
.■\namals.  N.J.,  Peru,  IN 

Dear  Sirs:  I  would  like  to  know  why  the  dinosaurs  died.  I  would 
also  like  to  know  what  the  weather  was  like  back  then.  1  ivould 
also  like  to  know  which  dinosaur  was  the  biggest  and  how  big.  I 
would  also  like  to  know  which  dinosaur  zvas  the  smallest  and  how 
small.  How  much  the  biggest  dinosaur  weighed  and  the  smallest. 
How  many  different  kinds  of  dinosaurs  there  was  back  then.  Yours 
Truly,  T.VV.,  Cincinnati,  OH 

Dear  to  zvhoever  it  may  concern,  I'm  writing  to  you  because  1 
wa)it  to  be  smart  and  to  know  about  dinosaurs.  1  am  10  years  old 
and  in  4  grade.  And  I  saw  your  thing  on  the  Life  cereal  box.  p'lease 
send  me  information.  Sign,  S.C.,  San  , Antonio,  TX 

Dear  Field  Museum,  1  get  Life  sometimes  and  saic  the  dinosaurs. 
In  my  class  we've  been  studying  about  them.  So  I'm  righting  to 
you  so  I  can  have  some  information.  I  have  to  go  now!  bye!!  L.G., 
'Pittsfield,  ME 

Dear  Sir,  I  would  like  all  the  information  you  can  send  me  on  di- 
nosaurs, and  fossils.  And  if  you  have  any  great  cowboys.  Please 
send  to:  P.M.,  Bridgeport,  OH 


Dear  Field  Mu:^eiii)i,  I  am  fafinated  about  Diiio^niiri;  so 
please  send  me  as  miicli  information  ns  you  can  aspically  the 
Tri/onasaurus  Rex.  I  like  him  tlie  most.  Thank  you.  Your  Di- 
nosaur Lover,  \i.B.,  Oklahoma  City,  OK 

Ml/  name  is  li.j.  and  I'm  16  years  old.  I  ivould  like  to  kiuno  nune 
information  on  your  tnuseum.  So  can  you  please  send  me  lots  of 
infornuition  on  the  Reptile  called  the  Pteranodon  1  would  love  that 
very  much.  I  like  aninuils  from  225  to  65  million  years  a^;o.  So 
can  you  Please  send  me  tons  of  information  on  the  Pteranodon 
Please,  and  can  yon  also  send  me  information  on  Man  eatins^  Di- 
nosaurs. Thank  you.  R.J.  Jr.,  Nortli  Providence,  Rl 

Dear  Field  Museum  I  need  some  information  about  DI- 
NOSAURS. I'd  be  really  happy  if  you  could  deliver  some  infor- 
mation on  dinosaurs  in  five  weeks  please.  From  M.I''., 
.\le\aiu1ria,  VA 

Dear  Field  Museum,  1  -would  like  to  hair  the  liole-ivorks  of  infor- 
nuition that  you  luwe  on  dinosaurs!  I  think  they  are  neat!  Thank 
you,  sincerely,  M.M.,  St.  Cloud,  MN 

Gentlemen.  I'm  sort  of  a  dinosaur  freak  who  would  like  to  knoiv 
a  little  more  about  them.  What  I  loould  like  to  know  is  what  they 
were  because  I  order  a  magazine  called  Ranger  Rick  and  it . . .  told 
some  ideas  that  dinosaurs  could  be  warm-blooded,  active  animals. 
I  -would  also  like  to  know  about  what  they  ate  and  where  most  of 
them  lived.  If  there  were  any  people  ofe.xistance  at  that  time.  I 
sa-w  your  add  on  Life  Cereal  boxes.  If  this  is  any  trouble  here  is  my 
name  and  address:  J.S.,  Council  Bluffs,  lA,  a^e  9.  Please  write 
infornuition  back  soon! 

Dear:  Field  Museum  I  ^^ot  the  letter  I  can't  \'a  to  see  you  because 
i'ts  to  far  But  -when  I  ^^et  bi;f  1  -want  to  work  at  your  Museum.  I'm 
sendin;^  you  a  picture  of  triceratops  and  the  bones  of  him.  I  ;^ot  the 
pictures  of  dinosaur  on  the  back  of  the  Life  cereal  box  of  Meat- 
Eating  Dinosaurs  and  Plant-eating  Dinosaurs.  I  love  Dinosaurs. 
I'm  7  years  old.  Do  you  luwe  fossils  of  tyrannosaurus  Rex?  and 
triceratops?  If  you  did  I  would  like  to  see  them.  Could  you  send 
me  pictures  of  Dinosaurs  M.S.,  Thank  you!  New  Rin^^s^old,  PA. 

Dear  Field  Museum  I'-ve  ;^otten  your  dinosaurs  on  the  pakage  of 
Life.  I've  always  liked  dinosaurs  when  I  was  real  young.  1  still  do, 
they're  my  hobby.  When  I  grow  up  I'm  going  to  be  a  palentologist. 
Well,  I  would  like  some  information  pictures,  and  offers  through 
the  mail,  if  it  is  ok.  I  have  dinosaur  books,  puzzels,  pictures  games, 
tlashcard,  and  even  lots  of  rubber  dinosaurs.  Please  give  me  offers, 
pictures  and  adult  info.  (I  know  already  the  names  of  all  the  Dino- 
saurs and  groups)  M.N.,  11  years.  Thank  you.  Ramona,  CA. 

Dear  Sir,  1  have  studied  dinosaurs  for  3  years  now  1  know  many 
things  about  them  My  friend  Tracy  gai'e  me  your  address  if  you 
have  any  free  information  about  dinosaurs  that  I  might  not  know 
please  send  It  tome.  Your  friend,  T.R.,  Iltndsville,  AR. 

Dear  Sirs:  My  name  is  D.Z.  I'm  in  the  7th  grade  and  entering  the 
Science  Fair  at  school.  I'm  writing  to  receive  information  on  Di- 
nosaurs. Which  theory  have  you  discovered  to  be  true  about  how 
the  dinosaurs  became  extinct?  Is  it  true  that  the  flying  reptiles  of 
that  time  are  the  ancestors  of  our  modern  day  birds?  Was  the 
plant  life  in  that  time  of  the  dinosaurs  similar  to  plant  life  of 
today?  If  not  what  do  you  think  it  ivas  like?  I  would  appreciate 
it  if  you  would  send  to  me,  as  soon  as  possible,  any  literature  or 
pamphlets  etc.  that  you  lurveon  this  subject.  Thank  you,  D.7., 
Cross  Plains,  WI     ' 


Please  send  me  papers  or  pictures  on  dinosaurs  I  am  4.  I  like  to 
hear  stories  about  them.  B.R.,  Idaho  Falls,  ID 

Dear  Friend,  Flow  are  things?  I'm  okay.  1  zvas  eating  breakfast 
and  I  was  looking  on  a  Life  cereal  box  and  seen  some  Dinosuros 
(Very  interesting.)  Could  yah  send  me  some  pictures  or  informa- 
tion about  this  place.  I'm  a  type  of  person  that  likes  artifacts  and 
the  past.  Well  I  must  close.  See  you  soon.  Write  back  when  luwe 
time.  Good  luck  and  God  bless  you.  Your  very  best  friend, 
R.  V.  L.,  15  years  old.  Candor,  NC 

Dear  Field  Museum,  My  name  is  D.O.  I  zoould  like  to  have  more 
information  on  meat  eaters  and  plant  eating  Dinosaurs,  and  Fos- 
sils. I  am  -very  interesting  on  Dinosaurs.  'When  you  -write  to  me 
my  address  is:  D.O.,  Vinton,  LA 

Dear  Sirs,  I  would  like  as  much  information  as  poss'ble  on  the 
prehistoric  birds,  meat-eating  dinosaurs,  the  prehistoric  am- 
phibians, and  the  plant-eating  dinosaurs.  It  is  I'cry  important 
because  I'm  a  science  loi<er  and  am  hoping  I'll  be  a  scientist. 
Sincerely  yours,  T.E.,  P.S.  Try  and  rush  them!  Biloxi,  MS 

Field  Museum.  I  want  to  knou'  more  about  dinosaurs  and  other 
prehistoric  animals  of  long  ago.  Because  I  ivant  to  be  a  scientist 
when  I  grozo  up.  So  that  I  knozo  a  lot  about  them.  I  like  to  read 
books  about  them  too.  And  I  like  to  rend  n  lot  of  books.  And  I  want 
to  knozo  zvliy  they  died.  Mammals  are  another  prehistoric  animals 
and  zoliy  did  they  die?  Signed  K.S.,  Memphis,  TN  21 


Edward  E.  AyerFiltn  Lecture  Series 


October  and  November 

James  Simpson  Theatre 
Saturda\;s,  2:30  p.m. 

The  Entrance  to  Simpson  Theatre  is  conveniently  located  inside  the  west  entrance.  This  is  of  special  interest  to  the  handicapped, 
for  the  entrance  is  at  ground  level,  with  all  steps  eliminated.  The  west  entrance  also  provides  free  admission  to  the  theatre.  Access  to 
other  Museum  areas,  however,  requires  the  regular  admission  fee  (except  on  Fridays)  or  membership  identification.  The  film/ 
lectures  are  approximately  90  minutes  long  and  recommended  for  adults.  Members  must  bring  their  membership  cards  for  priority 
seating  privileges.  Doors  open  at  1;45  p.m.  When  the  theatre  has  reached  full  seating  capacity,  the  doors  will  be  closed  by  Security 
personnel  in  compliance  with  fire  regulations. 

Browsing  deer  on 
spacious  lawns  of 
Warwick  Castle,  in 
"England."  Oc- 
tober 4. 


October  4 

"England"  by  Howard  and  Lucia  Meyers 

This  film  takes  you  inside  the  incredibly  lavish  treasure  houses 
of  England  —  reminders  of  an  adventurous  past:  Warwick 
Castle.  Windsor,  Barnard  Castle,  Wilton.  The  rich,  romantic 
palaces  of  old  England  bid  you  a  royal  welcome. 

October  11 

"The  Great  Smok]^  Mountains  '  by  Richard  Kern 

The  rugged  old  mountains  of  Southern  Appalachia  are  home 
to  a  diverse  flora  and  fauna.  Join  Richard  Kern  as  he  explores 
the  beautiful  wilderness. 

October  18 

"Charming  Vienna"  by  Andre  de  La  Varre,  Jr, 

Take  a  journey  back  to  the  city  of  his  boyhood  with  Andre  de 
La  Varre.  Visit  the  exquisite  Habsburg  Palace  of  Schonbrunn, 
watch  the  training  of  the  worid  famous  Lipizzan  stallions  and 
22  experience  the  excitement  of  Vienna  at  night. 


October  25 

'Swiss  on  White"  by  John  Jay 

John  Jay's  entertaining  and  humorous  presentation  visits 
the  most  popular  and  challenging  ski  runs  in  the  Alps.  Go 
to  Murren  and  witness  the  roped  race,  San  Moritz  and  the 
famous  Cresta  run,  Kolstens  with  its  cross  country  skiing 
and  finally,  summer  skiing  at  Zermatt. 

November  1 

'Sweden  '  by  Dick  Reddy 

Discover  the  warmth  of  Sweden  with  a  visit  to  Stockholm 
followed  by  midsummer  celebrations  at  Mariefred,  glorious 
Gota  Canal  trip  to  Gothenburg  and  a  trip  to  the  Island  of 
Gotland,  north  of  the  Arctic  Circle. 

November  8 

"Greece"  by  Sherilyn  and  Matthew  Mentes 

An  intimate  look  at  a  land  as  ancient  as  the  temples  at  Delphi 
and  as  modern  as  the  skyscrapers  of  Athens.  The  Mentes  take 
us  from  the  islands,  punctuafing  Homer's  "wine-dark  sea,"  to 
the  cloud-covered  peak  of  Mount  Olympus. 


Racing  70  miles  per  hour  dowr)  the 
famous  Inferno  Race  Course.  Murren. 
Switzerland,  from  "Swiss  on  White." 
October  25 


November  15 

"Paris"  by  Kathy  Dusek 

A  journey  down  the  Seine — the  river  of  Paris.  Highlights 
include  Paris  life  centering  around  the  Seine,  the  beautiful 
Cathedrals  of  Notre  Dame  and  Saint-Chapelle,  and  the  sharp 
contrast  of  the  modern  worid  with  the  remains  of  the  past. 

November  22 

"Peoples  of  Romantic  Europe"  by  William  Sylvester 

Learn  about  the  peoples  of  Germany,  Switzerland,  Austria, 
and  Yugoslavia.  Their  character  and  traditions  are  explored  and 
enrich  our  visit  to  their  countries. 

Novemiber  29 

"Ireland"  by  Robert  Davis 

A  peek  into  the  Irish  past,  a  walk  through  bustling  Dublin  and  a 
visit  to  the  rural  countryside  highlight  this  film  trip  to  Ireland. 


Black  bear  pauses  to  pose  in  "The 
Great  Smok^/  Mountains,"  October  11. 


Touring  horse  caravan  in  Ireland,  from 
'  Ireland'. '  November 29  23 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Illinois  Mud  Turtle 
Still  off  Endangered  List 

The  Illinois  mud  turtle  will  not  be  listed  as 
an  endangered  species  at  this  time,  the 
Department  of  the  Interior's  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  has  decided.  The  agency's 
decision  was  based  on  new  data  received 
from  the  public  in  response  to  a  proposal 
which  would  have  afforded  the  dark 
brown  turtle  areas  of  critical  habitat  in 
Iowa  and  Illinois  and  other  protection 
under  provisions  of  the  Endangered 
Species  Act. 

Information  compiled  during  the 
public  comment  period  and  from  meet- 
ings held  in  the  two  states  by  the  agencv 
following  publication  of  the  proposal  in- 
creased the  service's  knowledge  of  the  tur- 
tle's range  and  population.  The  additional 
data  made  available  to  the  agenc\  indi- 
cated the  turtle  is  more  numerous  than 
had  been  assumed  but  confirmed  that  its 
habitat  has  been  reduced.  The  service  will 
continue  to  study  the  status  of  the  Illinois 
mud  turtle,  officials  said. 

The  Iowa  area  proposed  as  critical 
habitat  for  the  turtle  and  known  as  Big 
Sand  Mound  is  owned  b\'  Monsanto  and 
Iowa-Illinois  Gas  and  Electric  Company. 
Monsanto's  expanding  Muscatine  her- 
bicide factory  is  located  there,  and  the 
utilities  company  is  constructing  a 
generating  station  nearby. 

The  two  companies  have  fenced  off  a 
400-acre  tract  of  land  in  Big  Sand  Mound 
and  proposed  it  be  managed  as  an  ecologi- 
cal preserve  by  an  advisory  group  of  scien- 
tists and  conservationists  interested  in 
preserving  the  area's  unique  plants  and 
animals,  including  the  Illinois  mud  turtle. 


Fish  Employed  to  Monitor 
Water  Purity 

A  West  German  city  has  enlisted' six  Nile 
elephant  fish  to  check  out  whether  it's  safe 
to  drink  the  water.  Each  Gnathonemus 
fish  (actually,  a  two-inch,  black-striped 
goldfish)  works  unstintingly  around  the 
clock,  two  weeks  straight,  to  provide  a 
continuous  check  on  Goppingen's  water 
purity.  Its  unique  job  qualifications;  a  ta- 
lent for  detecting  small  amounts  of  metal 
contaminants  and  the  ability  to  emit  elec- 
tric impulses. 

City  engineers  simply  plop  one  into 
an  aquarium  rigged  with  electrodes  con- 
nected to  a  monitoring  panel  at  utility 
headquarters  and  relax  until  the  fish 
sounds  a  pollution  warning  by  dropping 
its  impulses  under  200  a  second.  (An 
elephant  fish  in  unpolluted  water  nor- 
24  mally  gives  off  over  1,000  impulses.) 


Endangered  Eaglet  Survives  Storms 

On  the  morning  of  July  17,  biological  tech- 
nician George  Stapleton,  of  the  U.S.  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service,  observed  an  imma- 
ture bald  eagle  soaring  around  Little  Creek 
Reservoir  on  Crab  Orchard  National 
Wildlife  Refuge,  Carterville,  Illinois. 
Similar  events  are  occurring  elsewhere  in 
the  upper  Midwest  at  this  time  of  year,  so 
what  makes  this  eagle  so  special?  The  bird 
is  special  because  it's  the  first  eagle  ever  to 
be  hatched  and  reared  on  the  refuge; 
moreover,  the  nest  is  only  the  second  suc- 
cessful nest  in  Illinois  in  the  past  37  years. 
Efforts  to  produce  the  eagle  began  in 
early  1973  when  a  pair  of  eagles  selected  a 
snag  in  the  reservoir  and  constructed  a 
nest.  Work  on  the  nest  ended  abrupth- 
when  the  tree  fell  during  a  storm  in  W74. 
The  eagles  selected  another  snag  nearby 
and  again  began  building  a  nest.  The 
eagles  appeared  to  be  interested  in  the 
nest  throughout  the  winter  months  but 
usualh'  joined  the  spring  flights  to  north- 
ern states. 

However,  in  the  spring  of  1979,  things 
were  different.  Seemingly,  the  eagles  were 
about  to  carry  the  nesting  activities  to 
completion.  From  a  vantage  point  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  from  the  nest,  technician 
Stapleton  checked  the  nest  through  his 
scope  almost  daily.  He  was  convinced  the 
eagles  were  incubating  during  the  entire 
month  of  April.  For  some  unexplained 
reason,  though,  the  eagles  abandoned  the 
nest  and  left  the  refuge  on  May  2.  Observ- 
ers were  disappointed  when  they  failed  to 
see  any  sign  of  an  egg  or  eaglet  remains  in 
an  aerial  survey  over  the  nest  a  week  later. 
The  eagles  returned  to  the  area  in 
November  1979,  and  again  began  de- 
fending territory  around  the  nest. 
Biologists  were  excited  by  the  obvious 
seriousness  of  the  nesting  activity  when 
on  March  8,  1980,  the  pair  was  observed 
mating  near  the  nest.  By  late  March, 
Stapleton  thought  the  eagles  were  in- 
cubating an  egg.  On  April  25,  he  noticed  a 
change  in  the  behavior  of  the  eagle  sitting 
on  the  nest  and  suggested  it  might  be 
caring  for  a  young  bird. .Suspicions  were 
confirmed  on  May  8  when  an  eaglet  was 
observed  moving  about  on  the  edge  of 
the  nest.  Both  proud  parents  were  in 
attendance. 

With  the  parents  providing  an  ample 
supply  of  fish,  the  eaglet  continued  to 
grow  at  a  rapid  rate.  The  voung  bird  had 
feathers  and  was  close  to  the  flight  stage. 
On  the  evening  of  June  28,  a  severe  thun- 
derstorm with  100  mile-per-hour  winds 
passed  through  the  area.  The  tree  was 
blown  down  and  the  nest  sank  beneath 
wMter.  The  young  eagle  apparently  sur- 
\'ived  the  storm  and  falling  trees  and  was 
spotted  sitting  on  a  log  near  the  stump  that 


had  once  supported  the  nest  tree. 

Biologists  thought  the  young  eagle 
had  the  best  chance  for  survival  — 
perhaps  50-50  —  if  left  alone  under  the 
care  of  its  parents.  A  check  of  the  area  on 
July  1  indicated  the  parents  w  ere  still  car- 
ing for  the  young  bird  and  it  appeared  to 
be  in  good  condition. 

On  the  afternoon  of  July  2,  another 
severe  storm  moved  through  the  area, 
creating  severe  damage  to  nearby  com- 
munities and  hundreds  of  trees  on  the 
refuge.  The  young  bird,  apparently  con- 
ditioned to  such  abrasive  powers  of 
Mother  Nature  by  now,  survived  the 
storm  without  harm.  Technician  Stapleton 
and  the  refuge  staff  were  elated  when  the 
eagle  finally  took  to  flight  on  July  17. 

Several  questions  remain  to  be  an- 
swered: Will  the  eagles  return  to  the  area 
again  next  year?  Will  they  select  another 
tree  and  continue  their  nesting  attempts? 
Can  they  be  encouraged  to  select  a  live  tree 
on  land  or  perhaps  a  man-made  nesting 
structure  over  the  water?  The  refuge  staff 
will  make  the  area  as  attractive  as  possible 
to  eagles.  Optimistically,  eagles  may  adopt 
Crab  Orchard  Refuge  as  a  permanent 
nesting  site  and  produce  young  in  south- 
ern Illinois  regularh. 


Illinois  Air  Quality: 
A  Mixed  Report  for  1979 

Air  qualitv  o\'er  Illinois  was  a  mixture  of 
good  news  and  bad  news  during  1979,  ac- 
cordmg  to  the  Annual  Air  Quality  Report 
recently  completed  by  the  Illinois  En- 
vironmental Agency.  The  report  was  com- 
piled by  the  lEPA's  Division  of  Air  Pollution 
Control  Ambient  Air  Monitoring  Section.  It 
is  based  on  data  compiled  from  the  Divi- 
sion's air  monitoring  network  consisting  of 
316  samplers  throughout  the  state. 

On  the  good  news  side,  le\els  of  ozone 
(O,)  and  carbon  monoxide  (CO)  were  defi- 
niteh'  lower  during  the  year.  However,  on 
the  bad  news  side  of  the  ledger,  levels  of 
sulfur  dioxide  (SO,),  particulates  (soot, 
dust,  etc.)  and  nitrogen  dioxide  (NO,)  were 
higher,  the  report  shows. 

Dave  Kolaz,  manager  of  the  section, 
said,  "Air  pollution  is  a  highly  variable 
phenomenon  reiving  on  the  interplay  of  a 
variety  of  conditions.  Foremost  among 
these  are  the  weather,  geography,  and  eco- 
nomics. Weather  conditions  involve  at- 
mospheric stability,  wind  speed  and  direc- 
tion, precipitation,  solar  radiation,  and 
temperature.  It's  important  to  know  the 
geography — whether  the  area  is  urban, 
rural,  valley  or  plain.  Economics  considers 
such  things  as  the  concentrations  of  in- 
dustries, boom  or  recession  times,  and 
whether  it's  a  weekday  or  the  weekend.  All 
of  these  things  are  contributing  factors  to 


the  quality  of  the  air  we  breathe  in  this 
state.  These  \ariations  often  can  be  seen  as 
a  pattern  of  daily,  seasonal  or  longer  range 
basis." 

The  report  shows  that  trends  estab- 
lished over  the  years  for  four  of  the  se\en 
major  air  pollutants  o\er  the  past  years 
were  reversed  during  1979.  Ozone  and  car- 
bon monoxide,  which  had  been  increasing, 
decreased,  while  particulates  and  sulfur 
dioxide,  which  were  decreasing,  increased. 

In  general,  ozone  levels  were  much 
lower  in  1979  than  in  the  previous  three 
years.  For  the  first  time  since  monitoring 
began  in  1974,  none  of  the  43  staHons  in  the 
network  registered  levels  abo\e  .20  parts 
per  million  (ppm).  The  highest  hourlv 
average  for  the  year  was  .186  ppm  at  Wau- 
kegan.  That  monitor  also  recorded  the 
greatest  number  of  davs  above  the  federal 
standard  of  .120  ppm,  with  nine  days.  Ed- 
wardsville  had  the  greatest  number  of 
hours  exceeding  the  state  standard  of  .080 
ppm,  with  176. 

On  60  of  the  153  days  in  the  ozone  sea- 
son at  least  one  city  or  area  was  placed 
under  an  ozone  advisory  when  levels 
exceeded  70  parts  per  billion  (ppb)  for  a 
two-hour  a\'erage  and  weather  conditions 
were  such  that  the  levels  were  expected  to 
reccur  the  following  day.  This  compares 
to  88  days  in  1978  and  represents  a  decrease 
of  18  percent.  Edwardsxille  led  with  37 
days  under  advisorv  conditions.  This  is  23 
percent  lower  than  in  1978,  when  Marion 
was  under  ad\isorv  conditions  for  72  days. 
In  1979  Marion  had  only  23  advisory  days. 

There  was  only  one  Yellow  Alert  is- 
sued in  1979,  compared  to  eight  in  1978, 
when  levels  of  170  ppb  were  exceeded.  The 
single  Yellow  Alert  was  declared  on  July  21 
for  Waukegan.  The  Yellow  Alert  is  issued 
when  ozone  levels  reach  170  ppb  for  a 
one-hour  average  and  conditions  are  such 
that  reccurrence  is  expected  the  follow- 
ing day. 

Of  the  nine  sites  monitoring  carbon 
monoxide  only  three  registered  violations 
of  the  eight-hour  standard  of  9  ppm.  These 
occurred  in  Chicago,  Calumet  City,  and 
Moline.  The  greatest  number  of  excursions 
were  recorded  at  the  State  Office  Building 
in  downtown  Chicago  with  59.  This  is  a 
decrease  of  30  percent  over  1978,  when  84 
excursions  occurred.  This  site  also  had  the 
highest  eight-hour  excursion  of  16  ppm  and 
the  highest  one-hour  average  of  24.3  ppm. 

The  statewide  average  for  particulates 
re\ersed  a  downward  trend  in  1979  when 
the  statewide  average  was  74  micrograms 
per  cubic  liter  (ug/m^)  as  compared  to  70 
ug'm^  in  1978.  Once  again  Granite  City 
topped  the  list  with  an  annual  average  of 
215  ugml  This  is  the  highest  annual  aver- 
age since  1969  and  the  first  year  since  1976 
that  a  site  recorded  an  annual  average 
above  200  ugim^  Of  the  highest  nine  sites 
in  the  state  during  the  year,  seven  were  lo- 
cated in  Granite  City.  The  lowest  annual 
mean  was  44  ug/m^  recorded  in  Lake  Bluff. 
Granite  City  also  had  the  two  highest 


24-hour  averages  for  the  year. 

Sulfur  dioxide  also  showed  increases 
reversing  the  long-term  downward  trend, 
with  the  annual  statewide  average  stand- 
ing at  .012  ppm  as  compared  to  .010  in  1978. 
The  increase  was  most  noticeable  in  the 
Chicago/Cook  County  area  from  January 
through  March,  a  period  of  severe  winter 
weather  which  may  have  been  a  con- 
tributing factor 

E\en  with  this  increase  the  state  re- 
mained well  below  the  primary  annual 
standard  of  .030  ppm.  The  highest  annual 
average  was  .022  ppm,  registered  at  GSA 
Building  in  Chicago  and  the  State  Office 
Building  in  East  St.  Louis.  The  lowest 
annual  average  was  .006  ppm  measured 
in  LaSalle. 

The  longest  continuous  excursion  ever 
recorded  in  Illinois  occurred  in  Wood  River 
and  coxered  an  80-hour  period  with  the 
highest  24-hour  average  of  .248  ppm.  Two 
other  sites  recorded  violations  of  the  24- 
hour  primary  standard  of  .14  ppm.  These 
were  Springfield  with  .216  ppm  and  East 
St.  Louis  with  .162  ppm. 

Nitrogen  dioxide  levels  continued  a 
three-year  trend  of  increasing  levels.  In 
1979  there  were  19  sites  above  the  annual 
primary  standard  of  .050  ppm.  This  com- 
pares to  none  in  1977  and  11  in  1978  with  a 
high  of  .060  ppm.  In  1979  the  highest  aver- 
age was  .078  ppm,  recorded  in  Cicero  while 
the  lowest  was  .014,  recorded  in  Ed- 
wardsville. 

Non-methane  hydrocarbons  were 
monitored  at  two  sites  in  1979.  The  stan- 
dard for  this  pollutant  is  a  6-9  a.m.  average 
of  .24  ppm  not  to  be  exceeded  more  than 
once  per  year  Both  sites  had  98  percent  of 
the  6-9  a.m.  averages  higher  than  the  stan- 
dard. 


Pollutants  Suspected 
In  Striped  Bass  Decline 

Traces  of  arsenic,  pcbs,  and  other  chemi- 
cals are  the  latest  clues  in  a  biological  de- 
tective story — the  mysterious  decline  of 
Atlantic  Coast  striped  bass.  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  biologists  found  the 
chemical  residues  in  striped  bass  fry  and 
fingerlings  collected  last  summer  from 
three  East  Coast  rivers.  Tests  showed  that 
Ihe  fish  had  weakened  backbones,  a  con- 
dition the  scientists  believe  is  caused  by 
toxic  chemicals. 

"A  weakened  backbone  would  cer- 
tainly reduce  the  ability  of  striped  bass  to 
compete  for  food,  avoid  predators,  or  en- 
dure the  stresses  of  migration  and  reprod- 
uction," according  to  Paul  Mehrle,  an  ivvs 
biochemist.  "But  we  have  a  lot  more  work 
to  do  before  we  can  say  to  what  extent 
contiiminanls  may  be  contributing  to  the 
decrease  in  the  striped  bass  population." 

The  number  of  striped  bass,  a  valu- 
able sport  and  commercial  fish,  began 
dropping  in  the  early  1970s  and  by  1978 
had  reached  a  21-vear  low.  Two  federal 


fishery  agencies — FWS  and  the  National 
Marine  Fisheries  Service  —  are  conducting 
an  emergency  three-year  program  to  de- 
termine the  size  and  distribution  of  striped 
bass  populations  and  to  find  out  whether 
the  decline  is  natural  or  due  to  some 
man-made  phenomenon,  such  as  pollu- 
tion or  over- fishing. 

Contaminants  are  a  prime  suspect  in 
the  mystery  because  striped  bass  spawn  in 
heavily  polluted  rivers  where  the  delicate 
young  fish  stay  for  up  to  three  or  four 
months  after  hatching.  Then  the  young 
must  survive  for  two  years  or  more  in 
estuaries,  where  they  are  often  exposed  to 
more  pollution.  Later,  some  stocks  of 
striped  bass  migrate  out  to  sea  where  the\' 
spend  most  of  their  adult  lives  in  coastal 
waters. 

FV\S  scientists  have  found  that  \oung 
striped  bass  from  the  Hudson  River  con- 
tained relatively  high  levels  of  pcbs  (poly- 
chlorinated  biphenyls,  an  industrial 
chemical),  lead,  and  cadmium.  Fish  from 
the  Potomac  River  contained  lead,  zinc, 
arsenic,  and  selenium;  and  fish  from  the 
Nanticoke  River  (Mar\'land)  contained 
significant  levels  of  arsenic  and  selenium. 
In  contrast,  striped  bass  raised  at  the 
Edenton  National  Fish  Hatchery  in  North 
Carolina  contained  no  significant  chemical 
residues.  Tests  also  revealed  that  the 
backbones  of  Hudson  River  fish  were  42 
percent  weaker  than  the  uncontaminated 
hatchery  fish,  while  backbones  of  fish 
from  the  Potomac  and  Nanticoke  showed 
about  a  20  percent  reduction  in  strength. 

Mehrle  says  the  studies  show  that 
contaminants  begin  affecting  striped  bass 
during  very  early  life  stages  —  within  the 
first  three  months. 

The  researchers  have  already  begun 
additional  studies  to  learn  more  about  the 
effects  of  contaminants  on  striped  bass. 
Adult  female  bass  have  been  collected 
from  the  Hudson  River,  the  Elk  and  Chtip- 
tank  rivers  in  Maryland,  and  the  Cooper 
River  in  South  Carolina,  and  their  fer- 
tilized eggs  sent  to  a  laboratory.  There, 
studies  will  be  made  of  hatching  success, 
and  of  survival,  growth  and  development 
of  the  young  for  90  days  after  hatch. 
Chemical  residues  in  eggs  and  young  will 
be  measured  throughout  the  study 
period,  l-us  scientists  will  then  see  if  the 
presence  of  chemical  residues  can  be  cor- 
related with  reproductive  success  or  sur- 
vival and  growth  of  \'oung. 

At  this  time  there  is  no  consensus  as 
to  what  is  causing  the  drop  in  the  number 
of  striped  bass.  Some  scientists  think  a 
combination  of  factors  is  resptinsible, 
while  others  believe  the  decrease  is  part  of 
a  natural  c\cle  that  will  eventually  reverse 
itsi'lf  without  human  help.  Ihe  tests  being 
conducted  should  help  provide  the  evi- 
dence needed  to  determine  whether  pol- 
lution is  contributing  to  the  decline  of 
the  popular  fish.  In  the  meantime,  the 
jury  is  still  out  on  the  case  of  the  declining 
striped  bass.  25 


TOURS 

Continued  from  p.  17 
noon  flight  from  Kathmandu  to  Varanasi. 
Clarks  Hotel.  City  tour  of  Varanasi,    tfie 
oldest  city  in  tfie  world.  "  Opportunity  for 
shopping.  6:  Early  morning  boat  ride  on 
Ganges  to  see  the  Ghats,  another  highlight 
of  trip.  Afternoon  flight  to  Agra.  Overnight 
at  Hotel  Mughal,  7:  Visit  the  famous  TAJ 
MAHAL  in  the  morning.  Afternoon  at  lei- 
sure. 8:  Travel  to  Bharatpur  will  be  by  de- 
luxe motor  coach,  stops  at  Fatehpur  Sikri, 
Akbar  the  Great's  old  capital,  and  a  visit 
to  the  tomb  of  Saint  Salim  Chisti  or  the 
Bulland  Durwaza,  Overnight  at  the  Forest 
Lodge.  9:  Morning  viewing  of  nesting  water 
birds  via  boat.  Afternoon  departure  by 
motor  coach  for  Jaipur.  Afternoon  tour  of 
Jaipur  City.  Also  visit  Jai  Singh's  Astrolo- 
gical Observatory.  Overnight  at  Rambagh 
Hotel.  10:  Morning  excursion  to  Amber 
Fort.  Afternoon  departure  by  motor  coach 
for  Delhi.  Overnight  at  Maurya  Sheraton 
Hotel.  11:  Early  morning  departure  for  Lon- 
don. Overnight  at  the  now  familiar  Hotel 
Sheraton  Heathrow.  12:  Depart  London  in 
early  afternoon  for  New  York  Chicago. 

The  price  of  this  unusual  tour  is 
53.200.  based  on  double  occupancy  plus 
a  S300  tax-deductible  contribution  to  Field 
Museum.  Single  supplement  is  5347  addi- 
tional. Tour  leader  will  be  Mr  Jerie  S.  Ser- 
rao.  of  the  Bombay  Matural  History  Society. 


Egypt  (with  Nile  cruise) 

Co-sponsored  by  Field  Museum 

and  The  University  Museum, 

Gniversity  of  Pennsylvania 


February  4-21.  1981 


ITINERARY: 

Feb.  4:  Departure  Chicago  O'Hare  Airport. 
Mew  York  is  gateway  city.  5:  Afternoon  arri- 
val in  Cairo.  Hotel  Mena  House  Oberoi.  6: 


Morning  tour  of  the  Giza  Pyramids:  after- 
noon tour  of  the  Egyptian  Museum  of  An- 
tiquities. 7:  Full  day  excursion  to  Memphis 
and  Saqqara,  Attend  Sound  and  Light  per- 
formance in  the  evening,  8:  Depart  Cairo 
by  deluxe  motor  coach  to  Abusir  Continue 
to  Minia;  board  MS  Reu  Vacances  for  Mile 
cruise,  9:  Beni  Hassan/Mallawi,  Morning 
visit  to  rock-cut  tombs.  Afternoon  visit 
to  the  tomb  of  Petosiris  at  Tuna  el  Gebel 
and  to  El  Ashmunein,  10:  Tell-el  Amarna, 
Morning  visit  to  Akhetaton,  Afternoon, 
cruising  on  the  Mile.  11:  Full  day  at  leisure 
cruising  on  the  Mile.  12:  Morning  visit  to  the 
beautiful  Mew  Kingdom  temples  at  Abydos. 
13:  Morning  visit  to  the  Rolemaic  temple  of 
Dendera.  Arrive  at  Luxor  after  lonch.  After- 
noon visit  to  the  temple  of  Amenhotep  III. 
14:  Full  day  visit  to  the  Valley  of  the  Kings 
(Luxor).  In  the  evening.  Sound  and  Light 
performance  at  the  temples  of  Karnak.  15: 
Morning  visit  to  the  tombs  of  the  Mobles 
and  the  workmen's  village.  Afternoon  visit 
to  the  temples  at  Karnak.  16:  Morning  visit 
to  the  temple  of  the  god  Khnum  at  Esna, 
In  the  afternoon,  visit  the  temple  of  Horus 
at  Edfu,  17:  Sail  to  Kom  Ombo,  visit  the 
temple  dedicated  to  the  falcon  god  Horus, 
Afternoon  arrival  in  Aswan,  Excursion  by 
felucca  to  Elephantine  Island,  Visit  Kitch- 
ener's Gardens,  18:  Disembark  at  Aswan, 
Visit  the  High  Dam,  Granite  Quarries,  un- 
finished Obelisk  and  the  temple  of  Philae, 
Afternoon  visit  to  rock-cut  tombs  of  the 
Mobles,  Overnight  at  Hotel  Oberoi,  19: 
Early  morning  flight  to  Abu  Simbel,  After- 
noon flight  from  Abu  Simbel  to  Cairo, 
Return  to  the  Hotel  Mena  House  Oberoi. 
20:  After  breakfast,  transfer  to  Egyptian 
Museum  of  Antiquities  for  a  second  visit. 
Afternoon  tour  of  Old  Cairo.  Farewell  di- 
nner at  the  Meridian  Hotel.  21:  Morning  de- 
parture from  Cairo  for  Mew  York/Chicago. 

The  lecturers  for  this  tour  are  Del  Mord, 
Ph.D.  candidate  in  Egyptology.  Department 
of  Near  Eastern  Languages  and  Civiliza- 


tions, The  Oriental  Institute,  The  University 
of  Chicago  and  David  P  Silverman.  Ph.D,, 
assistant  professor  of  Egyptology  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania  and  assistant 
curator  of  the  Egyptian  Section  at  the 
University  Museum, 

The  cost  of  the  tour  from  Chicago  is 
$3,495,00,  plus  a  $500,00  tax-deductible 
contribution  to  Field  Museum,  Participation 
is  limited  to  30  people. 


People's  Republic  of  China 

April  5-24.  1981 

A  Specially  Tailored  3-week  travel/study 
tour  of  China  is  offered  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Mr  Phillip  H,  Woodruff,  Ph,D.  can- 
didate in  Chinese  history  at  the  University 
of  Chicago,  This  is  Mr  Woodruffs  second 
time  as  a  Field  Museum  China  tour  leader 
and  his  third  visit  to  that  country  in  1 1 
months.  Cost  of  the  tour  is  $4,021,  plus 
a  $300  tax-deductible  contribution  to 
Field  Museum. 

ITINERARY: 

April  5:  Depart  O'Hare  Airport  by  overnight 
flight  (day  is  lost  as  we  cross  International 
Date  Line).  6:  Arrive  in  Tokyo  and  transfer 
to  the  New  Otani  Hotel.  7:  Flight  from 
Tokyo  to  Peking,  8-10:  In  Peking,  11:  Travel 
from  Peking  to  Sian,  12,  13:  In  Sian,  14: 
Travel  from  Sian  to  Suzhow,  15:  Travel  from 
Suzhow  to  Shanghai,  16:  In  Shanghai.  17: 
Travel  from  Shanghai  to  Hangchow.  18:  In 
Hangchow.  19:  Travel  from  Hangchow  to 
Kweilin.  20,  21:  In  Kweilin.  22:  Travel  from 
Kweilin  to  Hong  Kong.  Register  at  Mandarin 
Hotel.  23:  In  Hong  Kong,  farewell  cocktail 
party  and  dinner  24:  Depart  Hong  Kong 
by  homebound  flight.  Arrive  on  same  date 
in  Chicago  (having  gained  day  while  cross- 
ing I.D.L.), 


October  &  November  at  Field  Museum 

(October  15  through  November  15) 


New  Exhibit 

"The  Great  Bromze  Age  of  Chima:  An  Exhibition  from  the 
People's  Republic  of  China,"  Bronze  vessels,  jade  sculptures, 
and  magnificent  terracotta  soldiers  and  horses  attest  to  the 
range  of  inventive  genius  of  the  ancient  Chinese.  Highlights 
include  a  gilded  lamp  in  the  form  of  a  lovely  young  girl:  a  large 
bronze  bowl  with  an  inscription  that  gives  an  eyewitness  account 
of  the  overthrow  of  the  Shang  Dynasty  by  the  invading  Zhou: 
and  a  deadly  axe  blade  found  in  a  tomb  with  three  human 
sacrifices.  Exhibit  curator:  Bennet  Bronson;  designer:  Clifford 
Abrams.  Through  October  29.  Halls  26  and  27.  2nd  floor. 


Continuing  Exhibit 

"Place  for  Wonder."  Everything  in  this  gallery  is  meant  to  be 

touched,  handled,  and  examined.  Feel  volcanic  ash  from  Mount 

26  St.  Helens:  discover  the  minerals  which  give  us  soap  and  tooth- 


paste: or  write  your  name  with  a  piece  of  graphite,  which  is  used 
for  making  pencils.  Open  weekdays  1  p.m. -3  p.m.:  weekends  10 
a.m. -noon,  and  1  p.m. -3  p.m.  Ground  floor,  near  cafeteria. 

New  Programs 

"Human  Uniqueness  and  Animal  Nature."  with  Stephen  Jay 
Gould,  professor.  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  Harvard 
University.  Come  hear  one  of  the  world's  most  versatile  scientists 
give  the  keynote  address  of  the  Fall  Learning  Museum  course. 
"Animals  in  Human  Perspective."  Dr.  Gould  challenges  the  ac- 
cepted barriers  between  humankind  and  the  rest  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  and  explores  why  the  Western  world  has  yet  to  make 
its  peace  with  Darwin  and  the  implications  of  evolutionary 
theory  Made  possible  by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment 
for  the  Humanities,  a  federal  agency  Friday.  Oct,  17.  8  p.m., 
Simpson  Theatre.  Call  322-8855  during  business  hours  to 
order  tickets  now,  or  purchase  them  at  the  lecture  door.  Mem- 
bers $3.  nonmembers  $5. 


Ray  a.  Kroc  Environmental  Film  Lectore:  "The  Philippine 
(Monkey-Eating)  Eagle  Expedition."  with  Alan  Degen.  This  film 
depicts  the  drama  of  adult  eagles  raising  their  young  in  one  of 
the  most  endangered  environments  on  earth,  where  the  rav- 
ages of  forest  destruction  are  pushing  the  second  largest  of 
eagles  to  the  brink  of  extinction.  Degen.  one  of  the  film's  princi- 
pal photographers,  narrates  this  intense  documentary  Friday 
Mov  14.  8  p.m..  Simpson  Theatre.  For  ticket  information,  call 
322-8854  during  business  hours. 

YUEH  Lung  Shadow  Theatre.  Don't  miss  this  rare  opportunity 
to  see  the  2.000-year-old  art  of  Chinese  Shadow  Theatre  ani- 
mated by  colorful,  translucent  rod  puppets.  Behind  a  back-lit 
screen,  the  puppets  will  pantomime  two  classical  Chinese  folk 
tales.  "The  Two  Friends"  and  "The  Crane  and  the  Tortoise."  A 
play  about  the  famous  Monkey  King.  "The  Mountain  of  the  Fiery 
Tongues."'  will  also  be  performed.  Saturday  Oct.  18  at  11  a.m. 
and  12:30  p.m.  Tickets  should  be  ordered  in  advance  due  to 
limited  seating  capacity:  call  322-8854  during  business  hours. 
Members  $3.  nonmembers  $5. 


Yueh  Lung  Shadow  Theatre  performs  on  Saturday,  October  18. 


Free  Films  on  Ancient  China  continue  every  Friday  Saturday 
and  Sunday  for  the  duration  of  "The  Great  Bronze  Age  of  China '" 
exhibit.  At  1 1  a.m.:  China:  The  Beginnings  discusses  the  search 
for  the  origin  of  Chinese  civilization.  At  12:30  p.m.:  China: 
Hundred  Schools  to  One  documents  the  warring  between  the 
states  and  the  formation  of  the  Qin  empire.  At  2  p.m.:  Xian 
traces  the  history  of  China's  ancient  imperial  city  Made  possible 
by  a  grant  from  the  National  Endowment  for  the  Humanities,  a 
federal  agency 


Stephen  Jay  Could,  noted  Harvard  CIniuersity  professor  and  es- 
sayist, will  lecture  in  James  Simpson  Theatre  on  Friday,  October  1 7, 
at  8:00  p.m. 

Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lecture  Series.  Explore  the  world  with- 
out leaving  Chicago,  every  Saturday  in  October  and  Movember, 
2:30  p.m..  in  Simpson  Theatre.  Colorful  90-minute  films,  nar- 
rated by  the  filmmakers  themselves,  focus  on  such  diverse 
lands  as  Switzerland,  Sweden,  and  Greece.  Admission  is  free  at 
the  West  Door;  Members  receive  priority  seating.  See  pp.  22-23 
for  program  details. 

Fall  Joorney:  "Fossils  in  the  Floor."  Learn  about  fossils  in  this 
self-guided  tour.  Free  Journey  pamphlets  are  available  at 
Museum  entrances. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Participate  in  a  variety  of  free 
tours,  demonstrations,  and  films  on  natural  history  every  Sat- 
urday and  Sunday  between  11  a.m.  and  3  p.m.  Check  the 
Weekend  Sheet  available  at  Museum  entrances  for  locations 
and  additional  programs. 

D  Saturday  Oct.  18:  "Ancient  Egypt."  tour,  11:30  a.m. 

n  Sunday  Oct.  19:   'Rocks  of  All  Ages"  Film  Feature:  Fossil 
Story.  1  p.m. 

D  Saturday  Oct,  25:  "Many  Mexicos,"  tour,  1  p,m. 

D  Sunday  Oct,  26:  "Indian  Life  on  the  Prairies,"  tour,  1  p,m. 

n  Saturday  Mov  1:  "Ancient  Egypt,"  tour,  11:30  a,m. 

D  Sunday  Mov  2:  "Ethnographic  Reality,  Cultural  Studies  on 

Film  "  Film  Feature:  The  Barefoot  Doctors  of  Rural  China, 

1  p.m. 

n  Saturday  Mov.  8:  "Welcome  to  the  Field,"  tour,  ]  p.m. 

D  Sunday  Mov.  9:   "Ethnographic  Reality  Cultural  Studies  on 
Film"  Film  Feature/^  f^an  Called  Bee,  1  p.m. 

D  Saturday  Mov.  15:  "Welcome  to  the  Field."  tour,  1  p.m. 

Continuing  Programs 

Volunteer  Opportunities.  Individuals  interested  in  working 
with  school  groups,  presenting  tours,  and  participating  in  other 
educational  programs  are  asked  to  contact  the  volunteer  coor- 
dinator at  922-9410.  ext.  360. 

October  and  November  Hours.  The  Museum  opens  daily  at  9 
a.m.  and  closes  at  5  p.m.  (4  p.m.  beginning  Movember  I )  every 
day  except  Friday  On  Fridays  the  Museum  remains  open  until  9 
p.m.  throughout  the  year. 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  from  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m. 
Obtain  a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  main  floor. 


Museum  Telephone:  (312)  922-9410 


27 


.i__.:vIS    SlftTURAL     HISTORY 
SURVEY     LIB    RW    196 
NATURAL     RESOURCES    BUILDI■^l:^ 
ij^nHH^    ILL     ol^^Ol 


J 


Field  Museum 
of  Natural  History 
Bulletin 


CONTENTS 
3 


November  1980 
Vol.  51,  No,  10 


EditonDt'si^iier:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poiilter 
Calendar:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

Preiiideiit:  E.  Leland  Webber 
Director:  Lorin  I.  Nevling,  jr. 

Board  of  Trustees 

William  G.  Swartchild,  Jr., 

chairman 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Roberto.  Bass 
Gordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 

Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Da\is 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphy  ]r. 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Byron  Smith 
Robert  H.'Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 


Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 
William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  N.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodrich 
CUfford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T  Pirie,  Jr 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


Field  Museum  ot  Batumi  Hi^h^ru  Bi(.iL-.*iri  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monthly,  except 
combined  July  August  issue,  by  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II.  60605,  Subscriptions:  $6.00  annually.  $.1.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  Bulletin  subscription  Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are 
their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  policy  of  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scripts are  welcome.  Museum  phone:  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II. 
60605.  ISSN:  0015-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  II. 


10 

11 


North  American  Indian  Heritage  Day  Program 

Sunday,  November  23 

Lowly  Asphalt  Comes  into  Its  Own 

by  Robert  F.  Mari^cliiu'r,  research  afsocmte,  Department  of  Geology 

Dove-Catching  with  Salt  and  Other  Adventtires 

('1/  William  Heiir\/  Hudson 

Endangered  and  Threatened  Invertebrate  Species 
Endangered  and  Threatened  Plant  Species 


12        The  Technology  of  the  Northwest  Coast 
Halibut  Fisherman 

by  Ronald  L.  Weber,  visiting  assistant  curator.  Department 
of  Anthropologi/ 

1 6         Behind  the  S  cenes 

1 8         Field  Museum  Tours 

21  A  Christmas  Afternoon  at  Field  Museum 

Thursday,  December  11,  program 

22  Field  Briefs 

23  Bo(*s 

24  Our  Environment 

26        November  and  December  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  Coming  Events 


COVER 

"Animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral"  might  be  described  as  the  theme  of  this 
whatnot  box.  The  editor  wishes  to  thank  Mike  Gotto,  Stanley  Konopka, 
and  George  Petrik,  all  of  Budding  Opvrations,  for  preparation  of  the  box 
frame;  Dave  Willard,  custodian  of  the  bird  collection,  for  the  loan  of 
robin  and  plover  eggs:  Eric  Smith,  custodian  of  the  insect  collection,  for 
the  loan  of  insects:  Betty  Deis,  instructor.  Department  of  Education,  for 
the  loan  of  miscellaneous  specimens;  and  Emily  Brandle,  of  the  Museum 
Gift  Shop,  for  the  loan  of  mineral  sp>ecimens.  The  Lepidoptera  are  from 
the  editor's  private  collection.  Photo  by  Ron  Testa. 


North  American  Indian 
Heritage  Day 


Sunday.  November  23 

11:00  a.m.— 4:00  p.m. 


A  D/^-LONC  Celebravon  of  North  American  Indian  culture 
will  be  hosted  by  Field  Museum  on  November  23.  Traditional 
folklore,  ritual,  and  crafts  practiced  by  Native  Americans  will 
be  areas  of  special  focus.  Under  the  Joint  auspices  of  the 
f^useum  and  the  American  Indian  Center,  of  Chicago,  the 
American  Indian  Dance  Croup  will  perform  dances  of  the 
Oneida.  Sioux.  Seneca.  Omaha,  and  Winnebago  tribes, 
among  others.  Commentary  on  dance  symbolism  and 
the  significance  of  costume  design  will  supplement  the 
performances. 

Throughout  the  day.  local  Indian  artisans  will  demon- 
strate silversmithing,  weaving,  flutemaking.  beadworking. 
quillworking.  and  other  crafts. 

Also  scheduled  are  a  selection  of  tours  of  Field 
Museum's  extensive  Indian  collections:  a  look  at  Hopi  life  in 
the  Southwest  and  symbolism  and  craft  of  American  Indian 
dress,  prehistoric  life  in  the  Illinois  Valley,  and  the  daily  life  of 
major  norihern  tribes. 

The  Pawnee  earth  lodge  in  Hall  5.  a  life-size  replica  of 
a  19th-century  Pawnee  dwelling,  is  open  all  day.  and  guides 
are  on  hand  to  answer  questions  about  Pawnee  life.  Supple- 


mental slide  presentations  provide  information  on  the  history 
and  culture  of  the  Pawnee. 

There  will  also  be  an  opportunity  during  North 
American  Indian  Heritage  Day  to  view  selections  from  Field 
Museum 's  film  archives.  Films  include  the  story  of  Ishi.  the 
last  aboriginal  Indian  of  North  America  discovered  in  Califor- 
nia in  191 1:  Maria  Martinez,  the  world-renowned  Pueblo  pot- 
ter from  New  Mexico  who  died  earlier  this  yean  and  scenes 
from  Edward  S.  Curiis's  legendary  1913  film.  "In  the  Land  of 
War  Ccinoes."  which  is  concerned  with  rituals  of  the  North- 
west Coast  KwakiutI  Indians. 

November  23  promises  to  be  a  fascinating  day  for  the 
entire  family.  See  dances  performed  as  they  once  were  exe- 
cuted in  yeais  past  ti/A"  to  Indian  artisans  who  reminisce 
about  their  tribal  ways  and  crafts,  and  experience  the  rich 
heritage  of  the  fust  Americans. 

All  activities  are  free  with  Museum  admission.  Com- 
plete listing  of  events  available  on  Sunday,  November  23, 
at  Museum  entrances.  Tickets  are  not  necessary.  For  more 
information,  see  the  November  Calendar  of  Events  or  call 
312-322-8854.  3 


Lowly  Asphalt  Comes  into  Its  Own 

The  Significance  of  Asphalt  in  the  technology  of 
early  civilizations  is  coming  to  light 

by  Robert  F  AViRSChmer 


A 


Randw  La  Brea  Tar  Pit, 
near  Los  Angeles. 
Workmen  are  excavat- 
ing pelvises  of  giant 
ground  sloths.  Note 
liquid  asphalt  seeping 
from  excavation  ivall. 
1915  photo:  courtesy 
George  C.  Page 
Museum,  La  Brea  Dis- 
coveries (a  branch  of  the 
Los  Angeles  County 
Museum  of  Natural 
4  Histori/). 


rcheologists  sometimes  encounter  in  their 
excavations  a  viscous  mixture  of  liquid  bitu- 
men with  solid  mineral  matter — the  substance 
commonly  called  asphalt.  In  the  early  days 
of  archeological  investigation  it  was  usually 
overlooked  or  ignored,  and  its  importance  to 
early  man  as  an  adhesive,  sealant,  and  protectant 
was  hardly  recognized.  Only  in  recent  years  has 
asphalt  gained  enough  attention  as  an  archeolo- 
gical material  to  be  the  subject  of  independent 
study  and  analysis. 

An  exception  to  this  generalization  is  a 
collaboration  between  a  university  archeologist 
and  a  petroleum-industr\'  chemist  that  occurred 
nearly  fift\'  years  ago.  The  archeologist  was  Henri 
Frankfort,  visiting  professor  at  the  Oriental  Insti- 


tute of  the  Universitv  of  Chicago,  who  had  un- 
earthed several  large  structures  at  Tell  Asmar,  in 
what  is  today  central  Iraq.  The  chemist  was  R.  J. 
Forbes,  of  the  Roval  Dutch  Shell  Laboratories  in 
Amsterdam;  he  was  interested  in  the  early  history 
of  petroleum.  Nine  samples  of  asphalt  mortars 
and  floorings  excavated  by  Frankfort  were 
analyzed  bv  Forbes  in  the  early  1930s.  Until  now, 
what  little  was  known  about  the  composition  of 
asphalts  used  bv  the  ancients  was  based  almost 
enrirely  on  these  nine  samples.  In  the  past  decade, 
however,  collaboration  like  that  of  Frankfort  and 
Forbes  has  multiplied. 

Asphalt  as  found  in  archeological  sites  is 
rather  nondescript.  Its  color  tends  toward  choco- 
late brown,  the  shade  depending  upon  the  local 


Thcuuthor.  ri^lil,  it'itli 
Donnld  Wliitu'ifih, 
iiisistniit  cuiiitor  of 
Middle  En f  tern  iirche- 
ologi/  mid  etliiwlo^^y,  (?s 
tiny  exivnine  ancient 
iirtifiKti:  made  ot  or 
med  for  bitumen.  The 
larger  piece  (Cat.  no. 
156986),  a  cup  con- 
structed largely  of  an 
ostrich  shell,  has  a  base 
and  top  portion  made  of 
lutu)nen  with  mother- 
of-pearl  inlay:  from 
Egypt,  early  third 
dynasty.  The  small  jar 
(#157450),  fromKish, 
Iraq,  contained  a  great 
deal  of  bitumen.  The 
dark  streaks  are  not  de- 
sign but  bitumen  spd- 
led  on  the  jar  surface. 


Jirt  or  dust  blow  n  or  washi-d  in.  Its  shape  varies 
with  its  fiinctitin  in  man's  ti.'chnolog\-:  mortars 
sometimes  carr\'  impressions  of  inscriptions  on 
bricks,  and  sealants  may  transfer  patterns  of 
woven  baskets  or  mats.  Especially  common  are 
small  flattened  discs  containing  parallel  streaks  of 
mineral,  the  purpose  of  these  discs,  however,  is 
still  a  mvsterv. 

Separating  the  components  of  asphalt  is 
deceptively  simple:  an  organic  solvent  such  as 
chloroform  or  toluene  is  used  to  dissolve  the 
bitumen,  which  can  then  be  recovered  bv  distill- 
ing off  the  soK'ent,  leaving  the  mineral  matter  un- 
affected. But  there  are  two  difficulties:  several 
time-consuming  extractions  are  sometimes 
needed  to  completely  remove  the  bitumen;  and 


Robert  F.  Marschner  is  a  research  associate  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Geology. 


some  mineral  fines  (fine-grained  fractions)  either 
pass  through  coarse  filter  paper  or  clog  the  pores 
of  fine  filter  p->aper  The  result  is  that  usually  some 
bitumen  remains  in  the  mineral  and  some  mineral 
remains  in  the  bitumen.  But  the  use  of  adequate 
solvent,  as  well  as  decantation  and  centrifuging, 
together  with  patience,  experience,  and  arithme- 
tic corrections,  usualK'  can  result  in  an  acceptable 
analysis. 

After  the  bitumen  has  been  mostly  re- 
moved, the  mineral  can  be  examined.  A  drop  of 
acid  on  a  pinch  of  it  will  ordinariK'  identify  it  as 
either  sand  (silica),  which  is  unaffected  b\'  the 
acid,  or  as  limestone  (carbonate),  which  froths 
\isibl\'  itT  reaction  to  the  acid.  Usually,  both  sand 
and  limestone  are  present;  their  relative  propor- 
tions can  be  demonstrated  b\'  weighing  a  sample 
before  and  after  iunilion  in  a  bunsen  burner 

Asphalt  was  also  used  bv  aborigines  of 
several  other  parts  of  the  New  Wiirld.  The  Ol- 


The  Stnndard  of  Ur 

(detail,  40%nat.  :^te), 

in  the  British  Min^euni, 

whs  made  partly  of 

bitumen. 


mecs  of  Yucatan  lined  ducts  and  sewers  of  the 
so-called  "Acropolis"  at  La  Venta  with  asphalt. 
Old  asphalt  diggings  were  found  by  the  first 
Spaniards  in  Peru  at  Punta  Parinas,  the  wes- 
ternmost point  of  South  America.  A  dozen  other 
instances  of  use  in  the  Americas  have  been  iden- 
tified, but  there  has  been  no  confirmation  of  the 
legend  that  the  Incas  paved  their  roads  with  as- 
phalt. Those  rocky  mountain  trails  would  have 
benefitted  little  from  such  treatment. 

Native  asphalts  could  occasionally  be  em- 
ploved  for  some  purposes  in  its  natural,  unal- 
tered form.  But  in  cold  regions  the  natural  mix 
would  be  too  thin  for  most  purposes  and  in  warm 
regions  it  might  be  too  thick.  Eventually,  man 
discovered  how  to  adjust  the  asphalt  composi- 
tion to  the  particular  purpose  he  had  in  mind; 
adding  dust  when  the  mix  was  too  soft;  adding 
raw  seepage  when  the  mix  was  too  hard.  Still 
later  he  learned  that  heating  the  mix  facilitated 
incorporation.  Several  samples  found  in  Middle 
East  sites  were  twice  too  rich  in  bitumen  for  gen- 
eral use,  suggesting  that  storage  of  asphalt  of 
intermediate  consistency  was  common  practice. 

An  early  use  of  asphalt  was  as  a  cement  or 
glue,  and  perhaps  the  earliest  use  of  all  was  for 
hafting:  the  joining  of  wooden  handles  to  stone 
points  for  use  as  weapons  or  tools.  Tiny  blades 
arranged  like  a  row  of  teeth  in  a  crude  sickle 
show  traces  of  the  asphalt  with  which  they  were 
presumably  sealed  into  the  wood  or  bone  han- 
dles. Points  larger  than  such  microliths  often  still 
carry  bits  of  asphalt  that  once  affixed  them  to 
shafts  to  form  spears.  Similar  uses  were  the  at- 
tachment of  fishhooks  to  leaders  and  sinkers; 
handles  to  knives,  scrapers  and  paddles;  and 
cloth  and  matting  to  stone,  wood,  or  other 


woven  articles.  Asphalt  was  also  used  for 
mending  broken  objects  such  as  grinciing  stones, 
pottery  vases,  and  toys. 

Since  it  is  impervious  to  water,  asphalt 
was  frequently  used  as  a  coating  or  sealant.  Reed 
coracles  that  have  plied  the  Euphrates  River  for 
centuries,  and  wooden  canoes  in  which  the 
Chumash  Indians  island-hopped  along  the 
California  coast  were  coated  thickl)'  outside  with 
asphalt  to  keep  water  out.  At  Nineveh  in  Iraq  and 
at  Talara  in  Peru  earthenware  jars  coated  inside 
with  asphalt  protected  the  food  and  drink  con- 
tents bv  keeping  water  out.  Use  of  asphalt  as 
a  water  barrier  extended  from  the  baths  at 
Pakistan's  Mohenjo  Daro  to  a  canteen  found  in 
Santa  Barbara. 

The  most  extensive  use  of  asphalt  was  as  a 
structural  material  for  articles  of  every  size.  In 
addition  to  coating  bricks,  it  was  also  used  to 
cover  roofs,  stairways,  and  drains,  and  as  paving 
for  streets  and  roadwavs,  much  as  it  is  today.  A 
myriad  of  smaller  articles  were  made  from  bulk 
asphalt:  beads,  models,  toys,  dice,  plugs,  as  well 
as  objects  of  unknown  purpose  made  from  flat- 
tened or  rolled-out  spheres  of  asphalt. 

X-rav  diffraction  has  also  been  used  re- 
cently to  determine  the  sand  and  limestone  con- 
tent, though  this  technique  is  still  being  refined. 
One  problem  may  be  unresolvable:  distinguishing 
native  mineral  matter  originally  present,  mineral 
fines  added  by  man  to  adjust  the  consistency 
of  the  asphalt,  and  mineral- contamination  in- 
troduced by  chance  over  the  interim  of  a  few 
thousand  years. 

Once  it  is  free  of  solids,  the  bitumen  can  be 
examined  for  its  specific  gravity,  softening  point, 
and  sulfur  content.  Recently,  the  technique  of  gas 


chromiihigrdphy  has  been  used  in  "fingerprint- 
ing" bitumens  from  archeological  sources  in  much 
the  same  way  that  it  has  been  used  to  identif\' 
petroleums  in  oil  spills. 

In  our  collaborati\o  stud\  '  of  the  earh'  use 
of  asphalt  in  the  ancient  Middle  East,  Henr\'  T. 
Wright,  of  the  Museum  of  Anthropology  of  the 
University  of  Michigan,  and  I  examined  in  the 
laboratories  of  the  Standard  Oil  Compan\-  (In- 
diana) W)  samples  from  a  dozen  sites  ranging  in 
age  from  3,000  to  5,000  years. 

The  older  samples  came  from  upland  sites 
among  streams  in  the  Zagros  Mountains  of  Iran 
and  Iraq.  Farukhabad,  a  town  near  an  asphalt 
seepage  kn(.n\  n  as  Ain  Gir,  ma\'  ha\e  been  a  cen- 
ter for  the  preparation  of  asphalt  for  shipment; 
asphalts  excavated  there  at  le\'els  as  chronologi- 
cally far  apart  as  4300  B.C.  and  3000  B.C.  hardly 
tliffered  from  one  another.  In  such  large  cities  of 
ancient  Mesopotamia  as  Nineveh,  Bab\'lon,  and 
L'r  of  the  Chaldees,  asphalt  was  used  literalh'  b\' 
the  ton.  Most  of  it  went  into  mortar  for  large  brick 
structures. 

Greater  Mesopotamia  was  almost  the  onh- 
region  in  the  East  where  bitumen  had  k)ng  been 
useci.  At  Mohenjo  Daro,  a  site  on  the  Indus  River 
in  Pakistan,  a  one-inch  layer  of  bitumen  served 
as  backing  for  the  exposed  tiles  of  an  elaborate 


bathing  pool.  The  source  of  the  bitumen  found 
there  is  uncertain;  that  it  was  imported  from  as  far 
away  as  Mesopotamia  seems  unlikely.  Bitumen 
\sas  used  little  if  at  all  in  ancient  Egypt,  although 
potential  sources  of  the  substance  existed  in 
the  Dead  Sea  and  along  the  Great  Kift  in  the 
Gulf  of  Suez. 

In  their  study- of  the  later  use  of  asphalt  in 
the  West,  Theodore  E.  Gutman,  of  the  Institute  of 
Archaeology  of  the  Universit\'  of  California  at  Los 
.'\ngeles,  and  L.  W.  Slentz,  of  the  Chevron  Oil 
Field  Research  Laboratory,  La  Habra,  California, 
collaborated  on  a  study  of  asphalts  used  by  the 
Chumash  Indians.  These  people  once  inhabited 
the  Santa  Barbara  coast  and  offshore  islands  west 
of  Los  Angeles.  Gutman  and  Slentz  worked  with 
eight  archeological  samples  ranging  in  age  from 
200  to  2,000  years,  and  with  several  local  seep- 
ages, including  that  of  the  nearb\'  Rancho  l.a  Brea 
Tar  Pits.  Uses  to  \\  hich  the  older  samples  had  been 
put  were  uncertain,  but  one  of  the  more  recent 
samples  had  clearly  been  used  as  an  adhesive. 
Although  analyses  varied  considerably,  bitumens 
from  some  of  the  samples  resembled  those  from 
local  seepages. 

Another  widespread  use  of  asphalt  was  as 
a  matrix  and  adhesive  for  decorative  bits  of  bright 
material  such  as  shell,  bone,  and  colored  stone. 

Continued  on  p.  9 


1.  Robert  ¥.  Marschiiei;  Hoin/  T.  Wii\;lil.  "AspluUts  fiviii 
Middle  Eastern  Sites,"  Advances  in  Chemistry  Series, 
Vo.  m  0978). 


2.  Tlicodor'c  E.  Gutiinvi,  "Lhc  of  Asplmlluiii  Sourciiig 
ill  Archaeolog\/,"  Journal  of  New  World  Archaeology,  3 
(2),  0979). 


Author  Robert  F. 
Minsi  Inter  uses  gas 
ehroiiuttograph  iii  the 
Department  of  Geol- 
og\i's  geochemical  lab- 
oratory to  rtdrt/yrc 
bitiiweii  samples  and 
other  volatile  sub- 
stances. 7 


Daw  Wjlstt-n 


Dooe-Catching  with  Salt 
And  Other  Adventures 

by  William  Henry  Hudson 


One  spring  da\-  an  immense  number  of  doves 
appeared  and  settled  in  the  plantation.  It 
was  a  species  common  in  the  country  and  bred  in 
our  trees,  and  in  fact  in  every  grove  or  orchard  in 
the  land  —  a  pretty  dove-coloured  bird  with  a 
pretty  sorrowful  song,  about  a  third  less  in  size 
than  the  domestic  pigeon,  and  belongs  to  the 
American  genus  Zenaida.  This  dove  was  a  resi- 
dent with  us  all  the  year  round,  but  occasionally 
in  spring  and  autumn  they  were  to  be  seen 
travelling  in  immense  flocks,  and  these  were 
evidently  strangers  in  the  land  and  came  from 
some  sub-tropical  country  in  the  north  where 
they  had  no  fear  of  the  human  form.  At  all 
events,  on  going  out  into  the  plantation  1  found 
them  all  about  on  the  ground,  diligently  search- 
ing for  seeds,  and  so  tame  and  heedless  of  my 
presence  that  I  actually  attempted  to  capture 
them  with  my  hands.  But  they  wouldn't  be 
caught:  the  bird  when  I  stooped  and  put  out  my 
hands  slipped  away,  and  tlying  a  yard  or  two 
would  settle  down  in  front  of  me  and  go  on 
looking  for  and  picking  up  invisible  seeds. 

My  attempts  failing  I  rushed  back  to  the 
house,  wildlv  excited,  to  look  for  an  old  gentle- 
man who  lived  with  us  and  took  an  interest  in  me 
and  my  passion  for  birds,  and  finding  him  I  told 
him  the  whole  place  was  swarming  with  doves 
and  thev  were  perfectly  tame  but  wouldn't  let  me 
catch  them  —  could  he  tell  me  how  to  catch  them? 
He  laughed  and  said  1  must  be  a  little  fool  not  to 
know  how  to  catch  a  bird.  The  only  way  was  to 
put  salt  on  their  tails.  There  would  be  no  diffi- 
culty in  doing  that,  I  thought,  and  how  delighted 
I  was  to  know  that  birds  could  be  caught  so  eas- 
ily! Off  I  ran  to  the  salt-barrel  and  filled  my  pock- 
ets and  hands  with  coarse  salt  used  to  make  brine 
in  which  to  dip  the  hides;  for  I  wanted  to  catch  a 
great  many  doves  —  armfuls  of  doves. 

In  a  few  minutes  I  was  out  again  in  the 
plantation,  with  doves  in  hundreds  moving  over 
the  ground  all  about  me  and  taking  no  notice  of 
me.  It  was  a  joyful  and  exciting  moment  when  I 
started  operations,  but  I  soon  found  that  when  I 
tossed  a  handful  of  salt  at  the  bird's  tail  it  never 
fell  on  its  tail — it  fell  on  the  ground  two  or  three 
or  four  inches  short  of  the  tail.  If,  I  thought,  the 
bird  would  only  keep  still  a  moment  longer!  But 
then  it  wouldn't,  and  I  think  I  spent  cquite  two 
hours  in  these  vain  attempts  to  make  the  salt  fall 
on  the  right  place.  At  last  I  went  back  to  my  men- 
tor to  confess  that  I  had  failed  and  to  ask  for  fresh 
instructions,  but  all  he  would  say  was  that  I  was 
on  the  right  track,  that  the  plan  I  had  adopted 
was  the  proper  one,  and  all  that  was  wanted  was 


a  little  practice  to  enable  me  to  drop  the  salt  on 
the  right  spot.  Thus  encouraged  I  filled  my  pock- 
ets again  and  started  afresh,  and  then  finding 
that  by  following  the  proper  plan  I  made  no 
progress  I  adopted  a  new  one,  which  was  to  take 
a  handful  of  salt  and  hurl  it  at  the  bird's  tail.  Still  I 
couldn't  touch  the  tail;  my  violent  action  only 
frightened  the  bird  and  caused  it  to  fly  away,  a 
dozen  yards  or  so,  before  dropping  down  again 
to  resume  its  seedsearching  business. 

By-and-by  I  was  told  bv  somebody  that 
birds  could  not  be  caught  by  putting  salt  on  their 
tails;  that  I  was  being  made  a  fool  of,  and  this  was 
a  great  shock  to  me,  since  I  had  been  taught  to 
believe  that  it  was  wicked  to  tell  a  lie.  Now  for  the 
first  time  I  discovered  that  there  were  lies  and 
lies,  or  untruths  that  were  not  lies,  which  one 
could  tell  innocently  although  they  were  in- 
vented and  deliberately  told  to  deceive.  This 
angered  me  at  first,  and  I  wanted  to  know  how  I 
was  to  distinguish  between  real  lies  and  lies  that 
were  not  lies,  and  the  only  answer  I  got  was  that  I 
could  distinguish  them  by  not  being  a  fool! . . . 


rhese  rough  plains  were  also  the  haunt  of  the 
rhea,  our  ostrich,  and  it  was  here  that  I  first 
had  a  close  sight  of  this  greatest  and  most 
unbird-like  bird  of  our  continent.  I  was  eight 
years  old  then,  when  one  afternoon  in  late  sum- 
mer I  was  just  setting  off  for  a  ride  on  my  pony, 
when  I  was  told  to  go  out  on  the  east  side  till  1 
came  to  the  cardoon-covered  land  about  a  mile 
beyond  the  shepherd's  ranch.  The  shepherd  was 
wanted  in  the  plantation  and  could  not  go  to  the 
flock  just  yet,  and  I  was  told  to  look  for  the  tlock 
and  turn  it  towards  home. 

I  found  the  flock  just  where  I  had  been 
told  to  look  for  it,  the  sheep  very  widely  scat- 
tered, and  some  groups  of  a  dozen  or  two  to  a 
hundred  were  just  visible  at  a  distance  among 
the  rough  bushes.  Just  where  these  furthest 
sheep  were  grazing  there  was  a  scattered  troop  of 
seventy  or  eighty  horses  grazing  too,  and  when  I 
rode  to  that  spot  I  all  at  once  found  myself  among 
a  lot  of  rheas,  feeding  too  among  the  sheep  and 
horses.  Their  grey  plumage  being  so  much  like 
the  cardoon  bushes  in  colour  had  prevented  me 
from  seeing  them  before  I  was  right  among  them. 


*Frotn  Far  Away  and  Long  Ago:  A  History  of  My  Early 
Life  (1918).  h/  William  Henry  HiuUon  (1841-1922),  con- 
cerned until  Hudson's  hn/hood  in  Argentina.  Hudson  ishest 
known  for  his  romance,  Green  Mansions. 


k 


The  strange  thing  was  that  they  paid  not 
the  slightest  attention  to  me,  and  pulling  up  m\' 
pony  I  sat  staring  in  astonishment  at  them,  par- 
ticularly at  one,  a  very  big  one  and  nearest  ti>  me, 
engaged  in  leisurely  pecking  at  the  cUner  plants 
growing  among  the  big  prickly  thistle  leaves,  and 
as  it  seemed  carefully  selecting  the  best  sprays. 

What  a  great  noble-looking  bird  it  was  and 
how  beautiful  in  its  loose  gre\-and-white  plum- 
age, hanging  like  a  picturesqiiel\-\\orn  mantle 
about  its  bod\!  Whv  were  thev  so  tame?  I  w on- 
dered.  The  sight  of  a  mounted  gaucho,  e\en  at  a 
great  distance,  will  invariabK'  set  them  off  at  their 
topmost  speed;  yet  here  I  was  within  a  do/en 
\ards  of  one  of  them,  with  se\eral  others  about 
me,  all  occupied  in  examining  the  herbage  and 
selecting  the  nicest-looking  leaves  to  pluck,  just 
as  if  1  was  not  there  at  all!  I  suppose  it  was  be- 
cause I  was  onl\-  a  small  bo\-  on  a  sniall  horsi'  and 
was  not  associated  in  the  ostrich  brain  with  the 
w  ild-looking  gaucho  on  his  big  animal  charging 
upon  him  with  a  deadiv  purpose.  Presenth'  I 
went  straight  at  the  one  near  me,  and  he  then 
raised  his  head  and  neck  and  mo\'ed  carelessh- 
awa\-  to  a  distance  of  a  few  yards,  then  began 
cropping  the  clover  once  more.  1  rode  at  him 
again,  putting  mv  pony  to  a  trot,  and  when 
within  two  \ards  of  him  he  all  at  once  swung 
his  bod\'  round  in  a  quaint  \\a\'  towards  me,  and 
breaking  into  a  sort  of  dancing  trot  brushed 
past  me. 


Pulling  up  again  and  looking  back  I  found 
he  was  ten  or  twelve  yards  behind  me,  once  more 
quietK'  engaged  in  cropping  ckner  leaves! 

.\gain  and  again  this  bird,  and  one  of  the 
others  1  rode  at,  practised  the  same  prett)'  trick, 
first  appearing  perfectly  unconcerned  at  my 
presence  and  then,  when  1  made  a  charge  at 
them,  with  just  one  little  careless  movement 
placing  themsehes  a  do/en  \ards  behind  me. 

but  this  same  trick  of  the  rhea  is  wonder- 
ful to  see  \s  hen  the  hunted  bird  is  spent  with 
running  and  is  finallv  cnertaken  bv  one  of  the 
hunters  who  has  perhaps  lost  the  bolas  with 
which  he  captures  his  qiiarr\',  and  who  en- 
deavours to  place  himself  side  by  side  with  it  so 
as  to  reach  it  with  his  knife.  It  seems  an  easy 
thing  to  do:  the  bird  is  plainly  exhausted,  pant- 
ing, his  wings  hanging,  as  he  lopes  on,  vet  no 
sooner  is  the  man  within  striking  distance  than 
the  sudden  motion  comes  into  play,  and  the  bird 
as  bv  a  miracle  is  now  behind  instead  of  at  the 
side  of  the  horse.  And  before  the  horse  going  at 
tiip  speed  can  be  reined  in  the  turned  round,  the 
rhea  has  had  time  to  recover  his  wind  and  get  a 
hundred  yards  away  or  more.  It  is  on  account  of 
this  tricky  instinct  of  the  rhea  that  the  gauchos 
say,  "El  avestruz  es  el  mas  s^aucho  de  los 
animales,"  which  means  that  the  ostrich,  in  its 
resourcefulness  and  the  tricks  it  practises  to  save 
itself  when  hard  pressed,  is  as  clever  as  the 
gaucho  knows  himself  to  be.  D 


Continued  from  p.  7 

\  famous  example  of  an  artwork  using  asphalt  in 
this  w  av  is  the  "Standard  of  L'r,"  a  mosaic  of  shell 
set  in  bitumen  that  depicts  a  procession  of 
human  figures.  Man\'  objects  found  in  both  the 
eastern  and  western  hemispheres  —  figurines, 
ornaments,  pipes,  bowls,  and  so  on  —  were  dec- 
orated in  a  similar  way.  Bitumen  was  also  used  in 
medicine:  externally  as  a  salve  for  sprains  and 
skin  abrasions,  and  internalK-  with  fruit  juice  for 
unknt)wn  ailments. 

Such  a  \ersatile  substance  as  asphalt 
would  certainly  have  created  a  demand  among 
neighbors  and  visitors.  Its  value  might  have  been 
great  enough  to  justify  transporting  it  over  long 
distances,  especially  if  it  were  rich  in  bitumen, 
for  the  mineral  component  of  asphalt  could  be 
obtained  almost  anywhere.  But  the  primitive 
bags,  pots,  and  baskets  used  for  containers  were 
subject  to  leakage,  breakage,  and  losses.  Hnough 
solid  mineral  to  simplify  handling  might  have 
been  added  to  the  bitumen  at  the  seepage  site 
where  it  was  found.  Ihus,  bitumen  and  asphalt 
became  earlv  articles  of  commerce  in  certain 
parts  of  the  world. 

Trade  in  bitumen  was  probably  limited  to 
intermediate  distances  .Xmong  the  early  upland 
tow  ns  of  the  Zagros  Mountains,  w  here  asphalt 
was  first  used,  the  bitumen  contained,  on  the 
average,  3.S  percent  sulfur;  but  thai  found  in  the 
later  Mesopotamian  cities  averaged  7.4  percent 


sulfur.  E\'identl\'  different  sources  of  bitumen 
were  used  in  the  uplands  than  among  the  ri\'ers, 
although  better  analyses  of  more  seepages  are 
needed  to  further  refine  this  information.  Most 
likeU'  the  bitumen  came  from  man\'  sources,  and 
the  growing  demand  for  asphalt  for  construction 
in  the  big  cities  was  met  from  newer,  closer 
sources  than  from  the  mountain  seepages.  Bitu- 
men seepages  available  to  Western  peoples  in 
antiquit\-  have  been  analyzed  even  less  than 
those  of  the  Middle  East,  but  wf  bi'lie\e  that  use 
in  the  West  was  more  local. 

Getting  samples  of  the  bitumen  that  was 
available  to  ancient  man  is  most  difficult.  The 
investigator  must  first  assume  that  seepages  flow 
toda\'  as  the\'  did  in  antiquitv,  and  that  thev  have 
neither  started  nor  stopped  tlownig  because  of 
earth  movements.  (A  chancy  assumption  in 
either  California  or  the  Middle  East.)  Aboriginal 
discoverers  of  a  seepage  would  have  removed 
what  dirt  and  rocks  lhe\'  could  in  order  to  enlarge 
Ihi'  flow  When  tools  became  .uailable,  pits  were 
dug,  and  for  the  past  centurv  wells  have  been 
drilled  near  most  of  the  world's  known  seepages. 
Some  seepages  in  vallevs  have  been  covered  by 
w  aliT  behind  dams;  others  have  been  covered  bv 
till  from  buiKlmg,  land-levelling,  or  irrigation 
pro|i'Cts.  Some  seepages  made  into  asphalts 
by  millennia  of  ancient  technologists  will  never 
be  analyzed.  D 


Endangered  and  Threatened  Invertebrate  Species 

of  rSorth  America.  Central  America,  and  the  Caribbean 

The  //'sf/Hys  ofcudaii;,^ciVii  aiiii  tlin-atciu'd  inirrtcbratc^  tvui  phvit^^  on  tlu'>c  two  /'(J^^'S  iverc  extracted  from  a  compilete 
Iht,  iucliidin\^  nil  countries  of  the  icorhi,  ichich  appeared  in  the  Federal  Register  of  Mrti/  20,  19S0.  A  listing  of  the 
endangered  and  threatened  vertebrates  of  North  and  Central  America,  the  Caribbean,  and  Pacific  possessions  of  the 
United  States  appeared  in  the  October,  1980,  Bulletin. 


Common  Name 


Scientific  Name 


SNAILS 

Snail.  Chittenango  ovate  amber  Succinea  chittenangoensis 

Snail,  flat-spired  three-toottied  Triodopsis  platysayoides 

Snail.  Iowa  Pleistocene Discus  macclintocki 

Snail,  noonday  Mesodon  clarki  nantattala 

Snail,  painted  snake  coiled  forest Anguispira  picta  

Snail.  Stock  Island  Orthalicus  reses         


Historic  Range 


NY 

wv 

lA 

NC 

TN 

FL.. 


Snail.  Virginia  fringed  mountain  Polygyriscus  virginianus VA 

CLAMS 

Pearly  mussel.  Alabama  lamp  Lampsilis  virescens  AL.  TN 

Pearly  mussel.  Appalachian Quadrula  sparsa TN.  VA 

monkeyface 

Pearly  mussel,  birdwing    Conradilla  caelata  TN.  VA  

Pearly  mussel.  Cumberland  bean  Villosa  Irabalis KY  

Pearly  mussel.  Cumberland  Quadrula  intermedia  AL.  TN.  VA 

monkeyface 

Pearly  mussel.  Curtis'   Epioblasma  florentina  curtisi MO         

Pearly  mussel,  dromedary Dromusdromus    TN,  VA  

Pearly  mussel,  green-blossom Epioblasma  torulosa  gubenaculum  TN.  VA  

Pearly  mussel.  Higgins  eye    Lampsilis  higginsi  IL.  lA,  MN.  MO,  NE,  Wl  .... 

Pearly  mussel.  Nicklins        Megalonaias  nicklineana  Mexico  

Pearly  mussel,  orange-fooled Plethobasis  cooperianus  AL,  IN,  lA,  KY,  OH.  PA.  TN 


Status 


T 
T 
E 
T 
T 
T 
E 


Pearly  mussel,  pale  lilliput  Toxolasma  cylindrella 

Pearly  mussel,  pink  mucket  Lampsilis  orbiculata  

Pearly  mussel.  Sampsons  Epioblasma  sampsoni  

Pearly  mussel.  Tampico Cyrtonaias  tampicoensis  .... 

Pearly  mussel,  tubercled-blossom Epioblasma  torulosa  torulosa 

Pearly  mussel,  turgid-blossom  Epioblasma  turgidula 

Pearly  mussel,  white  cats  eye  Epioblasma  sulcata  delicata 

Pearly  mussel,  white  wartyback  Plethobasis  circatncosus 

Pearly  mussel,  yellow-blossom  Epioblasma  florentina  florentina  AL,  TN 

Pigtoe,  fine-rayed  Fusconaia  cuneolus         AL,  TN, 

Pigtoe.  rough     Pleurobema  plenum KY.  TN 

Pigtoe,  shiny  Fusconaia  edgariana  AL.  TN. 

Pocketbook.  fat    Potamilus  capax AR.  IN, 


AL,  MO,  TN,  WV 

AL,  IL,  IN,  KY.  MO,  OH, 

IL.  IN  

Mexico     

IL.  KY.  TN.  WV 

AL.  AR,  MO,  TN 

IN,  Ml.  OH  

AL.TN 


PA,  TN,  WV 


VA. 
VA 
VA 
MO, 


OH 


Riffle  shell  clam,  tan 
CRUSTACEANS 
Isopod,  Socorro 

INSECTS 

Butterfly,  Bahama  swallowtail 
Butterfly,  El  Segundo  blue 
Butterfly,  Lange  s  metalmark 


Epioblasma  walkeri KY.  TN.  VA 

Exosphaeroma  thermoptiilus N  M 


Papilio  andraemon  bonhotei      FL.  Bahamas 

Euphilotes  battoides  allyni  CA 

Apodemia  mormo  langei  CA 

Butterfly,  Lotis  blue Lycaeides  argyrognomon  lotis CA    

Butterfly,  mission  blue Icaricia  icarioides  missionensis CA  

Butterfly.  San  Bruno  elfin     Callophrys  mossii  bayensis    CA  

Butterfly.  Schaus  swallowtail Papilio  anstodemus  ponceanus  FL 

Butterfly,  Smith  s  blue  Euphilotes  enoptes  smithi  FL 

Moth,  Kern  primrose  sphinx  Euproserpinus  euterpe  CA  


E 
E 

E 
E 
E 

E 
E 
E 
E 

E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 


T 
E 
E 
E 
E 
E 
T 
E 
T 


10 


Endangered  and  Threatened  Plants 

(Note  that  ail  but  two  species  occur  in  the  United  States) 

Scientific  name  Common  name  Historic  range  Status 

Sagittana  fasciculata     Bunched  arrowhead                   NC,  SC E 

Echinacea  tennesseensis  Tennessee  purple  coneflower TN .-..  E 

Lipochaeta  venosa  None  HI       E 

Berbens  sonnei  Truckee  barberry CA    E 

Betula  uber  Virginia  round-leaf  birch  VA  E 

Arabis  mcdonaldiana  McDonald's  rock-cress     CA  E 

Erysimum  vapitatum  var.  angustatum  Contra  Costa  wallflower CA     E 

Ancistrocaclus  tobuschli'  Tobusch  fishhook  cactus TX      E 

Coryphantha  minima  Nellie  cory  cactus      TX    E 

Coryphantha  ramillosa  Bunched  cory  cactus    TX      T 

Coryphantha  sneedii  war.  leei  Lee  pincushion  cactus                                          NM              T 

Coryphantha  sneedii  war.  sneedii  Sneed  pincushion  cactus                                      TX,  NM E 

Echinocactus  horizonthalonius  Nichols  Turks  head  cactus AZ      E 

var.  nicholii 

Echinocereus  engelmannii  Purple-spined  hedgehog  cactus  UT  E 

var.  purpureas 

Echinocereus  kuenzieri  Kuenzler  hedgehog  cactus                                   NM        E 

Echinocereus  lloydii  Lloyds  hedgehog  cactus                                      TX       T 

Echinocereus  reichenbachii    Black  lace  cactus       TX  E 

var-  albertii 

Echinocereus  tnglochidiatus Arizona  hedgehog  cactus AZ       E 

var,  arizonicus 

Echinocereus  triglochiaijtus Spineless  hedgehog  cactus  CO,  UT E 

var.  inermis 

Echinocereus  viridillorus  var.  davisii  Davis' green  pitaya     TX                 E 

Neolloydia  manposensis  Lloyd's  Mariposa  cactus  TX                  E 

Pediocactus  bradyi  Brady  pincushion  cactus    AZ  , ,                               E 

Pediocactus  knowltonii  Knowlton  cactus                  NM                                  E 

Pediocactus  peeblesianus     Peebles  Nava|0  cactus     AZ         E 

var.  peeblesianus 

Pediocactus  sileri  Silver  pincushion  cactus  AZ,  UT  E 

Sclerocactus  glaucus    Uinta  Basin  hookless  cactus  CO,  UT T 

Sclerocactus  mesae-verdae Mesa  Verde  cactus    CO,  MN  T 

Sclerocactus  wrightiae        Wright  fishhook  cactus UT    E 

Dudleys  traskiae            Santa  Barbara  Island  liveforever                          CA E 

Fitzroya  cupressoides    Chilean  false  larch                                                 Chile,  Argentina T 

Arctostaphylos  hookeri  ssp.  ravenii  Raven's  manzanita            CA               E 

Rhododendron  chapmanii  Chapman  rhododendron     FL                E 

Astragalus  penanus  Rydberg  milk-vetch    UT     : T 

Baptisia  arachnifera  Hairy  rattleweed       GA     E 

Lotus  scoparius  ssp.  traskiae San  Clemente  broom CA     E 

Vicia  menziesii                      Hawaiian  wild  broad-bean HI        E 

Phacelia  argillacea  None    UT E 

Haplostachys  haplostachya  var,            .  None  HI  E 

angustifotia 

Pogogyne  abramsii  San  Diego  mesa  mint  CA     E 

Stenogyne  angustifolia  var None  HI         E 

angustifolia 

Harperocallis  flava  Harper's  beauty FL       E 

Trillium  persistens  Persistent  trillium      GA,  SC E 

Kokia  cookei         Cooke's  kokio                                                     HI  E 

Malacothamnus  clementinus  San  Clemente  Island  bush  mallow                       CA  E 

Mirabilis  macfarlanei               MacFarlane's  four-o'clock            ID,  OR E 

Oenothera  avita  ssp.  eurekensis  Eureka  evening  primrose            CA       E 

Oenothera  deltoides  ssp.  howelii  Antioch  Dunes  evening  primrose  CA     E 

Arctomecon  humilis  Dwarf  bear-poppy                       UT  E 

Abies  guatemalensis  Guatemalan  tir    Mexico,  Guatemala,  Honduras, 

El  Salvador      T 

Orcuttia  mucronata       Solano  grass           CA  E 

Swallenia  alexandrae     Eureka  dune  grass  CA  E 

Zizania  texana                 Texas  wild-rice             TX        E 

Aconitum  noveboracense    Northern  wild  monkshood lA,  NY,  OH,  Wl  T 

Delphinium  kinkiense    San  Clemente  Island  Larkspur CA  E 

Sarracenia  oreophila     Green  pitcher  plant     AL,  GA E 

Castilteia  grisea               San  Clemente  Island  Indian  paintbrush CA  E 

Cordylanthus  maritimus  ssp Salt  marsh  birds  beak CA,  Baja  California  E 

maritimus 

Pedicularis  furbishiae Furbish  lousewort     ME,  New  Brunswick E 


'Many  plant  species  in  this  list  have  alternate  scientific  names,  not  included  here  lor  lack  ol  space 


11 


Fig.  1.  Southern  Id- 
shaped  halibut  hooks,  I. 
to  r.:  zvith  Ixmebarb. 
( #18720): -with  iron 
barb,  (#18881):  iron 
hook  luith  iron  barb 
12  (#18872). 


The  Technology  of 

The  northwest  Coast 

Halibut  Fisherman 


by  Ronald  L.  Weber 


On  the  Northwest  Coast  of  North  America 
lived  a  people  distinguished  among  Ameri- 
can Indians  b\'  their  large  plank  houses,  monu- 
mental vvtiod  sculpture  commonly  known  as 
totem  poles,  and  seaworthy  dugout  canoes.  A 
great  variety  of  food  from  the  sea  and  rivers  sup- 
ported large  villages,  and  fishing  equipment  was 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  this  large  population. 
The  first  Europeans  to  come  to  the  coast 
were  impressed  by  Northwest  Coast  fishing 
technology.  In  1787  Captain  George  Dixon  was 
perplexed  to  discover  that  the  skill  of  his  fisher- 
men was  inferior  to  that  of  the  Indians.  His 
supercargo,  William  Beresford,  noted  that  "On 
one  occasion  the  whaleboat  was  sent  with  seven 
hands  to  fish  for  halibut. ..  where  the  natives 
were  then  fishing."  The  Englishmen  found  that 
"their  success  was  greatly  inferior  to  that  of  two 
Indians  who  were  fishing  at  the  same  time, 
which  is  rather  extraordinary,  if  we  consider  the 
apparent  inferiority  of  their  tackle  to  ours." 


Ronald  L.  Weber  is  visiting  assistant  curator  of 
anthropology. 


Beresford  discusses  the  Tlingit  halibut  hook 
and  method  of  fishing,  concluding,  "Thus  were 
we  fairly  beaten  at  our  own  weapons,  and 
the  natives  constantly  bringing  us  plenty  of 
fish,  our  boat  was  never  sent  on  this  business 
afterwards."' 

Knowledge  of  the  habits  of  the  fish,  the 
best  areas  for  fishing  and  the  proper  ritual  treat- 
ment was  important,  but  it  was  the  tackle  of  the 
Indians  that  most  fully  accounted  for  their  suc- 
cess. This  tackle  was  well  adapted  to  the  specific 
habits  of  the  halibut,  whereas  the  European  gen- 
eralized iron  hooks  were  relatively  primitive 
pieces  of  equipment. 

Two  varieties  of  halibut  hooks  were  used 
on  the  Northwest  Coast.  A  U-shaped  variety, 
most  common  among  the  Kwakiutl  and  Nootka, 
was  made  by  steaming  and  bending  a  small 
branch  of  fir  wood  and  then  affixing  a  bone  barb 
(fig.  1).  U-shaped  hooks  were  not  decorated. 
After  European  contact  the  bone  barbs  were 
replaced  with  metal  ones  and,  still  later,  some 
U-hooks  were  made  entirely  of  iron. 

Another  kind  of  halibut  hook  used  by  the 
Northern  tribes,  especially  by  the  Tlingit  and 
Haida,  was  a  V-shaped  hook  consisting  of  an 
uncarved  arm  of  yellow  cedar  or  some  other 
buoyant  wood,  and  a  heavier  carved  piece  of 
alder  or  yew  (fig.  2).  The  carving  magically  lured 
the  fish  to  allow  itself  to  be  caught.  In  use,  the 
carved  arm  faced  downward  toward  the  halibut 
at  the  ocean's  bottom  and  the  uncarved  arm, 
floating  upward,  held  the  barb  and  bait.  V- 
shaped  hooks  were  commonly  set  singly,  while 
U-shaped  hooks  were  often  set  in  pairs.  Occa- 
sionally, setlines  of  many  hooks  were  used. 

The  halibut  hook  was  attached  to  the  line 
by  means  of  a  single  hole  in  the  carved  arm,  and 
held  near  the  ocean  bottom  by  a  loosely  secured 
stone  sinker  (fig.  4a).  The  hook  floated  up  above 


I  ig.  l.Nortlurn  V- 
>/i()/it'i/  halibut  lii\>k 
ciinvd  /()  ivprcM'iil 
aiiu'f  111  tonii  of  tuv- 
hciidcil  sirpnil, 
079661. 


the  bottom  and  rested  in  a  horizontal  position, 
which  made  the  barb  more  accessible  to  the  flat, 
horizontally  swimming  fish.  A  float  attached  to 
the  upper  end  of  the  line  prevented  it  from  sink- 
ing below  the  surface,  and  sometimes  a  larger 
float  was  also  used  to  mark  the  position  of  the 
line.  The  hook  was  most  frequently  baited  with 
squid  or  octopus.  When  a  fish  took  the  bait,  its 
movement  caused  the  line  looped  around  the 
sinker  to  come  free,  and  the  float  on  the  surface 
to  signal  that  a  catch  had  been  made  (fi^.  4b). 
Pulling  upon  the  line  caused  the  lower  arm 
of  the  hook,  to  which  the  line  was  attached,  to 
press  against  the  underside  of  the  halibut  and  to 
flip  the  fish  onto  its  back  (figs.  4c,  4d).  This 
made  it  easier  for  the  fisherman  to  control  the 


catch,  which  might  range  from  40  to  nearly 
470  pounds.-  Before  being  lifted  into  the  canoe, 
the  halibut  was  speared  through  the  gills  and 
clubbed  (fig.  5). 

It  was  believed  that  a  fish  allowed  itself  to 
be  caught.  Provided  that  the  proper  ritual  was 
observed  and  no  offense  given,  the  fish's  spirit 
returned  to  the  sea  to  take  on  another  body.  This 
ensured  the  fisherman's  continued  success.  Be- 
fore lowering  the  hook  the  fisherman  spoke  a 
magical  phrase  such  as  "Go  dou  n  ft)  halibut  land 
and  tight."'  When  landing  a  fish  he  might  say, 
"Now  hold  this  my  younger  brother;  dcm't  let  go 
this,  my  younger  brother."''  These  words  were 
believed  to  reenforce  magicallv  the  effectiveness 
of  the  hook.    Men  were  not  activelv  involved 


Fig.  3.  Dorsal  (top) 
surface  of  Field 

of  Pacific  Imlihut .        13 


Fig.  4a:  V-shaped  halibut  hooks  were  held  near  the  bottom  u'ith 

loosely  secured  stone  sinker;  4b;  When  the  fish  strikes  tlie  sinker 

comes  free:  4c:  The  fisherman  has  pulled  the  tine  taut:  4d:  The  can'ed 

arm  of  the  hook  presses  against  the  underside  of  the  halibut  and  flips 

the  fish  onto  its  back.  (Drawings  by  David  Dann.) 


14 


Fig.  5.  Canvd  nnn  of 

northern  Imtibut  hook 

showing  man  with 

lialibiit.  A  V-shaped  hook 

(s  in  tlicfisli's  mouth  and 

the  man  holds  a  club  m  his 

ri^^ht  hand  i  #17947). 


Fig.  6.  Hook 
showing  halibut- 
man  with  tu'o  land 
otters  (#179860). 


Fig.  7.  Ht\)k  s/i(i!i'ii(\; 
comivsitc  animal  icitli 
Ivdy  of  halibut  ami 
Iwad  of  imvii 
( *77S9S). 


Fig.  8.  Hook  fhowing 
.sfrt/  and  octopus 
(#18157). 


in  the  catching  of  the  fish;  rather  the  hook 
functioned  supernaturally.  Carvings  on  the 
hook  represented  \arious  animals  —  octopus, 
land  otter,  and  mythical  composite  creatures  — 
similar  to  ones  depicted  on  shaman's  charms 
(figs.  6.7,8).  These  creatures  were  belie\'ed  to 
provide  supernatural  power  to  the  hooks.*^ 

Unlike  with  the  hooks,  men  actively 
directed  the  killing  clubs  with  which  fish  were 
killed.  Thus,  where  supernatural  power  was  of 
little  importance,  the  halibut  clubs  were  deco- 
rated in  a  profane  art  style  closely  associated  with 
the  society  of  a  village.  This  style  was  used  to 
ornament  storage  boxes,  chests,  and  house 
fronts  as  well  as  other  items  that  reflected  the 
wealth  and  prestige  of  the  owners. 

The  success  of  Northwest  Coast  fisher- 
men was  the  result  of  millenia  of  technological 
de\elopment,  during  which  their  culture  became 
highly  adapted  to  the  special  conditions  of  the 


coast.  Different  tools  were  made  with  regard  to 
the  habits  of  the  type  of  fish  sought.  The  halibut 
hook,  with  its  deceivingly  clumsy  appearance, 
was  actually  a  highly  efficient  device  for  catching 
a  special  variety  of  fish.  Q 


1.  Carl,  George  C.  1975.  Soiiii' Ccwimnii  .Miir/iic  Fi^hc^.  British 
Columbia  Provincial  Museum  Handbook  23,  Victoria,  pp. 
41-42. 

2.  deLaguna,  Frederica.  1972.  "Under  Mount  Samt  l-Jias:  The 
History  and  Culture  of  the  Yakutat  Tlingil,"  Smithsonian 
Contributions  to  Antlirofwlofy,  vol.  7,  Washington,  D.C., 
pp.  126,  390-391. 

3.  Jonaitis,  Aldona.  197K.  "Land  Otters  and  Shamans:  Some 
Interpretations  of  Tlingit  Charms."  Ameriian  Indian  Art 
Magaznie,  Vol.  4(1),  pp.  62-66. 

4. 19K0.   "The  Devilfish  in  Tlingit  Sacred  Art." 

American  Indian  Art  Majfazinc,  vol.  6(3),  pp.  42-47. 

5  Stewart,  Hilary  1977,  Indian  Falling;:  Early  Methods  on  the 
Northwest  Coast.  University  of  Washington  Press,  Seattle, 
p.  48. 


15 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 


Same  femur,  different  preparators,  54  years  apart:  Left,  John  B.  Abbott,  geology  preparator  from  1901  to  1932.  assembles 
cm  Antarctosaurus/wn/i.  This  fossil  icas  in  four  fragments  zchen  found  in  Argentina  in  1924.  They  were  then  glued  together 
with  plaster  of  Paris.  Date  of  photo:  1926.  Right,  Willtam  F.  Simpson,  current  preparator  of  fossil  vertebrates,  reassembles  in 
1980  the  same  femur,  using  epoxi/,  stronger  than  the  740-lb.  bone  itself.  Simpson  has  been  -with  the  Museum  since  1979,  work- 
ing on  an  N.S.F.  grant  to  refurbish  the  fossil  z'ertebrate  collection. 

Antarctosaurus  urns  an  exceedingly  large  sauropod  dinosaur  that  lived  some  70 
/nillion  years  ago.  The  sketch  below  is  of  the  somrwimt  smaller  Titanosaurus, 
which  it  closely  resembled. 


16 


William  Simp>o>i  with 
lo>sil  >kiillot  M.islodon 
iiIhhi  1 10,000  ycai!.  old. 
ti'inid  III  1960  near  Mcdar 
villf.  IN.  The  ny/i/  fi/s/t 
';wi/  Iwii  broken  off  in  life 
■  i  kiioic  thi<  haaiiiic  Ik 
•■!'  i>  >niootti.)  r/ns 
^i'(  the  balance  of  thf 
■i. id  and  pioivked an  ar- 
thritic condition  where 
the  skull  and  neck  met.  A 
hole,  from  an  abscess,  car, 
be  seen  alwe  the  tusk 
socket.  The  molars  tvere 
badly  decayed.  All  in  all, 
one  mean,  ro\^ue  elephant 


Davf  W.ilsten 


John  Harris,  Department 
of  Geology  preparator  who 
joined  the  staft  in  1969, 
works  on  foieUyofan 
uintathere.  a  45  million- 
year-  old  mammal  col- 
lected in  1979  in  Wyo- 
ming's Wasliakie  Basin. 
The  field  trip  was  ted  by 
William  D.  Tiirnbiill,  curat 
ot  fossil  mammals,  and 
the  specimen  discovered  by 
.\4urray  Daniels,  of  Raw- 
lins. WY,  a  field  party 
member.  When  Harris  has 
tinished  his  restoration, 
the  specimen  Tcill  go  into 
the  Museum's  study 
collection. 


17 


iSli  FIELD 

MLSEl'M 

TIXT\S' 


INDIA 


Looking  for  the  past?  ..it  lives  on.  along- 
side the  present,  in  India.  There  is  no  archaic 
past  in  this  ancient  land,  only  a  gentle  con- 
tinuity. The  past  soars  triumphantly  in  the 
sculptured  temple  towers;  in  the  citadels 
and  minarets,  as  at  Akbar's  capital  of 
Fatehpur  Sikri  near  Agra.  India  lives  also  in 
the  modernity  of  its  cities. ..cosmopolitan 
Bombay  and  Delhi,  the  capital.  This  merg- 
ing of  past  and  present  is  perhaps  the 
strength  and  the  attraction  of  India  and  the 
basis  of  its  universal  appeal.  Our  tour  will 
give  you  a  good  overview  of  both. 

Our  first  introduction  to  India  will  be  in 
Delhi  and  we'll  spend  time  sightseeing 
in  Old  and  New  Delhi.  Well  visit  the  Red 
Fort,  one  of  the  world's  most  magnificent 
palaces  —  a  city  within  a  city,  and  contain- 
ing the  Pearl  Mosque.  We'll  stop  at  Raj 
Ghat,  the  hallowed  spot  where  Mahatma 
Gandhi  was  cremated.  We'll  enjoy  India's 
most  spectacular  national  festival.  Republic 
Day,  January  26;  observed  in  New  Delhi. 
Special  seats  have  been  reserved  for  our 
group,  in  contrast  to  the  ancient  monu- 
ments, we'll  experience  a  20th-century  city 
where  sarees  mingle  with  pantsuits.  Delhi  is 
a  great  melting  pot  of  ideas,  of  fashions,  of 
lifestyles,  where  a  past  vital  and  alive,  enli- 
vens a  dynamic  present.  India's  museums 
and  art  galleries  display  and  classic  and 
contemporary.  Visitors  will  find  objets  d'art 
that  speak  of  a  vital  and  living  tradifion. 

You  could  spend  all  your  fime  in  India  in 
remote,  unspoiled  areas  enjoying  its  wealth 
of  wildlife.  We'll  visit  Kanha  Park  which  is 
18  one  of  the  richest  faunal  areas  in  India  and 


January  21 -February  12 
Tour  Price:  $3,500 


part  of  the  Banjar  Valley  Reserve,  so  well 
known  to  hunters  unfil  recent  years.  This 
sanctuary  was  set  up  to  save  the  magnifi- 
cent hard-ground  barasingha  deer  which 
was  dwindling  rapidly  and  had  reached  the 
verge  of  extinction.  Today  there  are  about  a 
hundred  of  these  left  and  they  are  practi- 
cally limited  to  the  Kanha  area.  The  tiger 
chital.  leopard,  hyena,  gaur  and  the  wild  pig 
will  be  seen  here  among  the  vultures,  black 
ibises  and  the  crested  serpent-eagle.  Kanha 
is  now  a  tiger  reserve  under  Project  Tiger 

Experience  Bombay,  and  a  visit  to 
Aurangabad  and  the  famous  caves  of 
Ajanta  and  Ellora  (celebrated  as  one  of  the 
true  wonders  of  the  ancient  world).  One 
would  be  hard  put  to  match  the  grandeur. 
the  exuberance  and  spiritual  inspiration 
of  this  art  that  hangs  like  tapestry  from 
sacred  rocks. 

The  famed  Keoladeo  Ghana  sanctuary 

at  Bharatpur  is  a  bird  watcher's  paradise. 
Almost  300  different  species  of  waterbirds 


For  a  brochure  on  this  tour  or  reserua- 
tion  information  please  write  or  call  the 
Tours  Office  at  Field  Museum.  322-8862. 


winter  in  its  swampy  marshes,  including 
ducks,  teals,  geese,  and  Siberian  cranes. 
The  boat  will  take  you  past  little  and  large 
cormorant  nests  where  the  grey  heron  lives 
together  with  the  painted  stork.  We  will  see 
egret,  dazzling  white,  that  breed  in  small 
colonies.  We'll  tour  one  of  the  oldest  cities 
in  the  world,  Varanasi,  which  has  a  wealth 
of  temples.  It  is  also  the  home  of  Benares 
Hindu  University  We'll  have  a  chance  to 
visit  the  shops  with  a  fabulous  storehouse 
of  silks  and  brocades. 

At  Kaziranga  Park  you  will  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  view  the  wildlife  while  riding  on  an 
elephant.  The  most  striking  feature  of  this 
sanctuary  is  that  it  is  possible  to  see  a  lot 
of  animals  in  a  comparatively  short  time 
at  close  range.  It  is  here  that  we  expect 
to  see  the  rare  one-horned  rhinoceros. 

And  there's  much  more:  a  fiight  over 
Mt.  Everest  and  the  Himalayan  Region 
(weather  permitting),  a  visit  to  the  Godaveri 
Botanical  Gardens,  the  Pink  Palace  in  Jaipur 
and,  of  course,  the  fabulous  Taj.  The  warm 
welcome  of  the  Indian  people  and  the  com- 
fortable hotels  will  make  you  feel  at  home 
as  you  experiment  with  a  new  cuisine; 
Indian  food  is  not  all  curry'  —  it  is  a  rich 
and  varied  fare  of  more  than  a  score  of 
traditional  culinary  styles. 

Whether  your  interest  lies  with  plant  life  or 
animal  parks,  ancient  temples,  or  modern 
cities,  natural  beauty  or  manmade  monu- 
ments, shopping  or  sightseeing,  you  will 
find  it  on  this  magical  tour  We  hope  you 
will  consider  joining  us  in  INDIA. 


I'ifejFiELn 

ML'SEl'M 


Papua  New  Guinea 


Papua  New  Guinea  is  unique  on  the  face 
of  planet  Earth.  For  centuries  a  diversity  of 
contrasting  cultures  have  flourished  here 
within  small  areas  because  the  tribes  were 
isolated  by  towering  mountains  that  laced 
the  island,  criss-crossing  back  and  forth 
through  impenetrable  jungle  vegetation. 
And  so,  unknown  to  each  other  and  to  the 
outside  world,  they  co-existed,  each  in  an 
individual  communal  environment  suffi- 
cient unto  itself.  Only  now  has  a  surface 
veneer  of  civilization  begun  to  permeate 
this  mysterious  island  so  that  visitors  may 
explore  and  exclaim  over  the  natural  won- 
ders of  this  Edenlike  paradise. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable — and 
last  —  reservoirs  of  animal,  reptile,  insect, 
and  bird  life  to  be  found  anywhere.  Flight- 
less black-and-brown  plumed  cassowaries, 
puk-puks  (crocodiles),  tree  kangaroos  and 
phalangers,  wild  ducks,  and  cuscus  (pos- 
sums)... birds  the  likes  of  which  would 
startle  even  Audobon  —  brightly  feathered 
parrots,  colorful  kingfishers,  gourie  pigeons, 
aristocratic  egrets,  and  stately  herons  all  vie 
for  attention  with  that  most  matchless  of  all 
exotic  creatures,  the  bird  of  paradise. 

But  most  of  all  Papua  New  Guinea  rep- 
resents a  repository  of  primitive  cultures 
and  art  of  such  freshness  and  color  it  holds 
a  fascination  beyond  all  else.  Each  province 
has  its  own  charm,  whether  it  be  the  all- 
green,  all-high  Eastern  Highlands  or  the 
seldom-seen  Sepik  watershed.  To  travel 
through  the  continuing  contrasts  of  this 
ever-changing  land,  to  feel  the  centuries 


May  1  —  17 
Tour  Price:  $4,461 


slip  away,  is  to  experience  a  travel  adventure 
that  broadens  the  mind  as  it  enriches  the 
soul.  To  go  from  the  Space  Age  to  the 
Stone  Age  in  the  course  of  a  couple  of  days 
cannot  fail  to  be  an  adventure  of  mind- 
bending  proportions. 

The  Sepik  River  is  a  monster  waterway 
draining  a  vast  area  of  grassland,  swamp, 
and  jungle  in  its  serpentine  circuit,  marked 
by  lagoons,  dead  ends,  lakelike  expansions 
and,  in  the  lower  reaches,  huge  floating 
islands  that  have  been  torn  away  from  the 
banks.  For  five  memorable  days  we  will 
cruise  the  Sepik  river,  reaching  into  the  past 
in  the  remote  inland  regions  where  the  vil- 
lages remain  undisturbed  by  contact  with 
the  modern  world.  Here  the  villagers  still 
travel  in  their  traditional  dugout  canoes. 
They  still  erect  and  reside  in  enormous  tree 
houses  though  not  for  the  long  ago  pur- 
pose of  escaping  head-hunting  raiding  par- 
ties. They  still  make  and  use  fanciful  owl- 
head  pots  and  carve  copious  crocodiles 
and  hornbills.  symbols  of  fertility  and  life. 
They  continue  to  keep  their  most  treasured 
possessions  hidden  away  or  buried,  only 
bringing  them  out  on  special  occasions. 


For  c3  brochure  on  this  tour  or  reserva- 
tion information  please  write  or  call  the 
Tours  Office  at  Field  Museum.  322-8862. 


And  they  still  create  the  country's  most  ar- 
tistic artifacts,  combining  a  natural  gift 
for  bold  expression  with  imaginative  use 
of  locally  found  pigments. 

Our  lecturer.  Dr  Phil  Lewis,  curator  primi- 
tive art  and  Melanesian  ethnology,  will  es- 
cort the  tour  from  Chicago  and  will  share 
his  knowledge  of  the  primitive  customs  and 
traditions  that  play  such  an  important  part 
in  the  village  life  —  the  superstitions  that 
govern  behavior  the  ancestral  worship  so 
much  a  facet  of  the  spirit  houses.  In  addi- 
tion, our  Sepik  director  Jeff  Leversidge,  a 
well-known  personality  on  the  Sepik  and 
Ramu  Rivers,  and  perhaps  the  world's  best 
authority  on  the  diverse  culture,  art,  and 
customs  of  the  Sepik  regions,  will  lecture 
the  group  during  the  cruise  and  shore  ex- 
cursions, Jeff  is  also  a  keen  naturalist  and 
an  excellent  host. 

Accommodations  on  board  the  newly  re- 
furbished Melanesian  Explorer  are  modern 
and  comfortable.  Passengers  are  housed  in 
air-conditioned  twin-bunked  cabins,  each 
have  its  own  compact  private  bathroom 
facilities.  The  deck  above  the  cabins  has  a 
lovely  dining  and  lounge  area,  while  the  aft 
area  on  the  top  deck  is  completely  covered 
and  fitted  with  lounges  and  chairs  so  that 
passengers  may  watch  the  Sepik  water 
world  go  by  in  pleasurable  ease. 

We  hope  you  will  join  us  on  our  very  special 
expedition  to  Papua  New  Guinea.  Early 
registration  will  ensure  your  reservations. 
Space  Is  limited.  19 


Kenya  and  the  Seychelles 


There  is  now,  as  there  has  always  been,  an 
aura  of  mystery  surrounding  Africa.  Tropi- 
cal islands  and  the  coast,  endless  palm- 
fringed  beaches,  snow-capped  mountains 
on  the  equator,  jungle  primeval,  savannah 
sun-baked  plains.  They  are  all  a  part  of 
East  Africa,  the  home  of  one  of  our  planets 
last  great  natural  dramas.  The  wildlife... the 
stately  processions  of  giraffe  —  dark  cen- 
turies silhouetted  on  the  African  horizon. 
Prides  of  lion  —  stalking  the  plains  and  still 
lauded  as  the  king  of  beasts.  The  beautiful 
and  rare  leopard,  the  elegant  cheetah  and 
surely  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  the 
magnificent  migration  of  wildebeeste  and 
zebra.  Sadly  time  and  civilization  move  in- 
exorably onwards  so  we  hope  to  welcome 
you  to  Kenya  and  the  Seychelles  with  Field 
Museum  Tours  in  1981. 

ITINERARY:  Sept.  12:  Evening  departure 
from  Chicago  s  O'Hare  Airport  via  British 
Airways  to  London.  13:  Morning  arrival  in 
London  with  time  to  rest  before  evening 
departure  for  Nairobi.  14:  Morning  arrival  in 
Nairobi  and  transfer  to  Nairobi  Hilton  Hotel. 
Evening  welcome  party  and  lecture  by 
member  of  the  East  Africa  Wildlife  Society 
15:  Drive  through  Kikuyu  country  for  over- 
night stay  at  Mt  Lodge  Tree  Hotel,  the 
newest  of  the  well-known  Tree  Hotels,  de- 
20  signed  for  optimum  game  viewing  from  the 


September  12 -October  3 
Tour  Price:  $3,750 

comfort  of  your  balcony  16:  Drive  north 
and  cross  the  equator  to  the  Samburu 
Game  Reserve.  Overnight  at  Samburu 
Game  Lodge.  17:  Full  day  game  viewing  at 
Samburu  Game  Reserve.  18:  Drive  south  to 
spend  the  day  at  the  foot  of  Mt.  Kenya  at 
the  luxurious  Mt.  Kenya  Safari  Club.  19: 
Journey  to  Lake  Naivasha.  a  bird-watchers 
paradise.  Overnight  at  the  Lake  Hotel.  20: 


NEW  FOR  1981 

A  "Journey  to  the  Holy  Land  and  Red 
Sea"  is  scheduled  for  March  12-26, 
1981.  aboard  the  privately  chartered 
M.S.  Stella  Maris  cruising  yacht.  This 
tour  will  include  stops  in  Cairo  and 
Luxor,  Egypt;  a  visit  to  Quseir,  a  small 
port  town  on  the  Red  Sea  where 
Field  Museum  is  conducting  an  ex- 
cavation: a  visit  to  Petra  and  St. 
Catherine's  Monastery.  In  Israel,  the 
tour  visits  the  Mount  of  Olives,  Mas- 
sada,  Jericho,  and  sites  in  and  around 
Jerusalem,  including  Bethlehem. 
Please  write  or  call  for  further  informa- 
tion. Tours  direct  line:  322-8862. 


For  a  brochure  on  this  tour  or  reserva- 
tion information  please  write  or  call  the 
Tours  Office  at  Field  Museum.  322-8862. 

Drive  through  the  Masai  Mara  Game  Re- 
serve for  two  days  of  game  viewing  by 
minibus  in  the  Great  Rift  Valley  Overnight 
at  the  Governor's  Camp.  21:  Full  day  at 
Masai  Mara  Game  Reserve,  including  a 
game  walk.  22:  Return  to  Nairobi  and  the 
Nairobi  Hilton  Hotel.  23:  Journey  to  Am- 
boseli  National  Park,  dominated  by  the 
spectacular  Mt.  Kilimanjaro.  24:  Morning 
lecture  by  research  naturalist  discussing 
studies  of  wildlife  behavior.  Afternoon  trip  to 
Tsavo  West.  Overnight  at  Ngulia  Lodge.  25: 
The  safari  continues  through  the  plains  of 
Tsavo  to  Taita  Hills  Lodge  for  lunch.  Con- 
tinue to  the  port  city  of  Mombasa  on  the 
Indian  Ocean.  Overnight  at  the  Leopard 
Beach  Hotel.  26:  Morning  visit  to  Shimba 
Hills  Reserve.  Afternoon  free.  27:  Morning 
departure  for  Mahe  in  the  Seychelles  Is- 
lands. Afternoon  arrival  at  Reef  Hotel. 
28-30:  Three  days  in  the  Seychelles  in- 
cludes a  full  day  excursion  by  air  to  Praslin 
Island  to  visit  Vallee  de  Mai  and  by  boat  to 
Cousin  Island  to  visit  the  internationally  re- 
nowned bird  sanctuary  Optional  full  day 
excursion  by  air  to  Bird  Island.  Oct  1:  Free 
day  in  Mahe.  Evening  flight  to  Nairobi,  late 
night  flight  to  London.  2:  Morning  arrival  in 
London.  Free  day  to  relax  and  explore  on 
your  own.  Overnight  at  London  Embassy 
Hotel.  3:  Late  morning  flight  to  Chicago 
via  British  Airways. 


*^' 


A  0inst}}U(i^^  \fteni()on 

at" 


A  SPECIAL  INVITATION  FOR  MUSEUM  MEMBERS! 
Dancing  and  Entertainment 

Thursday,  December  11 
4:30  —  7:30  p.m. 


Please  send  me . 


.  adult  tickets  ($7  ea.)  and  . 


.children's  tickets  (14  and  under,  $4  ea.). 


Total  amount  enclosed  $ . 

Tickets  will  be  mailed  upon  receipt  of  check.  Reservations  are  limited  and  will  be  filled  in  order 
received.  For  additional  information  please  call  Women's  Board:  922-9410. 

Please  send  this  form  (or  facsimile)  to  "A  Christmas  Afternoon,"  Field  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  IL  60605. 

Name 

Street 

City State Zip 

Phone 


21 


FIELD  BRIEFS 


Chinese  Delegation  Views  Chinese 
Bronze  Exhibit 

The  Museum  was  host  recently  to  a  group 
of  five  soil  scientists  from  the  People's  Re- 
public of  China,  who  stopped  in  primarily 
to  view  the  current  exhibit,  "The  Great 
Bronze  Age  of  China."  The  men  were  in 
the  United  States  as  participants  in  a 
government-to-government  technical  ex- 
change program.  Ail  are  with  the  Ministry 
of  Agriculture,  Beijing. 

Shown  above  are,  left  to  right 
(standing):  Li  Zhen  Yu,  Wang  Rui  Lin,  Qiu 
Zhen  Bang  (deputy  chief  of  the  Office  for 
Preparing  Overseas  Exhibitions,  Cultural 
Relics  Bureau,  Beijing,  who  is  tra\elmg 
with  the  "Great  Bronze  Age  of  China"  ex- 
hibit), Chen  Bing  Cong,  Zeng  De  Chao, 
and  Ma  Cheng  Yuan  (chief  of  research  and 
installation,  Shanghai  Museum,  and  head 
of  the  Chinese  delegation  traveling  with 
the  Chinese  Bronze  exhibit).  Seated: 
Robert  C.  Liu  (United  States  Department 
of  Agriculture  escort  for  the  five-man  del- 
egation), Herbert  Sullivan  (staff  assistant 
to  the  vice  president  of  engineering  for 
agricultural  equipment,  Hinsdale  En- 
gineering Center,  International  Harvester 
Company,  which  hosted  the  delegation 
while  in  the  Chicago  area),  and  Hua 
Guo  Zhu. 


NEA,  Illinois  Arts  Council  Grants 

Grants  from  the  National  Endowment  for 
the  Arts  and  the  Illinois  Arts  Council  have 
recently  been  awarded  Field  Museum; 
both  grants  are  for  520,000. 

The  NEA  grant,  covering  the  period 
October,  1980,  through  September,  1981, 
supports  a  student-teacher  training  in- 
ternship program  with  local  colleges  and 
22  universities  and  the  teaching  community. 


The  I.AC  grant,  covering  the  period  Sep- 
tember, 1980,  through  August,  1981,  is  in 
support  of  arts-related  public  programs. 


A.  A.  Dahlberg,  Research  Associate, 
Honored 

The  degree  of  doctor  of  odontology  honoris 
cnufa  was  awarded  earlier  this  year  by  the 
University  of  Turku,  Finland,  to  Albert  A. 
Dahlberg,  research  associate  in  the  De- 
partment of  Geology  since  1942.  At  the 
University  of  Chicago,  Dahlberg  is  re- 
search associate  emeritus  of  the  Zoller 
Dental  Clinic  and  the  Department  of 
Anthropology  and  professor  emeritus  of 


the  Committee  on  Evolutionary  Biology. 
Much  of  his  research  has  concerned  dental 
anthropology  among  Eskimo  and  Indian 
populations. 


Philip  G.  Dibble  Named 
Manager,  Public  Merchandising 

The  newly  created  position  of  manager  of 
public  merchandising  is  the  title  of  Philip 
G.  Dibble,  who  joined  the  Museum  staff 
October  6.  The  responsibilities  of  the  new- 
post  include  the  management  of  the 
Museum  Shops,  reproduction  of  Museum 
artifacts,  contracts  for  the  use  of  Museum 
designs,  and  mail  order  business.  Dibble 
comes  from  Marshall  Field  &  Company, 
where  he  served  26  years,  most  recently  as 
\ice  president.  Merchandising  Division. 


World  Book  Features  Field  Museum 

Field  Museum  is  the  subject  of  a  special 
report  in  the  1981  edition  oi Science  Year,  the 
science  and  technology  annual  of  World 
Book  encyclopedia.  The  16-page  feature, 
entitled  "Keeping  Nature's  Diary"  and 
written  by  Mark  Perlberg,  focuses  on  how 
a  museum  functions,  how  collections  are 
acquired  and  specimens  preserved,  and 
the  nature  of  the  work  of  curators,  exhibit 
preparators,  and  other  specialists  on  the 
Museum  staff. 


Curatorial  staff,  Division  of  Insects  (I.  to  r.):  Rupert  L.  Wenzel  (retired  Nov.  I),  Henry  S.  Dybas 
(retired  Aug.  1),  Larry  E.  Watrous,  and  joivi  B.  Kethley. 


Division  of  Insects  Staff  Changes 

Three  mnjor  stiift  changes  hii\e  occurred 
in  the  Division  ot  Insects:  Curator  Henry 
S.  Dybas  retired  August  1,  Curator  Rupert 
L.  VVenzel  retired  November  1,  and  Larry 
E.  Watrous  joined  the  division  in  Sep- 
tember as  assistant  curator. 

Dybas,  a  lifelong  resident  of  the 
Chicago  area,  joined  the  Museum  staff  in 
1941  as  assistant  in  /oologv;  in  1947  he  was 
promoted  to  assistant  curator  of  insects,  in 

1950  was  named  associate  curator,  and  in 
1972  became  curator.  He  ser\ed  as  head  of 
the  dixision  from  1970  until  1974. 

Dybas  recei\ed  his  B.S.  degree  from 
Central  Y.M.C.A.  College  and  this  month 
will  be  awarded  an  honorary  D.Sc.  from 
Tri-State  University,  Angola,  IN.  His  main 
research  interests  have  included  the  ecol- 
ogy and  evolution  of  periodical  cicadas 
("17-year  locusts")  and  classification  of  the 
Ptilidae,  or  featherwing  beetles,  which  in- 
clude the  smallest  species  of  the  order 
Coleoptera.  As  curator  emeritus,  Dybas 
continues  his  research  work  at  Field 
Museum. 

VVenzel,  a  natixe  of  Owen,  VVl,  but  a 
longtime  resident  of  Oak  Park,  IL,  joined 
the  Museum  staff  as  assistant  curator  of 
insects  in  1940.  (He  had  served  as  a  Divi- 
sion of  Insects  volunteer  in  1934-35.)  In 

1951  he  was  named  curator.  He  was  head 
of  the  Division  of  Insects  from  1951  to 
1970  and  from  1978  to  1979,  when  he  was 
succeeded  by  associate  curator  John  B. 
Kethley.  From  1970  to  1977  VVenzel  served 
as  chairman  of  the  Department  of 
Zoology. 

Wenzel  holds  a  B.A.  from  Central 
Y.M.C.A.  College  and  a  Ph.D  from 
the  University  of  Chicago.  His  special  re- 
search interest  has  concerned  the  tax- 
onomy, biology,  evolution  and  zoogeog- 
raphy of  beetles  of  the  family  Histeridae; 
battlies  of  the  family  Streblidae;  and  host- 
parasite  relationships  of  ectoparasites, 
especially  of  bats.  As  curator  emeritus, 
he  will  continue  his  research  work  at 
the  Museum. 

VVenzel,  accompanied  by  his  v\  ife,  re- 
cently returned  from  a  visit  to  Japan  and  to 
the  People's  Republic  of  China,  in  Kyoto, 
Japan,  he  spoke  at  a  symposium  of  the 
16th  International  Congress  of  Entomol- 
ogy. In  China,  as  a  member  of  a  delegation 
from  the  Entomological  Society  of 
America,  he  visited  \arious entomological 
research  institutes  and  university  de- 
partments in  Kwangchow,  Hangchow, 
Shanghai,  and  Beijing.  In  Shanghai 
Wenzel  was  a  speaker  at  the  Shanghai 
Institute  of  Entomological  Research. 

Larry  E.  Watrous  joined  the  Division 
of  Insects  as  assistant  curator  following 
completion  of  his  doctoral  studies  at  Ohio 
State  University,  from  which  he  also  holds 
an  M.S.  degree.  His  B.S.  degree  is  from 
the  University  of  Connecticut.  Watrous's 
doctoral  dissertation  was  on  the  genus 


Coloptcnis  (Coleoptera,  Nitidulidae).  His 
field  work  has  included  expeditions  to  the 
Philippines  and  Malaysia  and  to  Mexico. 
.Associate  Curator  John  B.  Kethley, 
\\  ho  joined  the  Di\ision  of  Insects  in  1970, 
continues  as  head  of  the  division.  He  had 
also  served  as  division  head  from  1974 
to  1978. 


Quaker  Oats  Promotes  Field  Museum 

Several  months  ago  Life  cereal,  a  product 
of  Quaker  Oats  Company,  featured  on  the 
reverse  side  of  the  cereal  package  a  picture 
essay  on  dinosaurs,  and  readers  were  in- 
vited to  write  Field  Museum  for  additional 
information  about  dinosaurs.  As  a  conse- 
quence, manv  hundreds  of  letters  have 
come  to  the  Museum  from  youngsters 
(and  parents)  requesting  this  material. 
(Some  of  these  letters  were  featured  in  an 
article  in  the  October,  1980,  Bulletin.) 

Now  the  dinosaur  packages  have 
been  followed  by  an  Indian  "edition."  Six- 
teen million  boxes  of  Life,  with  Field 
Museum's  North  American  Indian  life  and 
culture  exhibits  featured  on  the  reverse 
side,  are  moving  onto  the  shelves  of  gro- 
cery stores  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada.  Some  of  the  packages  offer  a  free 
pen-and- poster  set,  which  includes  four 
14xl7-inch  color  posters  of  different  as- 
pects of  Indian  life. 


•  It 


IKS 


Edward  S.  Curtis  in  the  Land  of  the  War 
Canoes:  A  Pioneer  Cinematographer  in  the 
Pacific  Northzvest,  by  Bill  Holm  and  George 
Irving  Quimby.  University  of  Washington 
Press,  Seattle,  1980, 132  pp.  58  illus.  $19.95. 

This  well  illustrated  book  records  the  his- 
tory of  the  making,  rediscovery,  and 
reediting  of  In  the  Land  of  the  Head  Hunters, 
the  first  full-length  ethnographic  film  of 
native  North  Americans.  The  film  was 
made  on  the  Northwest  Coast  by  Edward 
S.  Curtis  in  1913,  and  depicts  the  Kwakiutl 
prior  to  European  contact. 

The  book  w  ill  be  of  particular  interest 
to  acquaintances  of  the  Field  Museum  of 
Natural  History,  since  the  only  renviining 
copy  of  the  original  movie  was  donated  to 
Field  Museum  by  a  collector  of  old  films, 
Hugo  Zeiter,  in  1947  George  Quimby, 
then  Field  Museum's  curator  of  exhibits, 
recognized  that  it  was  the  work  of  the 
famous  photographer  of  American  In- 
dians and  writer  of  the  twenty-volume  re- 
ference. The  North  American  Indians.  Bill 
Holm,  of  the  Thomas  Burke  Memorial 
Washington  State  Museum,   first  heard 


about  the  Curtis  film  from  Kuakiull  who 
participated  in  its  original  making.  This 
started  his  search  for  the  film  uhich  he 
found  at  the  Field  Museum  in  1962. 

In  1965  Quimby  also  joined  the  staff  of 
the  Thomas  Burke  Museum,  bringing 
with  him  a  copy  of  the  film.  Together, 
Quimby  and  Holm  edited  the  film,  which 
they  retitled  In  the  Land  of  the  War  Canoes. 
The  book  details  how  the  original  film  was 
modified:  Sound  was  added,  the  speed 
adjusted,  and  lightness  and  darkness 
w  ere  balanced.  In  some  scenes  the  motion 
was  smoothed  out  by  adding  frames, 
while  other  scenes  were  shortened.  Out- 
of-sequence  segments  were  put  in  proper 
order.  A  portion  of  one  scene  that  had 
been  lost  was  reenacted,  and  another 
scene,  in  which  the  evil  shaman  emerges 
from  the  mouth  of  a  whale,  was  deleted. 

The  new  version  of  the  Curtis  film  is  a 
\aluable  teaching  tool  used  widely  in 
Northwest  Coast  studies.  The  film  in- 
cludes the  only  existing  shots  of  tradi- 
tional Northwest  canoes  in  use.  It  also 
shows  better  than  any  footage  ever  taken 
since,  the  movement  of  Kwakiutl  dancers 
and  the  use  of  ceremonial  equipment;  and 
much  of  what  was  filmed  is  no  longer 
practiced.  Because  of  the  excellence  of  the 
film  and  the  special  relationship  that  the 
film  has  with  the  Field  Museum,  segments 
from  the  original  film  will  be  used  in  the 
museum's  new  Northwest  Cciast  exhibit, 
scheduled  to  open  in  Hall  10  in  1982. 

Photographs  taken  during  the  origi- 
nal filming  appear  here  for  the  first  time. 
Edmund  August  Schwinke,  a  cameraman 
and  assistant  to  Curtis,  took  candid 
photographs  of  the  participants  and 
props.  These  photographs  made  it  possi- 
ble for  Holm  and  Quimbv  to  reconstruct 
the  filming  process.  The  Schwinke  stills 
also  reveal  attitudes  of  the  participants: 
Curtis  swinging  from  a  railing,  "the  fierce 
warriors"  relaxing  between  scenes; 
another"  Schwinke  photograph  shows 
George  Hunt,  the  famous  Kwakiutl  au- 
thor and  ethnographer  who  provided 
much  ot  the  substance  tor  the  Franz  Boas, 
Edward  Curtis,  and  Samuel  Barrett  works 
on  the  Kwakiutl,  with  a  megaphone 
standing  beside  Curtis. 

The  photographs  present  a  favorable 
impression  of  Curtis  and  allow  for  a  better 
understanding  of  the  Kwakiutl's  attitude 
toward  the  film.  The  book  also  contains 
data  collected  by  Bill  Holm  from  the  actual 
people  who  were  filmed. 

The  book  is  readable  and  worthwhile 
for  anyone  with  an  interest  in  the  history 
of  anthropologv,  photographv,  or  cine- 
matography, the  ethnography  of  the 
Kwakiutl,  or  the  biographv  of  Curtis  or 
Hunt.  It  should  be  on  the  top  of  the  read- 
ing list  for  anyone  who  has  seen  either  In 
the  Land  of  the  Head  Hunters  or  In  the  Land  of 
the  War  Canoes. 

-Ronald  L.  Weher 
Visiting  Assistant  Curator 
for  the  Northwest  Coast  Area  23 


OUR  ENVIRONMENT 


Condor  Chick  De.ith 
Under  Investigation 

The  Fish  anii  Wildlito  ^erMce  has  an- 
noiinLed  the  results  ot  .in  autopsv  on  the 
Calitorni.i  cimdor  chick  that  died  during 
examination  bv  a  biologist  on  lime  30,  in- 
dicating the  cause  ot  death  as  "shock  and 
acute  heart  failure."  According  to  service 
otticials,  the  heart  failure  resulted  in  ex- 
cess fluid  in  the  lungs,  depriving  the  bird 
of  adequate  owgen. 

The  San  Diego  Zoo's  autopsv  report 
said  that  moderate  obesitv — apparently 
common  in  wild  babv  chicks  while  thev 
are  --tiil  in  the  nest — could  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  chick's  death.  Separate 
analvses  were  also  conduced  bv  the  serv- 
ices  Tatuxent  Wildlife  Research  Center, 
indicating  onlv  trace  amounts  of  environ- 
mental contaminants  in  the  bird. 

The  service  is  conducting  a  review  of 
the  circumstances  surrounding  the  con- 
dor's death,  and  will  await  these  findings 
(along  with  the  results  of  experiments 
with  Andean  condors  and  other  \  ultures 
in  South  Africa  and  Teru)  before  reapply- 
ing for  permits  necessary  to  continue 
work  as  part  of  the  California  condor 
recovery  program. 


I  lorid.i  ke\  Oeer  Recovor\  I'lan 

■A  recover\-  plan  which  has  as  itsobiecli\e 
the  stabilization  of  the  Florida  Key  deer 
(Otiocoilcii^  i'irs;iiiiivni^  cliwiinii)  popula- 
tion, as  opposed  to  an  effort  to  boost  its 
numbers,  has  been  appro\ed  b\'  the  Fish 
and  W'iidiite  Ser\ice.  .Xllliough  the  popu- 
lation has  apparentU-  stabilized  at  aroimd 
350-400  deer,  high  mortality  from  road 
kills  and  a  limited  range  keep  this  species 
in  jeopardy. 

A  distinct  geographical  race  of  the 
X'irginia  white-tailed  deer  lO(1ociiiU'Uf  vir- 
■,;;;; irt(j IIS),  the  ke\'  deer  is  the  smallest  race 
foimd  in  the  United  States.  The  average 
weight  of  tin  adult  male  is  SO  poimds  and 
an  adult  female  weighs  about  f>3  poimds. 
rile  a\erage  shoulder  height  ranges  from 
24  to  2b  inches. 

The  center  of  the  Key  deer  population 
is  Big  Pine  Key,  Florida,  with  an  estimated 
200-250  deer  Road  kills  bv  automobiles 
are  the  most  serious  threat  to  the  deer  on 
Big  Pine  Ke\',  accounting  for  76  percent  of 
known  mortalities  of  kev  deer  from  1%S  to 
1973.  (Other  mortalities  were  caused  b\ 
drowning,  combat  between  males,  cap- 
ture for  tagging,  and  unknown  factors.) 

Key  deer  are  strongh-  attracted   to 


Rare  Ciilitoriiiii  condor  chick  that  died  while  undergoing  extimiruition. 


newly  burned  areas,  and  will  feed  exten- 
sively on  new  woody  and  herbaceous 
growth  for  up  to  6-9  months.  Availability 
ot  drinking  water  seems  to  influence  the 
distribution  of  Kev  deer  throughout  their 
range.  Periods  of  drought  find  the  deer 
utilizing  the  larger  ke\s,  with  water,  in 
fa\or  of  the  •smaller  keys  without  drink- 
ing water 

R)  preserve  the  Key  deer,  the  plan  not 
oni\'  emphasizes  the  importance  of  mam- 
taining  the  population  level  and  available 
habitat,  but  also  the  integrity  of  the  sub- 
species. According  to  the  plan,  because 
the  Key  deer  are  the  product  of  a  unique 
system  of  selective  forces  (a  restrictive,  in- 
sular en\ironment  with  no  natural  pre- 
dators), management  should  involve  the 
retention  of  those  natural  selection  factors 
that  influenced  their  evolution.  Under  no 
circumstances,  according  to  the  plan, 
should  a  captive  zoo-bred  herd  be  consid- 
ered for  restocking  purposes. 

What  the  plan  does  call  for,  among 
other  things,  is  the  acquisition  of  more 
land  for  the  Key  Deer  National  Wildlife 
Keluge,  established  in  1957.  Key  deer 
habitat  is  being  de\eloped  rapidU-.  and 
their  range  is  already  extremely  limited. 
The  only  way  to  ensure  adequate  protec- 
tion of  this  habitat  is  to  incorporate  it  into 
the  National  Wildlife  Refuge  System. 

Efforts  to  protect  the  herd  and  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  subspecies  would  include 
prohibition  of  hunting,  restricting  dogs 
from  refuge  lands,  reducing  speed  limits, 
posting  deer  warning  signs,  and  fencing 
highways  except  at  trail  crossing  points. 

Other  items  covered  in  the  plan  are 
public  awareness,  monitoring  the  deer 
population,  experimenting  with  habitat 
manipulation,  and  conducting  studies  on 
the  natural  history  and  population 
dynamics  of  the  Key  deer  herd. 


.Algae  as  Fertilizer 

Using  algae  in  place  of  nitrogen  fertilizer 
has  the  potential  of  helping  the  agriculture 
industry  cut  energy  costs  bv  almost  30 
percent,  according  to  researchers  at  Bat- 
telle's  Pacific  Northwest  Laboratories.  Re- 
searchers in  Battelle's  Food  and  Agricul- 
ture Section  are  testing  se\eral  species  of 
algae  as  substitutes  for  nitrogen  fertilizer. 
Nitrogen  is  an  essential  nutrient  for  plant 
growth  and  production  of  plant  proteins. 
The  production  of  nitrogen  fertilizers 
accounts  for  30  percent  of  the  energy  used 
by  the  agriculture  industry,  observes  a 
Battelle  research  scientist,  adding  that  as  a 
solar  energy  product,  algae's  onl\-  major 
requirement  for  growth  is  sunlight,  and 
that's  free.  ■ 


"We're  looking  ,it  severnl  species  of 
bkie-green,  soil  cilgiie  thiit  can  Like  nitro- 
gen troni  the  nir  and  incorporate  it  into  its 
cell  mass  where  it  is  later  used  as  lertili/er 
b\'  plants,"  he  savs.  The  algea  could  be 
grown  in  large  amounts  and  applied  to  the 
soil  to  provide  nitrogen.  Or,  he  sa\s,  a 
''mail  amount  could  be  put  in  the  soil 
where  it  would  grow  to  provide  the  neces- 
sary nitrogen 

Batelle  researchers  ha\e  recenllv 
completed  a  project  to  compare  tomato 
plants  grown  using  nitrogen-priiducing 
algae  and  plants  grown  using  a  commer- 
cial tertili/er  In  their  tests,  algae  supplied 
the  proper  amoiuit  of  nitrogen  for  the  to- 
mato plants  and  also  induced  45  percent 
more  growth  than  w  hat  was  obser\'ed  in 
those  treated  with  the  same  amount  of 
commercial  fertilizer.  The  45  percent 
weight  gain  was  observeti  when  the 
plants  were  measured  both  wet  and  dry. 
The  researchers  measured  weight  gain 
only  and  did  not  let  the  tomato  plants 
bear  fruit.  The  researchers  attribtited  the 
weight  gain  to  the  secretion  of  a  plant 
growth  hormone  bv  the  algae. 

Blue-green  algae  bloom  are  used  in 
Asia  to  provide  nitrogen  for  rice  produc- 
tion, note  the  Battelle  researchers.  This 
could  also  be  done  in  the  United  States, 
they  say,  through  appropriate  engineering 
and  agricultural  practices. 


Bird  Problems  Aren't  Funny 

A  shax'ing  cream  manufacturer  once  us^d 
terse  jingles  printed  on  signs  tacked  to 
tenceposts  along  highways  for  advertis- 
ing. "Listen  bircis,"  one  sequence  read, 
"  These  signs  cost  money  .  .  .  Roost  awhile, 
but  don't  get  funny!" 

"If  birds  could  read  signs,"  notes  a 
U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  spokes- 
man, "it  would  solve  some  horrendous 
problems  we  have  throughout  our  coun- 
try. How  fine  it  would  be  if  a  NO  TRES- 
PASSING sign  would  protect  a  farmer's 
cornfield  from  blackbirds;  or  a  DETOUR 
sign  would  shunt  birds  around  airport 
runways;  or  an  OFF  LIMITS  TO  GULLS 
sign  w'ould  save  the  remaining  tern  nest- 
ing colonies  on  an  East  Coast  barrier 
island." 

As  it  is.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  sci- 
entists have  spent  years  studying  bird 
habits  and  populations  in  an  effort  to  find 
effective,  environmentally  safe  methods 
of  reducing  bird  damage.  Most  of  the 
techniques  developed  are  designed  to 
frighten  birds  away,  but  the  service  has 
alst)  conducted  research  on  humane, 
selective  methods  of  killing  birds  when  it 
is  necessary  to  reduce  their  numbers  in 
local  areas. 

During  the  early  spring  when  their 
numbrs  are  at  a  low  ebb,  there  are  about 
430  million  blackbirds  in  the  United 
Elates.  After  nesting,  their  numbers  more 
than  double  to  900  million.  A  typical  flock 


contains  about  40  percent  red-winged 
blackbirds,  22  percent  grackles,  20  percent 
starlings,  15  percent  cowbirds,  with  the 
balance  distributed  among  other  species 
of  blackbirds. 

Large  concentrations  roost  together 
in  trees  to  share  one  another's  body  heat 
during  the  night.  Sometimes  their  roosts 
are  in  towns  where  the  incessant  yammer 
of  as  many  as  one  million  birds  in  a  small 
grove  can  create  a  serious  disturbance. 
The  accumulated  guano  left  on  the  ground 
not  only  creates  a  stench,  but  eventually 
kills  the  trees  and  —  insidiously  —  forms 
a  breeding  place  tor  the  human  disease, 
histoplasmosis. 

Blackbirds  also  cause  an  estimated 
$50  million  in  damage  to  corn,  wheat,  rice, 
cherries,  grapes,  sunflowers,  and  other 
crops  throughout  the  country  each  year 
Starlings  flock  into  feedlots,  polluting 
with  their  droppings  the  grain  intended 
for  fattening  li\estock. 

These  birds  also  cause  problems  for 
other  wildlife.  Starlings,  which  were  in- 
troduced to  the  United  States  in  the  late 
19th  century,  have  multiplied  rapidly  and 
have  taken  over  many  nesting  cavities, 
displacing  native  birds  such  as  wood 
ducks,  bluebirds,  tree  swallows,  and 
woodpeckers.  Grackles  feed  on  the  eggs 
and  young  of  other  birds  and  have  caused 
considerable  losses  among  white- winged 
doves  in  Texas.  The  female  cowbird  is  a 
nest  parasite,  laying  her  eggs  in  the  nests 
of  other  birds  and  letting  the  foster  parents 
raise  her  large,  robust  young — usually  at 
the  expense  of  the  rightful  siblings.  Cow- 
bird  parasitism  has  been  especially  hard 
on  the  Kirtland's  warbler,  an  endangered 
species  that  nests  only  in  one  area  in 
Michigan. 

Blackbirds  often  can  be  driven  from 
crops  or  roosting  trees  bv  persistent  use  of 
scare  devices  such  as  shotguns,  propane 
cannons,  firecrackers,  or  recorded  bird- 
distress  calls.  Sometimes,  however,  these 
tactics  merely  transfer  the  problem 
elsewhere.  Then  the  only  alternative,  says 
the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  is  to  reduce 
the  local  blackbird  population.  One  non- 
poisonous  and  very  selective  method  is  to 
spray  the  blackbirds  on  cold  nights  when 
they  are  concentrated  in  roosting  trees. 
The  spray,  PA-14,  breaks  down  the  oil  in 
feathers,  removing  the  birds'  natural 
waterproofing  and  insulation,  thus  caus- 
ing them  to  die  of  exposure.  Spraying  and 
other  damage  control  methods  are  care- 
fully carried  out  to  ensure  that  other 
species  are  not  harmeci. 

Like  blackbirds,  gull  populations 
have  also  rocketed  to  unprecedented 
numbers.  And,  similarly,  their  population 
explosion  is  related  to  human  activities. 
Uncovered  garbage  dumps,  the  offal  from 
fish-processing  plants,  and  lifter  have 
given  gulls  seemingly  unlimited  food 
supplies  —  and  they  have  flourished  as 
never  before. 

Gulls  have  become  a  hazard  at  several 


airports  and  also  ha\'e  —  like  some  of  the 
blackbirds  —  encroached  upon  the  tradi- 
tional nesting  grounds  of  other  birds. 
Their  most  apparent  inroads  have  been 
upon  the  terns  on  the  barrier  island  off  the 
New  England  coast.  About  1960,  gulls  in- 
vaded Monomoy  National  Wildlife  Re- 
fuge, an  eight-mile-long  island  .just  below 
Cape  Cod.  Since  then  they  have  spread 
their  own  nesting  colonies  over  almost  the 
entire  island,  destroying  the  tern  nesting 
colonies  until  only  a  few  tern  colonies 
remain.  Among  the  five  species  of  terns 
represented  is  the  roseate,  a  tern  that  is 
being  considered  for  the  endangered 
species  list. 


To  protect  Mononn)v's  terns,  the  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service  recently  began  a  pro- 
gram to  kill  a  limited  number  of  gulls  with 
DRC  1339,  a  poison  that  attacks  the  kid- 
neys of  birds,  causing  them  to  die  pain- 
lessly in  their  sleep  within  72  hours.  Mixed 
with  margarine  and  spread  on  pieces  of 
bread,  the  poison  bait  is  being  placed  in 
the  nests  of  gulls  that  are  encroaching  on 
tern  areas.  Inasmuch  as  the  gulls  are  gar- 
bage eaters,  and  terns  are  not,  the  poison 
is  selective  and  has  been  very  successful 
so  far  The  service  is  careful  to  reduce  the 
numbers  of  only  the  offending  birds. 

Though  birds  cause  serious  problems 
at  times,  they  often  are  of  incalculable 
value  to  farmers.  Gulls  kill  locusts. 
Blackbirds  kill  weevils,  earworms,  and 
rootworm  beetles.  Grackles  eat  cutworms 
and  mice  in  newly  plowed  fields.  Cow- 
birds  feed  on  insects  that  harass  grazing 
livestock.  Starlings  feed  on  the  notorious 
Japanese  beetle. 

"The  trouble  is,"  says  a  Fish  and 
Wildlife  spokesman,  "they  all  come  back 
to  help  harvest  the  crop.  Our  objectives 
are  not  primarily  to  kill  gulls,  blackbirds, 
or  other  animals,  but  to  save  the  wild  di- 
versity of  wildlife  we  enjov  so  much,  and 
at  the  same  time  save  crops  and  livestock 
from  needless  waste."  25 


November  &  December  at  Field  Museum 


November  15  through  December  15 


f>^ 


North  American  Indian  Heritage  Day 
Sunday,  Nov.  23, 11  a.m. — 4  p.m. 

Continuing  Exhibits 

The  Insect  World.  View  butterflies  from  many  parts  of 
the  world,  of  turquoise,  purple,  orange,  and  red  hues.  The 
iridescent  Less  butterfly  of  Madagascar  displays  eight 
dazzling  colors  itself.  Moths  range  in  size  from  the  Hercules 
of  New  Guinea,  with  a  10-inch  wing  span,  to  the  tiny 
Blackberry  Borer.  Rivaling  the  Hercules  is  the  huge  African 
Rhinoceros  beetle— 8  inches  long,  including  2-inch-long 
pincers.  Main  floor,  outside  Hall  21. 

Gamelan.  This  24-piece  Javanese  orchestra  consists  of 
brightly  painted  gongs,  drums,  and  brass  xylophones. 
Javanese  legend  says  that  a  spirit  lives  in  the  great  gong  of 
every  gamelan:  his  duty  is  to  make  sure  the  gamelan  is 
played.  Most  of  the  instruments  in  the  Museum's  gamelan 
were  played  at  the  1893  Columbian  Exposition.  Hall  K. 
ground  floor. 


Friend  or  Foe?  The  Natural  History  Game.  The  object  of 
this  game  is  to  determine  which  specimen  is  harmful  and 
which  is  not.  See  if  you  can  distinguish  a  vampire  bat,  a 
head-hunter's  axe,  or  a  poisonous  snake  from  its  benign 
look-alike.  Ground  floor. 

New  Programs 

Edward  E.  Ayer  Film  Lectures.  Explore  some  countries 
and  cities  of  Europe  through  these  lively  travel  films.  Nar- 
rated by  the  filmmakers  themselves,  the  90-minute  pro- 
grams continue  through  November  Admission  is  free 
through  the  West  Door;  bring  membership  card  for  prior- 
ity seating.  Recommended  for  adults.  Saturdays,  2:30 
p.m.,  James  Simpson  Theatre. 
n  Nov  15:  "Paris"  with  Kathy  Dusek. 
n  Nov  22:   'Peoples  of  Romantic  Europe"  with  William 

Sylvester 
n  Nov  29:  "Ireland"  with  Robert  Davis. 

North  American  Indian  Heritage  Day.  Experience  the  rich 
and  diverse  culture  of  native  North  Americans  by  par- 
ticipating in  this  free,  day-long  celebration.  See  traditional 
intertribal  dances  as  well  as  art  and  craft  demonstrations; 


go  on  a  guided  tour  of  the  permanent  Indian  collections; 
enjoy  a  fashion  show  of  native  American  dress;  view  spe- 
cial films;  play  Indian  games,  and  much  more.  Events  will 
be  held  in  Stanley  Field  Hall  and  throughout  the  Museum; 
a  complete  schedule  will  be  available  at  the  program. 
Planned  in  conjunction  with  Chicago's  American  Indian 
Center,  and  partially  funded  by  the  Illinois  Arts  Council. 
Ticketsarenotrequired.  Sunday  Nov.  23.  II  a.m. -4  p.m. 

Nature  Odyssey.  Enjoy  a  day  of  free  natural  history  films 
for  families.  Short  subjects,  animated  folk  tales,  and  fea- 


*•-) 


ture  films  will  give  you  a  fascinating  film  experience. 
Included  are  such  Museum  favorites  as  "The  Owl  Who 
Married  a  Goose,"  "The  Living  Legend."  and  "Sea  Otters 
at  Play."  Tickets  are  not  required.  Sunday.  Dec.  14. 
11  a.m.- 4  p.m..  James  Simpson  Theatre. 

Weekend  Discovery  Programs.  Participate  in  a  variety  of 
free  tours,  demonstrations,  and  films  on  natural  history 
topics  every  Saturday  and  Sunday  between  11  a.m.  and 


3  p.m.  Check  the  Weekend  Sheet  available  at  Museum 
entrances  for  locations  and  additional  programs. 
D  "The  World  of  Gold"  surveys  gold:  its  uses,  physical 
properties,  and  mining  procedures.  Saturday  Mov  15. 
noon. 

D  "Welcome  to  the  Field"  provides  visitors  with  a  micro- 
cosm view  of  the  "behind-the  scenes"  activities  at  a 
natural  history  museum.  Saturday.  Mov  15,  1  p.m. 
D  "Ethnographic  Reality:  Cultural  Studies  on  Film"  Film 
Feature:  Imaginero  presents  the  story  of  an  Indian  folk 
artist  living  in  the  barren  country  of  northwest  Argentina. 
Sunday  Mov  16,  1  p.m. 

D  "Welcome  to  the  Field."  Saturday  Nov  22.  1  p.m. 
D  "Welcome  to  the  Field."  Saturday  Mov  29.  1  p.m. 
n  "American  Indian  Dress"  examines  the  construction, 
craft,  style,  and  symbolism  of  Indian  dress  from  the 
northern  woodlands  to  the  Southwest,  Saturday  Dec. 
6.  11:30  a.m. 


D  "The  World  of  Gold."  Sunday,  Dec.  7,  1  p.m. 
n  "American  Indian  Medicine"  looks  at  various  Indian  be- 
liefs regarding  disease  and  illness,  methods  of  healing, 
and  Indian  contributions  to  modern  medicine.  Saturday 
Dec.  13,  11  a,m. 

n  "Archeology  of  the  Illinois  Valley"  explores  what  ar- 
cheologists  are  discovering  about  10,000  years  of  Indian 
adaptations.  Sunday  Dec.  13,  1  p.m. 

Continuing  Programs 

Volunteer  Opportonities.  Individuals  with  scientific 
interests  and  backgrounds  are  needed  to  work  in  various 
departments  of  the  Museum.  Contact  the  Volunteer 
Coordinator,  922-9410,  ext.  360. 


Movember  and  December  Hours.  The  Museum  is  open 
from  9  a.m.  to  4  p.m.,  Monday  through  Thursday:  9  a.m.  to 
5  p.m..  Saturday  and  Sunday;  and  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m..  Friday 

The  Museum  Library  is  open  weekdays  from  9  a.m.  to  4 
p.m.  Closed  Thanksgiving,  Mov  27.  Obtain  a  pass  at  the 
reception  desk,  main  floor 

Museum  TELEPHONE:  (312)  922-9410 


^LLIfyois 


!ir,r,...."      ^'^■SJUf>C^<i      Put.    r.. 


U='BA/\;4    iLf 


6  1  d  0  1 


8"ii.or\r. 


For  Christmas 
Give  Field  Museum 


■m  w  rhether  you  are  trying  to  decide  on  a  Christmas  gift  for 
\n/  the  smalt  child  or  for  "the  man  who  has  euerything." 
'  '  a  gift  of  Membership  in  Field  Museum  is  always 
appropriate. 

For  the  adult,  a  Membership  can  provide  a  wealth  of 
opportunities  to  further  explore  the  realm  of  natural  history: 
for  the  child  it  can  open  the  doors  to  a  lifetime  of  scientiflc 
interest  or  professional  endeavor  Infinitely  more  than  a 
storehouse  of  fascinating  specimens  and  exhibits.  Field 
Museum  offers  to  its  Members  at  every  age  level  a  varied 
selection  of  exciting  learning  experiences  via  the  classroom, 
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Perhaps  equally  important:  with  a  Field  Museum 
Membership  you  are  giving  a  shared  relationship,  for  Field 
Museum  is  indeed  its  Members. 


clip  and  mail  this  coupon  or  facsimile 


to;  Membership  Department 

Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 
Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive 
Chicago.  II  60605 

I  wish  to  send  gift  memberships  to  the  following: 


Gift  recipient's  name 


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□  Individual  membership  520 
G  Family  membership  525 
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Gift  recipient's  name 


My  name 


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I 


^/   EELD  Museum  of  Natural  History  Bulletin 


Uc-cembor  1980 


L  IbJDRY  SUI^m 

DEC  1  0  1980 

uBsm 


CALENDAR  for  1981 


Field  Museum 
of  Natural  History 
Bulletin 

December  1980 
Vol.  51,  No.  11 

EditorlDei>is^iwr:  David  M.  Walsten 
Production:  Martha  Poulter 
Caloidiir:  Mary  Cassai 
Staff  Photographer:  Ron  Testa 

Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  1893 

President:  E.  Leland  Webber 
Director:  Lorin  I.  \e\ling,  Jr. 


Bo.\RD  OF  Trustees 

William  G.  Svvartchild,  Jr., 

chtiirtfutn 
Mrs.  T.  Stanton  .Armour 
George  R.  Baker 
Robert  O.  Bass 
Cordon  Bent 
Bowen  Blair 

Mrs.  Robert  Wells  Carton 
Stanton  R.  Cook 
O.C.  Davis 

William  R.  Dickinson,  Jr 
Thomas  E.  Donnelley  II 
Marshall  Field 
Nicholas  Galitzine 
Hugo  J.  Melvoin 
Charles  F.  Murphv  Jr 
James  J.  O'Connor 
James  H.  Ransom 
John  S.  Runnells 
William  L.  Searle 
Edward  Bvron  Smith 


Robert  H.  Strotz 
John  W.  Sullivan 
Edward  R.  Telling 
Mrs.  Theodore  D.  Tieken 
E.  Leland  Webber 
Julian  B.  Wilkins 
Blaine  J.  Yarrington 

Life  Trustees 

Harry  O.  Bercher 

William  McCormick  Blair 
Joseph  \'.  Field 
Paul  W.  Goodnch 
Clifford  C.  Gregg 
Samuel  Insull,  Jr. 
William  V.  Kahler 
William  H.  Mitchell 
John  T.  Pirie,  Jr 
Donald  Richards 
John  M.  Simpson 
J.  Howard  Wood 


CONTENTS 
3 


back 
cover 

COVER 


1981— A  Year  of  Minerals 

by  Edward  Ohen,  curator  of  mineralogy 

Appointment  Calendar  for  1981 

Features  photos  of  outstanding  minerals  at  Field 

Museum 

December  and  January  at  Field  Museum 

Calendar  of  coming  events 


Photomicrograph  of  amphiboUte  specimen  from  Peppier  Lake, 
Ontario.  Field  ofzneze  4mm.  TJus  is  a  vieiv  of  grains  of  amphibole, 
pn/ro.xene,  and  magnetite  as  thexj  occur  in  a  t\/pe  of  metamorphic 
rock.  The  approximate  alignmettt  of  the  grains  is  due  to  nonuniform 
pressure  during  cr\/stallizatio>i.  Photographed  through  a  petro- 
graphic  microscope  ivith  partially  crossed  pwlars.  Photo  In/  Edward 
Olsen.  Other  p'liotomicrographs,  also  In/  Olseti,  appear  in  the 
calendar  section  for  the  month  of  May. 


FIclil  Museum  I'f  N.Kiira/  Hislory  Bullclm  (USPS  898-940)  is  published  monlhly,  except 
combined  July  .August  issue,  bv  Field  Museum  of  Witural  History.  Roosevelt  Road  at 
Lake  Shore  Drive.  Chicago.  11.  60605.  Subscriptions:  S6.00  annually,  S3.00  for  schools. 
Museum  membership  includes  B»//t-hi;  subscription.  Opinions  expressed  by  authors  are 
their  own  and  do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  policy  ot  Field  Museum.  Unsolicited  manu- 
scripts are  welcome.  Museum  phone:  (312)  922-9410.  Postmaster:  Please  send  form  3579 
to  Field  Museum  ot  Natural  History,  Roosevelt  Road  at  Lake  Shore  Drive,  Chicago,  II. 
60605.  ISSX:  0013-0703.  Second  class  postage  paid  at  Chicago,  11. 


lil^l  FIELD  INDIA 

ML  bEL  V|  January  21-Februan/  12 

70LT\S  T'-'"''  f  "«■■  $3,500 

Looking  for  the  past?  ...  it  lives  on,  alongside  the  present,  in 
India.  There  is  no  archaic  past  in  this  ancient  land,  onlv  a  gentle 
continuity.  The  past  soars  triumphantly  in  the  sculptured  temple 
towers;  in  the  citadels  and  minarets.  India  lives  also  in  the 
modernity  of  its  cities  . . .  cosmopolitan  Bombav  and  Delhi,  the 
capital.  This  merging  of  past  and  present  is  perhaps  the  strength 
and  the  attraction  of  India  and  the  basis  of  its  universal  appeal. 
Our  tour  will  give  you  a  good  overview  of  both. 

Holy  Land  &  The  Red  Sea 

March  12-26 
Tour  Price:  $3,625-$3,995 
(depending  on  cabin  class) 

This  tour,  aboard  the  privately  chartered  M.S.  Stella  Maris  cruis- 
ing yacht,  will  include  stops  in  Cairo  and  Luxor,  Egvpt;  a  visit  to 
Quseir,  a  small  port  town  on  the  Red  Sea  where  Field  Museum  is 
conducting  an  excavation;  a  visit  to  Petra  and  St.  Catherine's 
Monastery.  In  Israel,  the  tour  visits  the  Mount  of  Olives,  Mas- 
sada,  Jericho,  and  sites  in  and  around  Jerusalem,  including 
Bethlehem. 


Papua  New  Guinea 

May  1-17 
Tour  Price:  $4,461 


'f^l  FIELD 

MUSEL'M 

TOLXS' 

Papua  New  Guinea  is  unique.  For  centuries  a  diversity  of  con- 
trasting cultures  have  flourished  here  within  small  areas  because 
the  tribes  were  isolated  by  towering  mountains  that  laced  the 
island.  And  so,  unknown  to  each  other  and  to  the  outside  world, 
thev  co-existed,  each  in  an  individual  communal  environment 
sufficient  unto  itself.  Only  now  has  a  surface  veneer  of  civilizahon 
begun  to  permeate  this  mysterious  island  so  that  visitors  may 
explore  and  exclaim  over  the  natural  wonders  of  this  Edenlike 
paradise. 

Kenya  &  The  Seychelles 

September  12-October  3 
Tour  Price:  $3,750 

There  is  now,  as  there  has  always  been,  an  aura  of  myster\'  sur- 
rounding Africa.  Tropical  islands  and  the  coast,  endless  palm- 
fringed  beaches,  snow-capped  mountains  on  the  equator,  jungle 
primeval,  savannah  sun-baked  plains.  They  are  all  a  part  of  East 
Africa,  the  home  of  one  of  our  planet's  last  great  natural  dramas. 
We  hope  to  welcome  vou  to  Kenya  and  the  Seychelles  with  Field 
Museum  Tours  in  1981. 


Please  write  or  call  for  further  information.  Tours  direct  line:    322-8862. 


1 


1981— A  YEAR  OF 

Minerals 


by  Edward  OusEN 
Ctinilor  of  Miiifidluiji' 


All  i^cnis  ;ire  minerals,  hul  nol  all  minerals  are  gems.  Tliis 
does  not  mean  thai  only  gem  minerals  are  attractive.  If 
.in\  mineral  eiyslallizes  in  a  geological  setting  where  it  is  not 
missha{x»n  and  crammed  between  other  minerals,  there  is  a 
chance  it  will  lorm  excjiiisite  cr\stals  with  pleasing  geomeiiical 
sha[)es.  Well  lormeii  cnstals  are  bounded  bv  milunil  smooth 
surfaces,  called  cri-stal  faces.  Although  they  apj^ear  to  be  simi- 
lar to  the  facets  we  .see  on  gemslones,  they  must  not  be  con- 
fu.seil  with  them.  Gem  facets  are  put  there  bv  design,  the  gem- 
cutter's  art.  In  this  1981  calendar  are  some  of  Nature's  "gems." 
The.se  are  attractive  minerals  that  ha\'c  crystallized  in  their 
own  natural  forms — some  delicate,  some  meiiculoush' 
geometrical,  some  bizarre. 

A  few  of  the  photographs,  howe\'er,  are  of  the  opposite 
kind  of  growth — where  each  mineral  is  crammed  against 
other  mineral  grains,  each  distt)rted,  war])ed,  and  limited  in 
the  size  to  which  it  could  grow.  These  arc  photomicrographs  of 
rock — thin  sections — sections  cut  so  thin  that  light  can  pass 
through  the  mineral  grains  forming  the  lock,  revealing  the 
internal  structures.  (See  cover  photo  and  the  two  photos  for 
May  in  calendar.)  These  photomicrographs  rival  some  works 
of  modern  art  in  their  flamboyant  displays  of  colors,  shapes, 
and  patterns. 


(Collections  ol  minerals,  such  as  Field  Mu.seum's,  can 
grow,  over  the  decades,  in  several  ways:  field  collecting,  pur- 
ch.ises,  exchanges,  and  donations  of  s[H»cimcns  and  talents  bv 
tiiends  of  the  Mu.seum.  In  the  right  photo,  below.  Public  Rela- 
tions assistant  K.ilhnn  .Slociim  admires  a  group  ol  gemstones 
recently  donated  to  the  Mu.'^eum.  The  largest  is  a  faceted  kun- 
zite  of  506.24  carats,  from  Brazil.  The  round  stone,  center,  is  a 
303.73  carat  moonstone  cabochon  from  India.  Both  stones 
were  the  gift  of  Ragnar  W.  Nordlof,  Park  Ridge,  IL.  The  third 
largest  is  a  24.46  carat  star  garnet  from  Kellog,  Idaho,  and  a 
gift  of  Roy  Barnes,  St.  Maries,  ID.  The  smallest  is  a  .^.1)26  carat 
.synthetic  emerald  created  by  Union  Carbide  Corp.,  and  the  gif\ 
of  Glenn  Commons,  Aurora,  IL. 

At  the  left  is  the  late  Waller  F.  Kean  of  Riverside.  IL,  an 
electronics  engineer  by  profession  but,  b\'  ax'ocation,  a  gemcut- 
ter  of  extraordinary  talent.  In  Field  Museum's  mineral  collec- 
tion ilurc  liad  been  many  gem  minerals  of  e.xcelleni  cjualitv 
that  had  ne\er  been  faceted.  Over  a  f)eriod  of  almost  a  decade 
KiMii,  who  died  in  1975,  gave  his  superb  skill  to  cutting  and 
faceting  a  grou])  of  gemslones  from  this  stock  of  minerals.  All 
of  the  stones  on  which  he  xvorked  are  on  exhibit  ioda\'  in  the 
Museum's  Higinbotham  Hall  of  Gems. 


53 


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ILLINOIS    wt.TU-J.'L.    HISTORY 
GU^ViY    LIB    -M    I76 

NAT'j^AL   pes:)URCe:s   eUILDIN'"^ 

URRANfi     ILL     nl^'l 


December  aiid  Januar\  at  Field  Museum 


tUeii'iiilHT  15  tliruu^ilijctiiuiin'  1.3,1 


Continuing  lOvhibits 

AMERit  AN  M  \\i\i  \i  >  111  tlii.s  liall  \(Hi  am  see  four  groups  ot 
white-tailed  cii>er  that  CaH  .\kele\  pivpan'd  anuiiul  the  turn  ol 
the  (-eiitui-\.  rhese  lanious  e\hil)its  show  tiie  seasonal  ciil- 
ferenees  in  the  apjx-iu-diic-e  ot  deei;  mid  iire  tlie  first  lai^e 
dioramas  depiitini;  anini.\ls  in  ivalistie  envir-oniiients  This 
method,  pioiuHMtHi  h\  \kele\  at  I  iekl  Museum  has  since 
lx>en  adopted  i)\'  modem  museums  e\rr-\A\liere  Hall  16. 
m.iin  tlcxir. 

l'i.\(  t  I  OH  WoNDKR  Touch  the  t(K)th  ot  a  uoolK  mammoth 
examine  a  chwolate  rhi[i  stailish  or  pla\  musir;il  instiii- 
ments  tnim  China  in  this  gallei^  full  of  tourhahle  exhibits. 
\oluntt^i-s  help  guide  e.vploration  Ojkmi  \\^ekda\-s  1-3  p.m.; 
weekends  10  a.m  -noon  and  1-3  p.m  Clround  floor 


New  Programs 

Winter  Joi  r\e\  Heading  South:  Achentiires  of  a  Ciuiada 
Goose"  Follow  the  migratory  adx^ntutips  of  this  bird  as  it 
ti-a\vls  soutli  to  find  fcxni  and  a  wanner  climate.  On  its  wav, 
the  g(X)se  encountei-s  mam  animal  neighlxirs  Self-guided 
tour:  tree  Joi/r7i('\  pamphlets  a\ailahle  at  Museum  entrances. 

\\'F.F,KF.M)  Disc  t)\>.R\  Pro(;r.\ms  Participate  in  a  \ariet\'  of  free 
tours,  demonstrations,  and  films  e\et>  Saturda\  and  Sunda\ 
l)etween  11  am  and  3  p.m.  Check  the  Wipekrnd Shpct  a\ ailahle 
at  Museum  entrances  for  locations  ;uid  additional  programs. 

D'The  Culture  of  Ancient  Eg\pt,    tour  Saturday.  Dec.  20, 
1  p.m 

n  "Chinese  C^eramicThaditions.  tour  Saturdas.  Dec.  20, 2  p.m. 
D'Many  .\Ie.\icos.  tour  Sunday.  Dec  21. 1  pjn. 
D "Highlight  Tour"  Saturday,  Jan  3  1  p.m 
D'VXfelcome  to  the  Field,"  tour  Sunda\;  Jan.  4,  1  p.m. 
D  "China   Through  the  Ages."  tour  and  slide  pre.sentation 
SaKirdax'.  Jan.  10,  2  p.m. 

D  "Animal  Babies,"  tour.  Sunday.  Jan.  11, 1130  a.m. 

D  "Chinese  Ceramic  Thaditions."  Sunday,  Jan  11,  130  p.m 

\\I\TKR  I  I  N  Children  ages  5  to  9  c;in  t;ike  part  in  workshops 
on  natural  hLstor\-  tofiics  on  Saturday,  Januarv  10, 17, 24,  and  31. 
Most  vvtjrkshops  meet  once  for  either  60  or  90  minutes.  For 
times  and  registration  information,  call  or  write  Field 
Museums  Public  Programs,  Department  of  Education: 
322-8854  (Mon.-Fri.l. 


D "Animals  in  tiieir  Wiriter  Homes."  Children  learn  how 
animals  adapt  and  prx)tect  themsekes  in  the  winter  In 
Kngiish  and  Spanish  tor-  ages  0-6.  Members  S3,  nonmem- 
bers  S4.  Jan.  10  or  24. 

D "Pinch  Pots"  lages  5-6i  and  "Potterv  Workshop"  lages 
7-9).  ChiidiT'ii  hand-build  their  own  pots  in  the.se  three- 
session  workshops.  Members  S12,  nonmembers  S15.  Jan.  10. 
24,  and  31 

□  "Nature  Uib."  S'oung  people  examine  a  \ariety  of  speci- 
mens uiuler  a  microscope  —  human  and  animal  hair. 
lea\es.  insects,  and  more.  Ages  8-9,  .Members  S5,  nonmem- 
bers S6.  Jan.  10  or  24. 

D  'Our  Feathered  Friends. '  Children  learn  what  birds  lhe\' 
can  see  in  the  Chicago  area  during  the  winter  and  con- 
struct a  birdfeeder  to  bring  home.  Ages  8-9.  Members  S5, 
nonmembei>i  S6.  Jan.  10  or  24. 

□  "Animal  .Ai't.  Children  tour  the  mammal  halls,  learn 
animal  behavior,  and  draw  their  fa\'orite  animals.  Morning 
sessions  for  ages  5-6:  afternoon  workshop  for  ages  7-9. 
.Membei's  S4,  nonmembei-s  S5.  Jan.  10  or  24. 

□  "Eg\-]3tian  Hieroghiihs."  Children  see  a  film  on  ancient 
Egv^it  and  learn  to  write  their  names  in  picture  script.  Ages 
7-9.  Membei's  S5,  nonmembers  S6.  Jan.  17  or  24. 

□  "Indian  Games."  Girls  and  boys  lecirn  Indian  games,  hear 
native  .American  stories  and  music,  and  make  Indian  play- 
things. Morning  sessions  for  ages  5-6  (Members  S4,  non- 
memhei's  §5':  afternoon  workshops  for  ages  7-9  iMemliers 
S5,  nonmembers  S61.  Jan  10,  17,  24,  or  31. 

□  "Days  of  the  Dinosaurs.  Children  tour  Hall  38  and  make 
dinosaurs  out  of  cla\'  or  draw  these  ancient  reptiles.  Ses- 
sions for  ages  5-6  and  ages  7-9.  .Members  S4.  nonmeml>ers 
S5.  Jan.  17  or  31. 

Continuing  Programs 

\'oi.i'\TEER  Oi'PORTUMTiES  Individuals  with  scientific  inter- 
ests and  t)ackgit3unds  ;ire  needed  to  work  in  various  .Mu.seum 
departments.  C'ontact  the  \blunteer  Coordinator,  922-9410, 
e.xt.  360. 

December  .anu  J  v\i  arv  Holrs  The  Museum  is  open  9  am  -4 
p.m  Mondav-Thursdav:  9  a.m.-5  p.m  Saturdav  and  Sundav: 
and  9  a.m.-9  p.m.,  Friday.  Closed  Cliristmas  and  New  Near's. 

Tilt.  Ml  SKIM  I  IBRARV  is ojien  weekda\-s  9 a.m.  to 4  p.m. Obtain 
a  pass  at  the  reception  desk,  m;un  floor  Closed  Christmas  and 
New  Vear's. 


iMl  SEUM  PHONE:  3121  922-9410 


iUTMl*a".MIJHM