104 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



reached on July 31, and on the same day Dr. Michelson left for Port- 

 aux-Basques hy rail. The train was wrecked at almost the center of 

 the island, five cars leaving the track which was torn up for at least 

 50 yards and probably more. After a delay of more than 24 hours 

 he reached Port-aux-Basques, taking the S. S. Kyle that night for 

 North Sydney, Nova Scotia, which he reached early the next morning. 

 From there he proceeded by rail to Tama, Iowa, to renew his re- 

 searches among the Fox Indians. When not far from Chicago this 

 train was also wrecked, but not badly. At Tama, Dr. Michelson 

 finished a memoir on the Ceremonial Runners of the Fox Indians as 

 far as practical in the field ; he also gathered other ethnological data, 

 and returned to Washington September 22. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE OSAGE INDIANS 



Air. Francis LaFlesche, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 spent a part of May and all of the month of June, 1923, among the 

 Osage Indians. The purpose of the visit was to gather information 

 relating to the fruits of plants, cultivated and uncultivated, which the 

 Osage people learned to use for their sustenance before contact with 

 the European races. 



It was learned from Wa-no"'-she-zhi"-ga, better known as Fred 

 Lookout, and his wife Mo"'-ci-tse-xi (figs. 102, 103), and from other 

 members of the tribe, that the Indian corn, or maize, which was 

 known to many of the Indian tribes before the coming of the " whites," 

 still forms a large part of the daily subsistence of the people, that they 

 have over 20 different ways of preparing it for eating. As among 

 other Indian tribes who cultivate the soil, the corn is a sacred food to 

 the Osage, and it figures prominently in their ancient tribal rites and 

 ceremonials. Green corn partly boiled or roasted on the cob, the grains 

 removed from the cob and dried in the sun for use at all seasons, is 

 liked much better by these Indians than the canned corn of the white 

 man. Corn thus prepared for preservation is called, " u'-ho°-ga-gi," 

 and the woman who wishes to give a dinner to her friends never fails 

 to have it on her table. A description of the Indian way of planting 

 and cultivating the Indian corn was also given by Wa-no"'-she-zhi"-ga 

 and his wife. 



Many of the Osage Indians continue to use as food the roots of 

 a number of wild plants, principally those of the Ncliimbo lutca, 

 commonly known as " water chinkapin " (fig. 105). The root of this 

 plant, the native name of which is tse'-wa-the, has an important place 



