NO. 3 SMITHSONIAN EXPL( )K.\ TIONS, I915 IO3 



quite complex, and it will be some time before the matter can be 

 cleared up. The work on the Sauk system of consanguinity shows 

 that Morgan's Sauk and Fox schedules need revising". Dr. Michel- 

 son returned to Washington about November i. 



STUDIES AMONG THE CAYUGA INDIANS 

 Mr. J. X. B. Hewitt, ethnologist, with the efficient aid of Mrs. 

 ]\Iary Gibson, widow- of the late Chief John Arthur Gibson, completed 

 the long text in Cayuga of the O'ki'we, being the history and the 

 ritual of the Feast of the Dead which is in charge of the women of 

 the tribe. With the same assistance Mr. Hewitt also finished work on 

 a selected list of Mohawk verbs by supplying each with a Cayuga 

 synonym. Then with the aid of Mr. Richard llill he was able to 

 correct and elucidate certain moot points in the Mohawk and other 

 texts of the Ritual of the IMourning and Installation Council, and 

 especially to confirm a conjecture as to the reconstruction of a 

 portion of a ritual which had been quite lost and forgotten, namely, 

 the dramatization of the so-called Six Songs, in which these songs 

 are sung by a chief impersonating the dead chief. 



STUDY OF INDIAN MUSIC 



The study of Indian music was continued by Miss Frances Dens- 

 more during the season of 191 5. The first reservation visited was 

 that of r^ort Berthold, X'orth Dakota, where she resumed, under 

 the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology, a study of music 

 of the Mandan and Hidatsa, commenced in 19 12 under the ausi)ices 

 of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. A competent 

 interpreter for each language was secured, and the work was con- 

 ducted along more intensive lines than during the previous visit. 



One of the princij^al subjects investigated was the custom of eagle- 

 catching, which is common to both tribes and which, though scarcelv 

 to be called ceremonial, is closely associated with their beliefs in 

 the power of the supernatural. The Mandan tradition of the origin 

 of this custom, together with the songs connected with its fetish ( the 

 wolverene), was obtained from the only man living who inherited 

 them. It is understood that no other person has the right to 

 sing these songs, and the ownership of songs is held inviolate on this 

 reservation. Miss Densmore visited an eagle trap which is said to 

 have been in disuse for about 70 years. Upright in the ground beside 

 it was a bone that had been used to hold bait for the eagles. This 

 bone was identified as one of the u]:»right vertebra? of a buffalo, and 

 on it could be discerned traces of red paint. 



