THE SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION OF LEON DE CESSAC TO CALIFORNIA, 1877-1879 by Henry Reichlen and Robert F. Heizer Reprinted in translation from "Objets et Mondes,I" Vol. III, Part 1 Spring 1963, Paris CONTENTS DEDICATORY PREFACE . . . . . 7 THE SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION . . . . 9 REFERENCES . . . . . . . 18 ILLUSTRATIONS FRONTISPIECE . . . . . . 6 FIGURE 1 11 FIGURE 2 . . . . . 23 Alfred Metraux on site Mrn-232, summer 1940 7 DEDICATORY PREFACE Alfred Metraux, the anthropologist, died in Paris on April 22, 1963. This dedicatory preface honors a great scientist, a friend, and a one-time worker in the field of California archaeology. Metraux was born in Lausanne in 1902 and spent his youth in the Argentine Republic where his father was a doctor. He pursued advanced studies in France at the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales, the Ecole des Chartes, and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. For some years he was director of the Institute of Ethnology in the University of Tucuman, Argentina. In 1946 he became head of the section of Social Affairs of the United Nations, and, after several trips to South America and the Antilles, returned to Paris in 1950 to enter service with UNESCO. In 1959 he became director of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. Metraux's ethnographic field work covered many areas-notably South America, Oceania, the Caribbean (especially Haiti), and Africa- and he was the author of a very large number of articles, monographs, and books. The last paper written by Metraux of which he saw galley proofs was "Les precurseurs de l'ethnologie en France du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle," published in the Journal of World History, vol. 7, no. 3, 1963. It seems fitting, therefore, that the account of the French Cessac-Pinart expedition of 1877-1879, one of the very first planned archaeological and ethnological investigations of California, should appear in the Archaeo- logical Survey Report dedicated to him. I came to know Metraux in 1939 when he taught at the University of California as a replacement for his friend Robert H. Lowie. During the early part of World War II he was attached to Yale University, and later (1942-1946) to the Bureau of American Ethnology. In the summer of 1940 Metraux and his son Eric joined the group of students from the Department of Anthropology who were excavating the Estero shellmound (site Mrn-232) at Drake's Bay. We were hopeful that some concrete evidence of Francis Drake's landfall in California three hundred and sixty-one years earlier (in June 1579) might turn up in Indian village sites. Such evidence was not found, but quantities of Ming porcelain and hand-wrought iron spikes were recovered and have been attributed (without definite proof but on the grounds of probability) to the wreck of the San Agustin of Cermeino which was lost in Drake's Bay in 1595. It was, for the record, Metraux who found the first of the porcelain fragments early in the excavation. 8 During the 1940 summer season Metraux went with me one day in June to the Geyserville Indian Reservation to interview Pete Manuel, whom we had heard could speak the Coast Miwok language. We were hope- ful that the Indian informant might verify as belonging to the Coast Miwok language several phrases and words recorded as having been spoken in California-which Drake's crew, incidentally, called "Ships' Land" and not "New Albion." In this attempt our joint efforts were success- ful, and in 1942 W. Elmendorf and I published the linguistic evidence in the Pacific Historical Review. Another person reported to know the Coast Miwok language, then living at Bodega Bay, was interviewed by Metraux and me. Metraux was much amused to hear the expected informant deny Indian ancestry and any knowledge of Indian speech and remark, "If you want to know about Indian languages why don't you read Mr. Kroeber's big book on the California Indians?" (that is, Handbook of the Indians of California). There is no need to dwell on more personal recollections of the summer of 1940 when the Germans were overrunning Metraux's beloved France; all I wish to do here is to record Metraux's considerable share in the University's earlier efforts in historic archaeology at Drake's Bay. Robert F. Heizer 9 THE SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION OF LEON DE CESSAC TO CALIFORNIA, 1877-1879 Henry Reichien and Robert F. Heizer The story of the French scientific expedition to the Pacific Coast of North America initiated in 1875, and entrusted to Alphonse Pinart and Leon de Cessac, has never been written. Of the two expedition leaders, Cessac alone published a quite brief preliminary report on his own research in California, and Dr. Hamy published a still more summary report based upon [information in] some letters sent by the two travel- lers.2 The documents collected by Pinart were primarily of a linguistic character and remained unknown in France. Not until 1951 were [copies] of the vocabularies collected from the last California mission natives found by chance in the Bancroft Library and published through the efforts of the University of California.3 Less than two years after his return to France, Leon de Cessac mysteriously disappeared and his notes, drawings, and photographs, which were taken charge of by Dr. Hamy in December, 1881, having been left at Cessac' s last known address in Paris, the Hotel du Bresil, rue Le Goff, have not been found to this date. Dr. Hamy, Director of the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero, who was responsible for the expedition to the Ministere de l'Instruction publique and keeper of the collections and of the notes, not only promoted his version of Cessac's death in 1881, but from that time seems to have done everything possible to con- ceal the work and results of this expedition. After patient research which we have done in the archives of the Musee de l'Homme and the Min- istere de l'Instruction publique, we can explain in part the strange attitude of Dr. Hamy, who, it would appear, had the problem of suppres- sing gossip and protecting Alphonse Pinart who, like himself, was from Boulogne-sur-Mer, son of the master of the forges of Marquise, a highly respected person and a friend of his family. The documents which we have been able to consult in the National Archives4 have revealed to us the dramatic circumstances which marked this expedition from the begin- ning and which so quickly led the unfortunate Cessac to misery and downfall. Actually, this expedition which was proposed on February 8, 1875,5 received the support of the Ministere de l'Instruction publique only after the offer was made by Pinart to assume the total cost of the travel and the sojourn for himself and his companion, Cessac; the govern- ment participated only to the extent of a small annual subvention to the latter. But scarcely two years later Pinart, who had spent with the 10 utmost abandon the fortune placed at his disposal by his father, was practically ruined and faced the impossibility of meeting his obliga- tions. Moreover, the plans had been greatly modified, and Pinart left for the United States alone while Cessac accompanied Professor Fouque on a geological exploration of the island of Santorin.6 It was not until the beginning of 1877 that Pinart and Cessac found themselves reunited in Lima, on their way to San Francisco. This lasted only a short time, as Pinart departed soon for Valparaiso where he left on a long trip to Oceania on the French ship Le Seignelay. Cessac waited several months for Pinart in Peru, in the greatest doubt and still entirely ignorant of the catastrophic financial situation of his collaborator. In the month of June, at the invitation of Admiral Serres, Cessac was able to sail on the frigate La Magicienne-with all the collections made in the course of a month's excavation at Ancon- and finally arrived in California. In San Francisco, Cessac learned that the large island of Santa Cruz, which is thirty miles south of Santa Barbara, was under the con- trol of a French wool company.7 Lacking financial means and without news of Pinart, who had gone directly to France after his journey in the Pacific, Cessac accepted an invitation to visit the island and there to do archaeological research. Santa Cruz is one of the eight Channel Islands which extend for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles along the coast of southern California. When Cabrillo discovered California in 1542 these islands had a dense population of people who used canoes, lived principally on fish and sea mammals, and maintained constant com- munication with the inhabitants of the villages on the mainland shore. Filled with enthusiasm by the first results at Santa Cruz, Cessac soon undertook new excavations on the other islands-Anacapa, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and San Nicolas-and then on the mainland. He was able to gather together in Santa Barbara, where he stayed for some time, a magnificient collection of about four thousand specimens. In the mean- time, Cessac felt the effect of the jealousy of another archaeologist, Paul Schumacher, who between 1873 and 1880 was employed by the United States government to excavate and form archaeological collections for the Smithsonian Institution. Schumacher used all his resources to create the greatest difficulties for Cessac and even tried to persuade the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to have the United States Senate pass an act prohibiting the exportation of prehistoric objects. But the Secretary refused to do so and the threat was dispelled. This incident shows that the difficulties which Cessac describes in his report8 were very real. 11 Fig. 1. The Channel Islands On July 2, 1878, shortly after his arrival in San Francisco, Pinart rejoined Cessac in Santa Barbara and decided at last to tell him of the situation. He informed Cessac that he was ruined, that the con- tract established in 1875 was broken, the expedition cancelled, 9 and that he could not furnish him with the promised help. Cesslc had worked alone in California for a year and, full of confidence, had borrowed from various businessmen or from French friends in San Francisco and in the vicinity of Santa Barbara large sums of money and material which had permitted him to pursue his archaeological investigations and natural history researches without interruption. However, Cessac faced this tragic situation courageously. He refused to return to France, and while 12 waiting to obtain the remainder of the meager subvention which had been alloted to him by the government, sought desperately for a way to pay back his creditors and to save his collections. After having accompanied Pinartl? for a time to the early missions of Monterey, La Soledad, and San Antonio, Cessac established himself with all his collections in San Luis Obispo, at the house of MM. Frederik and Dallidet, the only friends, probably, who would still grant him credit. From this time on it becomes more and more difficult to follow the activities of Cessac in California where he remained for still another year. According to certain statements in his published report and letters kept in the National Archives, we know that from the month of July to the month of October, 1878, he made very fruitful ethnographic studies among the Indians at Monterey and San Antonio [missions]. In Santa Barbara he succeeded in completing his earlier work and started, at least with draw- ings and photography, "a collection of ethnic types." Finally, at San Buenaventura [mission] where he had found a couple of old Indians-the last surviving natives of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa-he was able, "from theirlinformation, to reconstruct the ethnography of the Choumas, occu- pants of these islands." But, after December, "obliged for lack of funds to give up all the work which required the assistance of helpers," Cessac devoted himself exclusively to solitary research pertaining to natural history. Living by hunting and by that which he could chance upon in the rancherias where, thanks to his good nature and his usefulness, he found only friends, he traversed untiringly the deserted beaches and-interior mountains, gathering important collections of mollusks, birds, insects, plants, and fossils which he sent to M. Lorquin, merchant-naturalist in San Francisco, who undertook to sell or trade them.11 All of the efforts and sacrifices having been in vain, Cessac, weakened by sickness, decided to leave California. We know absolutely nothing about the last months spent in this country [California], nor of the conditions anddateof his departure.12 He reached Le Havre about the 15th of January, 1880, by the steamer France coming from New York. He had succeeded in sending to Paris the entire archaeological collections made in the islands, but he left in the care of M. Dallidet at San Luis Obispo his precious ethnographic collections and the notes pertaining to the excavations on the mainland, as well as part of the natural history collections intended for the Museum. On the 20th of February Cessac wrote a letter to M. Charmes, Director of Sciences and Letters in the Ministere de l'Instruction pub- lique, in which he explained his present financial situation.13 Cessac still owed his various California creditors 12,330 francs in addition to 13 "sundry expenses of returning" and the rent of the house where he had stored his collections in San Luis Obispo. In spite of further urgent requests by Cessac, the Minister did not respond and even refused to grant him a loan. Harassed by lawyers and threatened by the police, Cessac frequently changed his residence. Before long he stopped all regular work in an endeavor to devote himself to the study of American archaeology and to arrange the publication of his California specimens. First of all, he sent off to the Ministry an article on the zoomorphic sculptures of steatite from San Nicolas Island, which was published two years later14 with his Renseignements ethnographiques sur les Comanches.15 He drafted two very important manuscripts which, unfortunately have dis- appeared: a vocabulary of twelve hundred words of the Samala language of Santa Inez [mission]; and a study of "Samala medicine." We know from the unpaid bills sent later on to the Minister that Cessac had made a large number of drawings and a hundred engraved steel plates intended to illus- trate a work on the archaeology of the [Channel] islands. In September or October, 1881, Cessac finally disappeared from the Hotel du Bresil, abandoning manuscripts and specimens and leaving a new debt of 1,100 francs. He was considered dead, and, the Ministry having quickly paid off the majority of his creditors, it would seem that nobody undertook the least investigation. But there exists in the archives of the Ministere de l'Instruction publique a short letter addressed to Dr. Hamy several months later by a former diplomat from the district of Souillac in Lot, which indicated the presence in this town of the traveler- naturalist Leon de Cessac! The town hall of Souillac, to which we wrote, put us in contact with M. J.-B. Bouchier, an historian of this charming country and animating spirit of "Amis du Vieux Souillac," who at once wrote to us, "I will be delighted to discuss with you about this extraordinary fellow, this scholar, this acrimonious lampoonist, this truculent poet, this bohemian as proud as Artaban and as poor as a beggar. I had thought to revive this astonishing character. Your letter will be the lash of the whip which is going to persuade me, and from today on I am going to try to contact those who knew him and record their recollections." Incidentally, M. Bouchier was kind enough to have sent to us a copy of the death certif- icate, dated February 14, 1891: "Jean Frangois Armand Leon Cessac, former scientific explorer, native of Gourdon ... died last night at six o'clock in Souillac, aged 49 years." Thus we possess not only the proof of the "survival" for ten years of Leon de Cessac, but facts which have suddenly thrown light on a totally unsuspected aspect of the character of this picturesque and appealing person who had become, on the banks of the Dordogne, the "Compere Philos," bedrabbled poet and vagabond.'6 The great value of Cessac's l7 archaeological collection lies in the 14 fact that it was gathered before modern disturbances had much affected the earth of the California archipelago. San Miguel Island, which remains unoccupied, is the only island relatively intact. On Santa Rosa a U. S. Air Force radar station maintains a detachment of two hundred men; San Clemente has a large jet airfield to which is attached an important military force; San Nicolas is occupied by a U. S. Marine missile launching station. Nonscientific archaeological collecting pursued for nearly a century, intensive erosion due to disappearance of the natural vegetation through overgrazing by sheep, and the presence of important military installations have here destroyed and there modified the archaeological sites to such a degree that it would be difficult if not impossible to now make a collection of equal value to that of Leon de Cessac. Among the most interesting objects collected on Santa Cruz Island, where Cessac spent more than four months, are a series of flint burins which are the first examples of this type of tool known in California.18 Burins are more typically associated with the Upper Paleo- lithic levels in Europe-Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian-and their presence in the New World has only been known for the last ten years. The majority of American burins are associated with the Paleo-Indian level with an antiquity of five to ten thousand years. But one may state that the examples from Santa Cruz reported by Cessac date from our era, and apparently from within the last thousand years. The scant informa- tion furnished by Cessac on his Santa Cruz Island excavations .allow us to conclude that the burins as well as the whole flint industry which accom- panied them-from the tiny drills used to bore the shell ornaments to the large hand picks for fashioning receptacles of sandstone or steatite- belong to the mountainous region of the interior and were gathered in "established workshops, some on the vast barren plateaus, others in the numerous caves"i near quarries furnishing the particular blonde flint so characteristic of this island. One must honor the professional conscience of Leon de Cessac, who, without particular knowledge of the prehistory of the area and at a time when, even in Europe, the majority of excavators interested themselves in searching for single beautiful pieces, patiently collected in the pre-Columbian workshops hundreds of microlithic flakes and tools. During the last three weeks of May and June, 1878, on San Nicolas Island, Cessac was able to bring together a very important collection of archaeological specimens, exhibiting for the most part characteristics quite different from those of the other [Channel] islands. It comprised a remarkable series of bird and sea mammal effigies of steatite. These zoomorphic sculptures were published by their discoverer14 who fortunately 15 supplied some detailed information on the circumstances of their finding, and later Hamy spoke of them in connection with a figurine of the same type found at Lytton, at the confluence of the Frazer and Thompson rivers19 [British Columbia]. It is believed that they are religious representations which must have played a role in the ritual of this little island popula- tion which lived seventy miles from the mainland and who probably observed a cult dedicated to the divinities of the air and the water. At the time of Cessac's travels the last of the Niminokotch-the name given by certain Chumash groups of the coast to the San Nicolas islanders, according to Cessac-had been gone for many years. The island was, furthermore, the locale of a marooning which received great notoriety in California. In 1835 the survivors of the Indian population, about seven people, were brought to the Franciscan missions on the mainland. One woman was overlooked, however, having been away in the hills. The sea otter hunters occasionally caught sight of this solitary woman, but it was not until 1853 that the crew of a ship searched for her and brought her to the mission of Santa Barbara. There she lived only a few months before the benefits of civilization-among which was probably the excess of food- caused her death. Her story excited the popular imagination and numerous accounts were published concerning the woman who lived alone for eighteen years on the abandoned island of San Nicolas. 20 In the Cessac collection coming from this island there must be noted too the quite complete series of bone and schist tools as well as finely worked ornamented pieces of large iridescent shells-Mytilus, Haliotis, Norisia or Hinnites-which are abundant on the beaches, and steatite vessels. A very important group of specimens made of Haliotis shells and gathered in a workshop21 admirably illustrates the manufacture of fishhooks. A remark- able industrial material from the Santa Barbara region was steatite, a soft stone, easy to work and capable of sustaining high temperatures. The Indians had observed the peculiar fire-resistant qualities of steatite and from it made thin-walled vessels for cooking food and melting asphalt. Most of them are spherical, some in the form of boats, others in the form of ladles or pans with short handles. Very likely the Indians of San Nicolas procured the raw material (the steatites and peculiarly fine and varicolored talcs) locally, but trade with the coast of Santa Barbara certainly existed. The travel between the islands and the mainland was carried on by means of wooden canoes composed of planks, the latter sometimes very numerous and irregularly shaped and joined by sewing,22 with seams calked by natural asphalt which is to be found on the beaches. In his report Cessac had already observed with rare perception the presence in the archaeological material from San Nicolas "of some objects 16 which are indisputable evidence of the stay which the Kodiak [Kaniagmiut] made on this island." We have indeed found several implements of ivory and bone, one of which is the harpoon point reproduced in figure 2a, 23 which is of Aleut origin. These objects were doubtless left at San Nicolas by sea otter hunters sent by the Russians from their base at Kodiak or Sitka at the time when, Kuskov having established Fort Ross to the north of Bodega Bay, Rezanov hoped to seize California from Spanish control in the early nineteenth century. Among the ethnographic objects from California which escaped des- truction and which were later found in the Musee de l'Homme are several rare specimens collected by Cessac from the last survivors of the Chumash tribe who occupied the coast and certain of the Channel Islands. Attention should be called to a large mat made of reed and deerskin strips as well as some coiled baskets, one of which is a unique rectangular shape (fig. 2b). This basket, which still has its cover, was undoubtedly made in a mission since the shape seems to be European-inspired. There are also two marvel- lously worked wooden bowls (fig. 2c) which have preserved the form of pre- Columbian spherical steatite pots or sandstone mortars. It is known from Spanish records that these people made such wooden receptacles-for example, Costanso, in 1769, describes them "as well made as if turned on the wheel"- but until now we knew only that such pieces once existed. Also, three large whistles made of deer bone were fortunately saved by Cessac. They are of the same type as those found in archaeological deposits, and one may assume that the Chumash continued to make them until quite recent times. Given the slight information which we possess on the natives of the Santa Barbara region, it is certain that the Cessac collection provides us with very important information on material culture. One regrets all the more the disappearance of additional ethnographic and archaeological specimens abandoned by Cessac at San Luis Obispo which, it seems, were never sent to France.24 Concerning the manuscripts and illustrations left at the Hotel du Bresil, it is known from the correspondence between the Ministry and the Musee d'Ethnographie that they were taken possession of by Dr. Hamy in the last days of December, 1881. The summary inventory of the articles received and recorded by a clerk in the Ministry indicates that there were-over and above numerous papers, books, drawing notebooks, and ethnographic items-one hundred steel engravings, a Spanish manuscript, and two manuscripts of M. de Cessac "of which one is on the subject of Samala medicine." Incidentally, the Ministry sent to Dr. Hamy, for the library of the Musee d'Ethnographie, an additional allotment of documents having to do with Cessac (this might have been sent by his family?) of which we do not have a detailed account. All of these documents were still in the hands of Dr. Hamy in 1898 since he had the responsibility at this time, Cessac having been dead for seven 17 years, "of publishing the results of the Cessac mission and notably the beautiful series of quarto ethnographic drawings which this traveler left us.'125 Of all these irreplaceable documents, only one survived26 and that because of the fact that it passed into private hands. This was the original manuscript of the famous account of Father Geronimo Boscana of the former mission of San Juan Capistrano, which Cessac discovered and acquired at Santa Barbara, as we know from his statement on page 341 of his report.1 It is not impossible that the "Spanish manuscript"1 listed in the inventory of the documents abandoned at the Hotel du Bresil is the Boscana manuscript, and one may guess that Dr. Hamy then sent it to Alphonse Pinart for study. But might Cessac himself have sent it to Pinart before his return to France? Be that as it may, the Boscana manu- script was sold with the Pinart library' in 1883, and very fortunately the Bibliotheque Nationale acquired it.28 It would be of the greatest interest at last to publish a fascimile of this unique document which is so important for the ethnography of this region of California and which we know only through English accounts, of which the first is that published in 1846 by Robinson. 18 REFERENCES 1. Cessac, Leon de. Rapport sur une mission au Perou et en Californie. Arch. Missions scientifiques et litteraires, Paris, 3e serie, IX, p. 333-344, 1882. 2. Hamy, E.-T. Rapport sur la mission de MM. Pinart et de Cessac dans les deux Ameriques. Arch. Missions scientifiques et litteraires, Paris, 3e serie, IX, p. 323-332, 1882. O Heizer, R. F. California Indian Linguistic Records: The Mission Indian Vocabularies of Alphonse Pinart. Anthropological Records, XV, No. 1. Berkeley, 1952. 4. We hope to publish later all of these documents in a more detailed study of the travels and works of Pinart and de Cessac in America. 5. This first, very ambitious project comprised research in the western regions already visited by Pinart between 1870 and 1872- the Aleutian Islands and the coast of the Bering Sea-as well as the basin of the Mackenzie River, the interior of Alaska, British-Columbia, and California. 6. Leon de Cessac was known especially for his research in physiography and volcanology, and he had already carried out a reward- ing four year trip to the Cape Verde archipelago. He was working in the laboratory of Hautes-Etudes du College de France under the direc- tion of Professor Ste. Claire Deville and Professor Fouque and was one of a group of naturalists who studied the specimens collected by Pinart on his first trip. Cessac published "Etude microscopique et analyse chimique de quelques roches de l'Alaska" in Pinart, A.-L., Voyages a la c^ote Nord-Ouest de l'Amerique executes durant les annees 1870-72. Paris, 1875. 1re partie: Histoire naturelle, p. 19-27. 7. The French contribution to the populating of California after the discovery of gold in 1848 was very important. It may be said that, after the Mexicans, it was the largest non-American group in California between 1850 and 1860. For additional information refer to: Levy, D., Les Fran9ais en Californie, San Francisco, 1884; and Wyllis, R.-K., The French in California and Sonora. Pacific Historical Review, I, p. 337-359. Glendale, 1932. 19 8. Cessac, Leon de. Op. cit., p. 339. 9. Actually, Pinart was about to conclude a new arrangement with the Ministere de l'Instruction publique. Abandoning his former projects, he asked for a new five year expedition to the Southwestern United States, Mexico, the Antilles, Central America, and the Andean region of South America, and an annual allotment of 25,000 francs in exchange for giving to the Musee d'Ethnographie du Trocadero his entire collection, among which was the famous Boban collection of Mexican archaeology. Thanks to the influence of Dr. Hamy, Pinart's request was apparently accepted without difficulty. The agreement provided the allotment of 10,000 francs to Leon de Cessac. 10. Alphonse Pinart stayed only three months in California, from the beginning of July to mid-October, 1878. He made several excavations in the vicinity of Tulare Lake, but principally [carried out] linguistic investigations among the few Indian survivors of the former missions between San Francisco and San Buenaventura. The vocabularies recorded at this time are those in the Bancroft Library which were published by the University of California in 1952 (see note 3). Around the fifteenth of October Pinart left California to go to Sonora [Mexico]. Later on he once more met Cessac in San Francisco, at the end of April, 1879. 11. According to an inventory sent by Pinart to the Ministere de l'Instruction publique on July 26, 1879, it seems that Cessac had collected at this time, for the Museum d'Histoire naturelle de Paris, a group of 300 geological and paleontological specimens, 500 birds and mammals, 300 reptiles, 5,000 insects, 20,000 mollusks, and 10,000 plants. In his report published in 1882 Cessac claims to have sent to the Museum, before his return to France, "35 skulls or mammal skeletons, 136 mammals with hides, 1,500 birdskins, several thousand insects, 600 fossils, and 2,000 local plants." 12. All of the records of the French Consulate in San Francisco in which we would have been able to find the information were destroyed during the earthquake and fire of 1906. 13. Here is a particularly explicit passage from this document: "I have the honor of sending you a list of people to whom I owe the sum of a little more than 12,000 francs, which represents the financial deficit of my three year travels in America. "This deficit was the inevitable result of the circumstances in which I found myself placed from the outset of my trip, circumstances 20 resulting from a situation which I was unable to foresee or imagine. This was the complete financial ruin, too long unadmitted, of my collaborator, M. Alphonse Pinart, who had taken unto himself all of the expense of my trip." 14. Cessac, L. de. Observations sur des fetiches de pierre sculptee en forme d'animaux decouverts a 11l3e de San Nicolas (Californie). Rev. Ethnogr., I, p. 30-40, Paris, 1882. This work was translated into English by Mrs. Nancy E. Heizer and published with notes in the Reports of the University of California Archaeological Survey, No. 12, pp. 1-3. Berkeley, 1951. 15. Cessac, L. de. Renseignements ethnographiques sur les Comanches recueillis de la bouche d'un trappeur qui fut 13 ans leur prisonnier. Rev. Ethnogr., I, p. 94-118. Paris, 1882. This informa- tion was recorded by Cessac in February, 1878, when he was in the area of the former Mission of La Pur?sima. 16. Thanks to M. Bouchier, to whom we must express appreciation here, we were able to obtain several bits of verse written by the "Compere Philos" and which were printed in the form of small, slim volumes. For example, Rimes bouffonnes et brutales (15 p., Perigueux, 1884), and La Dufourade, poeme hero-;-burlesque (14 p., Cahors, 1887) where Cessac fiercely ridicules, with a gascon humor, the Baron Dufour, powerful politician of Quercy. But if most often he destroys- his enemies with a sharp and strong Gallic pen, sometimes the memory of the past and his despair show through the quatrains which, though mediocre, are to us very moving. 17. The major part of the collection, about 3,000 specimens, is at present in the Musee de l'Homme. It is at the instigation of Dr. Phil C. Orr of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and Pro- fessors A. L. Kroeber and John Rowe that one of us [H.R.] has undertaken since.1946 to gather together, catalogue, and classify this collection. In 1946 only one hundred and fifty specimens had been catalogued through the efforts of Mr. Harper Kelley in order to be shown in the public exhibition hall. Later nearly a thousand pieces, among which were all- the worked flints from Santa Cruz Island, were again located in a storage area of unidentified collections from the Musee d'Ethnographie. Another part of the collection, comprising about 300 pieces and coming mostly from San Nicolas Island, is at present in the Musee des Antiquites nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It was given by Cessac himself to Admiral Paris for the Musee de la Marine in the Louvre. 21 18. Heizer, R. F. and H. Kelley. Burins and Bladelets in the Cessac Collection from Santa Cruz Island, California. Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. 106, no. 2, pp. 94-105. Philadelphia, 1962. 19. Hamy, E.-T. A propos d'une figurine en steatite decouverte pres de Lytton, Colombie anglaise. J. Soc. Americanistes, Paris, III, p. 140-145, 1901. X Heizer, R. F. and A. B. Elsasser. Original Accounts of the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. Reports of the University of Cali- fornia Archaeological Survey, No. 55. Berkeley, 1961. 21. Hamy, E.-T. L'industrie hamegonniere chez les anciens habitants de l'archipel californien. Rev. Ethnogr., Paris, IV, p. 6-13, fig. 6-32, 1885. 22. In the Cessac collection we have come across several small wooden pieces undoubtedly belonging to boats of this type. 23. One of us [H.R.] had called this very interesting specimen to the attention of M. Leroi-Gourhan who published some drawings of it in his Archeologie du Pacifique-Nord, p. 379, fig. 760 and map 31, Paris, 1946. 24. No surviving document permits us to believe that the Ministere de l'Instruction publique had carried out the request of M. Dallidet, sent in August, 1882, by M. Vauvert de Mean, French consul in San Francisco, who demanded a payment of 3,000 francs for rent. 25. Letter from Dr. Hamy to the Ministere de l'Instruction publique, dated 8 June 1898 (National Archives of France). 26. There exist ten photographic prints made by Cessac which we found in old files of the photographic library of the Musee de l'Homme. They had been sent by Cessac to the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie du Museum with a collection of more than one hundred skulls and six skeletons from the [Channel] islands. These photographs, of which we have repro- duced one example (fig. 2d), bear the sole comment "Samala Indian, Santinez Mission," and all are of the same individual. The ornaments shown in figure 2d were not found among the collections of the Musee de 1'Homme. 27. The Boscana manuscript appears as number 130, page 21, of the catalogue published at the time of the sale titled, "Catalogue de livres 22 rares et precieux, manuscrits et imprimens principalement sur l'Amerique et sur les langues du monde entier composant la bibliotheque de M. Alph.-L. Pinart et comprenant en totalite la bibliotheque mexico- guatemalienne de M. l'abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg." Paris, 1883. 28. Morel-Fatio, A. "Catalogue des manuscrits espagnols et des manuscrits portugais." Bibliotheque nationale. P. 359, Paris, 1892. 23 EXPLANATION OF FIGURES Figure 1. Figure 2a. Map of the Channel Islands (p. 11) Head of bone harpoon of Aleut origin. views. Length, 6.5 cm. San Nicolas Mus"ee de l'Homme) Front and side Island (C1. 2b. Rectangular coiled basket. Length, 38 cm. Chuma'sh, coast of Santa Barbara. (C1. Musee de l'Homme, 82.30.81) 2c. Bowl of polished wood. Edge encrusted with pieces of shell. Height, 11 cm. Chumash,5 coast of Santa Barbara. (C1. Muse"e de 1'Homme, 82.30.84) 2d Chumash Indian of the Samala(?) tribe, Mission of Santa Inez. (C1. Le"on de Cessac., 1878., Mus"ee.de l'Homme) a d c b Figure 2