52 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



restoration of a long text, written in the current syllabary, on the 

 origin of the white buffalo dance, intended for publication as a bul- 

 letin of the bureau. Considerable information pertaining to a number 

 of sacred bundles of the Fox Indians was obtained, as well as various 

 data of a sociological nature. Nearly 300 personal names were re- 

 corded, together with the names of the gentes to which their owners 

 belonged; in this manner about nine-tenths of the population of the 

 Fox Indians has been catalogued. 



About the middle of August Doctor Michelson proceeded to Okla- 

 homa where, with the cooperation of the Illinois Centennial Commis- 

 sion, he conducted researches among the Peoria. The ethnology of 

 this tribe, properly speaking, has practically vanished, but their lan- 

 guage and folklore still persist, though knowledge thereof is confined 

 to only a few individuals. Contrary to ordinary belief, the Peoria 

 language, phonetically, is extremely complicated. From notes left 

 by the late Dr. A. S. Gatschet, it had been inferred that the Peoria 

 belongs fundamentally Avith the Chippewa or Ojibwa group of cen- 

 tral Algonquian languages, and this was fully confirmed. It is quite 

 clear, however, that there has been another and more recent associa- 

 tion with the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo group, and Peoria folklore 

 and mythology also point to this double association. The system 

 of consanguinity is clearly that of the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo 

 group, rather than that of the Ojibwa. Doctor Michelson recorded, 

 mostly in English, an almost exhaustive collection of Peoria folk- 

 tales and myths. 



After devoting about a month's time to the Peoria Doctor Michelson 

 returned to Iowa and renewed his work among the Sauk and Fox by 

 making a phonetic restoration of a number of texts on minor sacred 

 packs pertaining to the white buffalo dance, as well as by recording 

 about 200 pages of the extremely long myth of the Fox culture hero. 

 Most of the ceremonies in connection with the presentation of a new 

 drum of the so-called religious dance of the Potawatomi of Wisconsin 

 were witnessed, as also were parts of a number of clan feasts. 



On returning to Washington in November Doctor Michelson com- 

 menced the revision of the English translation of the texts relating 

 to the white buffalo dance, and devoted attention also to paragraph- 

 ing and punctuating the Indian originals for the purpose of making 

 them correspond with the English equivalents. By the close of the 

 year the English translations were typewritten and put in almost 

 final shape, while little work remained to complete the editing of the 

 native texts. 



Mr. J. P. Harrington, ethnologist, spent the entire year in continua- 

 tion of his intensive study of the Chumashan Tribes of California, 

 obtaining a large body of important information which at present is 

 in various stages of elaboration and which will comprise about 1,200 



