Tell the treasure story of Native Americans in the19th century with bird feathers.

It was a cold winter day. Kara Dove and about 25 fur-covered owls, crows, eagles, ducks and other birds boarded the Subaru impreza and made a short trip to the Smithsonian Museum Support Center (MCS) in Setland, Maryland.

Dove and his colleague Marcy Hick from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History will meet with two anthropologists. They need her help to find out which bird feathers are used to decorate various native American handicrafts.

When the pigeon arrived at the anthropology laboratory on the second floor of MSC, she found a series of headdresses, deerskin skirts, leggings, bow and arrow boxes and other clothes neatly placed on the long white laminated workbench.

These objects were collected by john wesley Powell while drawing and exploring the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon (19 to 1880). Jack Gilles, Powell's assistant, was one of the first people to record Native Americans with photos. Decades ago, controversial but widely recognized photographer Edward S. Curtis took many pictures of Indians. (Both are known sporadic stage activities and costumes, which were later considered inaccurate and/or historically untrue. )

Carla Pigo (left) from the feather identification laboratory and anthropologist Candice Green check the headdress together. The Smithsonian Institution first became interested in Powell in 1868. According to Donald Worster, Powell's biographer, it was at that time that joseph henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, thought Powell's exploration had both practical and scientific value. Henry supported Powell's request for funds to General Ulysses S. Grant, Secretary of the Army. In this way, Powell and the Smithsonian Institution began a fruitful long-term cooperative relationship.

Checking Powell's collection is an exciting opportunity for atonal Pigeon, a forensic ornithologist in charge of the feather identification laboratory, who spends time analyzing the remains of birds that unfortunately flew into the airstrip. She collected blood and tissue fragments and called them "snake bites"-and identified the species of birds with DNA. With this information, the actions of civil and military aircraft can reduce future bird attacks, and birds can be avoided with a little adjustment. But pigeons are also good at identifying birds according to the shape and pattern of feathers. She said that studying Powell's cultural relics would help her hone these identification skills. Besides, she calls herself "john wesley powell Nath",

Candice Green, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian who specializes in indigenous art and culture in North America, and Fred Reese, assistant to Green's department at the Natural History Museum, are not hurtful at all, and they are equally enthusiastic about what Green said was a particularly innovative cooperation.

Candice Green (left) said that the cooperation has achieved great success so far. "We see that the use of species is much richer than reported in the literature." (Donnie Basol) Green said: "We can't" revisit old collections "in order to systematically use the information of materials used to enhance catalogue records." He pointed out that the collection of the institution is huge and almost incalculable.

Powell's collection has not been investigated for decades. She and Reuss suspect that many signs in the early19th century, including tribal affiliation and the types of animals or birds used, are incorrect.

The collection also includes baskets, seeds, weapons, tools and other equipment used in tribal life that have never been exhibited. These artifacts are stored in dozens of drawers in thousands of beige metal cabinets in the Smithsonian's cave-like climate control museum support center. Entering the storage area of master of science is dazzling, not only because of the rows of cabinets, so-called "pods", which seem to extend to infinity, but because of the escape of trace arsenic once used to preserve many museum specimens, scientists and Native Americans.

Collections available for online viewing provide a lot of information. Tribes can restore lost traditional ways and their historical knowledge. Biologists can use animals and plants to measure climate change, environmental change and species adaptation.

Sometimes, all pigeons only need to see the tips of feathers or beaks without solid bodies to identify species. Kay Fowler, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Reno, Nevada, and an expert on great basin culture, said: These collections are also essential to the Native American culture in great basin (including the Colorado Plateau) and the history of American anthropology. Kay's husband Don Fowler also retired from the United Nations University in Reno. He said: "This is the original collection in Southwest China.

Powell is regarded as a pioneer of American anthropology. Fowler pointed out that Powell established the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, "which made him the founder of American anthropology, or rather, the founder of American anthropology," he said.

It seems shocking, but the Fowlers were the first people to try to catalogue and describe Powell's cultural relics completely. Don Fowler came to the Smithsonian Institution as a postdoctoral researcher in the late 1960s. Kefowler also works at the Smithsonian Institution. He found the manuscript of Powell 1867- 1880 in the Bureau of Ethnology, and the two later compiled, annotated and published these manuscripts in 197 1. Tang said that in the process, they found these cultural relics in the attic of the National Museum of Natural History.

He and John F. Martell then catalogued these collections and published the book Noumé a Material Culture in 1979. Powell called about 100 tribes he met in the valley countries and great basin "Numa", because according to Powell's biographer Vostel, their dialectics shared a common Meng Gen with Numic, a branch of Uto Aztec.

Now, Dolph, Green, Royce and other Smithsonian scientists hope to combine their professional knowledge to describe the items in the catalogue more accurately. Intellectual Property Protection Association john wesley Powell, Henry Hourcq, 1885 (a gift from Sam and Mary Powell) john wesley Powell, the founder of the American Anthropological Intellectual Property Protection Association, is probably the most famous, because he was the first person who successfully sailed the Colorado River from beginning to end and mapped the river and the region, including the Grand Canyon. But there are many more. Powell was brought up by devout Methodist immigrants from the British Isles (they named their son after John Wesley, the founder of the church), and he wanted more than the agricultural future envisioned by his parents.

His childhood and adolescence alternated between agricultural life and education in the central and western regions (especially natural science education). Powell, like thousands of his peers, fought to defend the Union. He lost the second half of his arm in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, which earned him the nickname "the man who lost an arm". After the civil war, he returned to his own study and teaching. But his wanderlust and strong curiosity drove him. He can't stay put.

"In the decades after the war, Powell became one of the top experts on topography, geology, climate and indigenous people in the western United States," wrote Vostel in "Rivers flowing westward", which was the life of John Wesley Powell.

Because of Powell, the cultural relics, language and customs of a place (American women) have not completely disappeared. The intellectual property protection program is funded by the US government. Powell was one of the first people to record these practices. Carnivores can also reflect which birds are dominant in a particular area. People have known a lot about birds used in Powell's collection, but there is little information about birds or mammalian materials used in some cultural relics. This led to calls from Kara's pigeon and feather identification laboratory.

The pigeon came with a specimen that could help her identify herself. (Donnie Bachauer) Dove knows a thing or two about what she saw in the museum support center that day, because she visited the Powell collection briefly with Green and Reese, and took notes and photos. When she came back, she brought her research specimens, such as skinned red-tailed eagle and swanson eagle, and other things that can confirm her mental appraisal, but it needs to be confirmed by visual feather comparison.

She did not anticipate the need to use a microscope or DNA-based technology for identification. Sometimes, pigeons only need to see the tips or beaks of feathers, without a solid body to identify species. But it turns out that some handicrafts are more challenging.

A fringed deerskin skirt is decorated on the back yoke, and there are several bird heads, each with a bunch of feathers. With the specimen she brought, the pigeon quickly recognized that the head with a curved and pointed black beak belonged to a woodpecker with brown feathers. But she's not sure about the blue feather. Obviously, these feathers didn't cover her head at first. Finally, she decided to choose Bluebird and marveled at the tailor's artistic choice.

Fowler catalog confirmed that this dress was made by Sean of Goose Creek, but there were no birds. "The only materials listed in the catalogue are modified skin and keratin or hard keratin," Reuss said. He said: "This makes you understand why identifying birds may be helpful to some people, some future researchers, because there is no other data to refer to. Certain feathered

Tribal use can also reflect which birds are dominant in a particular area, Candice Green (above). At the end of the day, Doff and Hick checked 45 items in the collection and drew 92 identification cards. Among them, 66 marks are corrections to previously recorded contents in the Catalogue. Five of these projects have never carried out bird species identification research, so these projects are newly added to the catalogue.

Including 24 different kinds of birds, from bluebirds in the west to golden eagles. She said: "These birds are obviously not randomly selected. Hawks and eagles seem to be the first species, but woodpeckers and grouse also have them. " . "When we put things and birds on the table, the surprising thing I noticed was the overall color theme. Brown, light yellow and orange all look natural. "

Green said that this cooperation has achieved great success so far. She said: "We have learned that species are highly selective when using these items, and some kinds of birds are more popular than others." . She said: "We also found that the uses of species are much richer than those reported in the literature, revealing the relationship between great basin aborigines and their environmental elements, which are only recorded on these objects. For researchers, this is a fertile ground, which is why scientists have to do so much research. " The work at this stage is to prepare for anyone to start their own investigation. Help scientists get answers faster by collecting "research preparation". "They can't all be experts in birds," Green said. "