ALGONOUIAN INDIAN TRIBES OF OKLAHOMA 

 AND IOWA 



Bv TRUMAN MICHELSON, 

 EthnoUni'ist. Bureau of American EthnoltMiy 



To renew my researches among Algonquian tribes of Oklahoma 

 and Iowa, I left Washington Jnly 5, making my first headquarters 

 at Shawnee and McLoud. (Oklahoma, where field-work among the 

 so-called Sauk and Fox of the ^lississippi and the Kickapoo may be 

 advantageously pursued. It may be explained that the name " Sauk 

 and Fox of the Mississippi " is a legal one, and does not correspond 

 to the ethnological facts, for in language they are Sauks, and the 

 social organization is Sauk, not Fox. It is true that there are some 

 Foxes incorporated with this grou]x but. with the exception of a few 

 recent comers, they all speak Sauk. The Sauk of Oklahoma to-day 

 are rapidly becoming civilized ; scarcely a single aboriginal dwelling, 

 ])ark-house. or wickiup (wigwam) is to be seen. Native religion, 

 however, still persists with great vigor. Among the scientific results 

 obtained by the expedition may be mentioned the fact that the clan 

 ( or, more technically, gens, as the Sauk are organized in exogamic 

 totemic groups with male descent) designated as " Ringed Perch " by 

 Forsyth in 1827, despite the recent claim that it is only a personal 

 name, is in reality a clan as I had previously surmised from other docu- 

 mentary evidence and from field-work among the Foxes (Meskwakies) 

 of Iowa (see the 40th Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 501, 502). 

 Nevertheless the evidence is only too plain that Sauk social organiza- 

 tion at the present time is l)Ut little understood, and that a long period 

 of intensive work will be needed to unravel it. It should be added that 

 the Sauk have a general term for the Potawatomi, another for the 

 Citizen Potawatomi of Oklahoma, and a third for the Prairie 

 Potawatomi of Kansas. This last corresponds to the designation 

 the Prairie Potawatomi give themselves according to Skinner ; see 

 also below in my remarks on the Kickapoo of Oklahoma. Therefore 

 the contention that anciently there were two sets of " Mascoutens," 

 as I have long maintained, is again borne out. Finally it may be noted 

 that in phonology the Sauk language agrees in some important respects 



183 



