Description

Herbert William Krieger joined the staff of the United States National Museum’s Department of Anthropology
as assistant curator of ethnology in 1924, and he became curator of ethnology in 1925. In spite of his position,
much of his field work was carried out in archaeology. In 1927, for the Bureau of American Ethnology,
he examined the feasibility of restoring Old Kasaan on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, and carried out
archaeological reconnaissance along the Columbia River. In the following year, he continued reconnaissance
work, first along the middle Yukon River and then, again, along the Columbia. In the former area, he
also collected a few random notes on living Athapascan Indians and in both areas he carried out several
excavations.
In 1934, for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Public Works Administration, he carried out salvage
archaeological work near Bonneville, Oregon. As a pastime, during the 1930s, he carried out reconnaissance
along the lower Potomac River. Krieger’s major work, however, lay to the south among the problems of
Caribbean archeology. Between 1928 and 1937 and from 1947 to 1952, he concerned himself with sites
visited by Columbus and attempts to plot areas previously occupied by the Arawak, Carib, and other tribes.
His studies involved examinations of both historic and prehistoric Spanish and Indian settlements in Haiti,
Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas. Based on these, he published several
articles and books, including Archeological and Historical Investigations in Samana, Dominican Republic,
United States National Museum Bulletin 156, 1931, and Aboriginal Indian Pottery of the Dominican Republic,
United States National Museum Bulletin 156, 1931. He was also a participant in several conferences
concerned with the archaeology, ethnology, and history of the Caribbean area.
In addition to his field work and administrative duties as head of the Division of Ethnology, Krieger worked
with the Museum’s ethnological collections and published several articles based on them. He also became
involved in the renovation of the division’s public areas so that “the antiquated and overcrowed exhibits
should be replaced by modern exhibits in which art and science are blended”. Much of the effort for this was
carried out by Krieger’s associate curator John Canfield Ewers.
Having a special interest in the Philippines and western Oceania that grew from his early service as a teacher
in Manila, Krieger also produced studies of the people of the Philippines and the islands of the western Pacific for the Smithsonian’s War Backgroud Studies series during World War II. He also worked on a volume
“The Islands of New Japan, ” but it was never published.