Descriptions of material culture and knowing how and when objects were being collected in indigenous North America is essential to understanding their age, distribution, style, use and meanings -- not only in the history of collecting, but regarding the evolution of material culture itself. The following paper deals with the Hebenstreit collection, which was acquired by the Berlin Royal Kunstkammer in 1840, and is now part of the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. On one hand the attempt is made to describe the collection's history and its collector, and on the other hand this work will focus on describing in particular the indigenous objects, which are ostensibly of "Cumanha" origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]