An Acomita Polychrome Jar

circa 1840, with concave base, compressed globular body and vertical neck, painted in red and dark brown against a white slip, with bisected scalloping beneath an encircling band; written on the base: "110235. Acoma. N M. Stevenson Bur. Ethnol. Exchange."

Collected by Colonel James Stevenson

Bureau of Ethnology, Washington D.C.

For more information on Colonel James Stevenson please see Neil M. Judd, The Bureau of American Ethnology: A Partial History, 1967, pp. 11, 12, 19, 20, 56, 63, 64, 66, 67.

Colonel Stevenson, an “old time survey man,” was employed by the Bureau of Ethnology in 1879, after serving several years as a member of Dr. F. V. Hayden’s United States Geological Survey of the Territories. It was during this period that he became acquainted with the Indians of the Dakotas and Northern Rockies. When Hayden’s explorations were discontinued in 1879, Stevenson was named executive officer of the new Geological Survey, and soon thereafter “was detailed for research in connection with the Bureau of Ethnology.”

That first year, at the direction of Major Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, Colonel Stevenson was sent to the Southwest on an exploring expedition along with Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Smithsonian Institution, J. K. Hillers, the survey photographer, and others, to study at Zuni Pueblo. Fascinated with his first glimpses of the Southwest, Stevenson permanently transferred his interest in Indian languages and customs from the Dakotas and Blackfoot to the Pueblos.

In subsequent years Stevenson typically departed on his explorations from Fort Wingate, escorting Victor and Cosmos Mindeloff, the surveyors and explorers, to Canyon de Chelly and the various Hopi Villages, and Cushing on his travels throughout the region. Stevenson was credited with naming Canyon de los Muertos, the northwest branch of Canyon de Chelly, on the strength of two desiccated bodies he found there.

Stevenson disliked writing, and left this tedious task to his wife. Nevertheless, he compiled three lengthy catalogs of specimens collected in New Mexico and Arizona, and wrote a short but informative paper on Navajo sand painting (Judd, 1967).