proceedings: anthropological society 131 



The two great expositions which California has successfully carried 

 on this year are of great importance to anthropology, especially that at 

 San Diego, where this subject was preeminent, the San Francisco Exposi- 

 tion being mainly devoted to modern progress. The anthropological 

 exhibit of the former was prepared by Prof. W. H. Holmes, Dr. Ales 

 Hrdlicka and others of the United States National Museum in coopera- 

 tion with Dr. E. L. Hewett, and furnished a superb contribution to 

 the study of man. The speaker said in closing that there is being 

 built up on the West Coast a people of general culture who are 

 appreciative and receptive of the researches of science. It augurs well 

 for the science of anthropology here that it has an alert public which 

 aids in the extension of its activities — a public that demands it and can 

 assimilate its results. 



At the 491st meeting of the Society, held in the Public Library, 

 December 7, 1915, Francis LaFlesche, of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, read a paper entitled Right and left in Osage rites. The 

 Osage, at the formative period of their tribal organization, had arrived 

 at the idea that all life proceeded from the united fructifying powers of 

 two great forces, namely, the sky and the earth They also perceived 

 in these two forces an inseparable unity by which was made possible 

 the continuity of the life proceeding from them It was upon these 

 conceptions that they founded their complex gentile organization. 

 They first divided the people into two great divisions, one of which 

 they called Tsi-zhu (household), symbolically representing the sky, 

 and the other, Ho n -ga (sacred), representing the earth. These two 

 great symbolic divisions they brought together to form one body which 

 they likened to a living man. He stood facing the east, the left side 

 of his body, the Tsi-zhu division, being to the north, and the right side 

 of his body, the Ho n -ga, being to the south. 



When a war party including men of both the great tribal divisions 

 was being organized, the people pulled down their wigwams and reset 

 them in a ceremonial order, which was in two squares, with a dividing 

 avenue running east and west. In this arrangement the position of 

 the symbolic man was changed so that he faced the west; consequently 

 the right side of his body, the Ho n -ga division, was at the north, and 

 the Tsi-zhu divisions, at the south. All the ceremonial movements 

 were made in reference to the right and left sides of the symbolic man, 

 as was also the placing of the symbolic articles used in the ceremonies. 

 The portable shrine has a right and a left side. When the ceremonies 

 of the tribal war rites were being performed, the shrine was put in its 

 place so that the left was toward the Tsi-zhu and the right toward the 

 Ho n -ga. When a man was initiated into the mysteries of the war rites, 

 the shrine of his gens was temporarily transferred to his keeping. 

 If he belonged to the Ho n -ga division he hung the sacred article at the 

 right side of his door when viewed from within; if he belonged to the 

 Tsi-zhu division, he hung it at the left of his door. A woman for whom 

 a sacred burden-strap had been ceremonially made hung the sacred 



