ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT. XXXIX 



The office work of Dr Hoffman consisted in arranging- the 

 material gathered during the preceding field season and in 

 preparing for pidilication an account of the Midewiwin, or so- 

 called "Grand Medicine Society," of the Ojibwa Indians of 

 White Earth, ^Minnesota. This work, which forms one of the 

 papers accompanying the seventh annual report, embraces 

 new material, and consists of the traditions of the Indian cos- 

 mogony and genesis of mankind, the "materia medica" of the 

 shamans, and the ritual of initiation, together with the musical 

 notation of the chants and songs used. 



During the winter and spring months a delegation of Meno- 

 mini Indians from Wisconsin visited Washington, and Dr 

 Hoffman frequently conversed with them to obtain information 

 explanatory of the less known practices of the Menomini 

 ceremony of the Mitawit, or their "Grand Medicine Society," 

 for the purpose of comparison with the ritual as observed by 

 the Ojibwa. In addition a large mass of mythologic material 

 was obtained, as well as texts in the Menomini language. 



On returning from the field in August, 1891, Mr James 

 Mooney spent about ten weeks in arranging his Kiowa collec- 

 tion for the World's Columbian Exposition, writing out a 

 series of descriptive labels, and in copying all the more 

 important documents relating to the "ghost dance" from the 

 files of the Indian Olfice and the War Department. He then 

 again went into the field, as above stated, returning to Wash- 

 ington in February, 1892. About three months were then 

 occupied in arranging the material thus obtained and in 

 writing the preliminary cliapters of his report on the ghost 

 dance. He also superintended the preparation, at the National 

 Museum, of a number of groups of life-size figures to accom- 

 pany the Kiowa collection at the World's Fair. 



Reverend J. Owen Dorsey continued the arrangement of 

 Kwapa texts with interlinear and free translations and critical 

 notes. He revised the proof of "Omaha and Ponka Letters," 

 a bulletin prepared from (/llegiha texts collected by himself. 

 He finished the collation of all the Tutelo words recorded by 

 Dr Hale, Mr J. N. B. Hewitt, and himself, with the result that 

 he had 775 words in the Tutelo-Euglish dictionary. He 



