NO. 17 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I916 I29 



Medicine Society (fig. 123) ; two small drums (fig. 124) ; a " medi- 

 cine " i\ute (fig. 125) ; a pair of deer-hoof knee-rattles (fig. 125) ; a 

 horn-rattle, a turtle-shell rattle, and a gourd rattle (fig. 126). 

 At the close of June, 1916, Mr. Hewitt was still on field duty; up 

 to this time, he had read, revised, studied, and annotated ahout 8,000 

 lines of text other than material mentioned in the closing paragraphs 

 of this statement. He also made a numher of photographs of Indians. 



ETHNOLOGICAL WORK AMONG THE SAUK, FOX. AND 

 PEORIA INDIANS 



The first part of June, 1916 found Dr. Truman Michelson among 

 the Sauk and Fox of Iowa. The main work accomplished was the 

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

 on the origin of the White Rufifalo Dance, which is intended as a 

 future bulletin of the lUireau. He secured several sacred packs for 

 the Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation), of New 

 York, under the agreement that the Bureau should retain the right 

 to publish the information ])ertaining to them. In this way more 

 information on these difficult topics was obtained, and more is ex- 

 pected. Other ethnological data, especially sociological, was also 

 acquired. About the middle of August Dr. Michelson proceeded to 

 Oklahoma, where, under the joint auspices of the I'ureau of Amer- 

 ican Ethnology and the Illinois Centennial Commission, he conducted 

 researches among the Peoria. Their ethnology properly speaking has 

 practically vanished, and although their language and folklore still 

 persist, knowledge thereof is confined to a very limited number. The 

 phonetics of the Peoria language, contrary to ordinary belief, is 

 extremely complicated. As surmised from the notes left by the 

 late Dr. Gatschet, Peoria linguistically belongs fundamentally to the 

 Ojibwa group of Central Algonquian languages ; yet at the same 

 time it is clear that there has been another and more recent associa- 

 tion with the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo group. A study of Peoria 

 folklore and mythology also poir.ts to this double association, as 

 does the system of consanguinity, which agrees with Sauk, Fox, 

 and Kickapoo, as opposed to Ojibwa, ( )ttawa, AJgonkin, and Potawa- 

 tomi. It should be noted that Peoria folklore and mythology contain 

 a number of Plains and Plateau elements which thus far have not 

 been recorded among other Central Algonquian tribes. 1 low these 

 elements spread eastward is as yet unknown. A number of strictly 

 aboriginal tales were collected that have not been recorded elsewhere. 

 .\ large number of European tales have been incorporated, and 



