78 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 65 



food to sustain life. The songs continue until the first light of day, 

 when the great heap of offerings are carried to the river and depos- 

 ited to go to the ancient Sun Father. The sands of the painting are 

 also deposited, wrapped in a cloth, in the river. 



These children of nature feel every confidence that the perform- 

 ance of the ritual so sacred to them will bring all that their long 

 prayers have asked for throughout the night. 



WORK AMONG THE IROQUOIS 



Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt left Washington on December n, 1914, for 

 a short field trip among the Iroquois of Ontario, Canada, and of 

 western New York. His first stop was at Brantford, Ontario, where, 

 with the aid of Mr. William K. Loft, a Mohawk speaker, critical 

 phonetic and grammatic study was made of portions of Mohawk 

 texts relating to the Iroquois League, recorded by Mr. Hewitt in 

 former years. Work was also done in taking down a select list of 

 Mohawk verbs for comparative purposes. His next stop was at 

 Middleport, Ontario, where, with the aid of Mrs. Mary Gibson, the 

 widow of the late Chief John Arthur Gibson, Mr. Hewitt recorded a 

 long Cayuga text relating to the origin and ritual of the Death Feast ; 

 a comparative Cayuga list of verbs was also obtained. Here, with 

 the aid of Mr. Hardy Gibson, a Cayuga chief, Mr. Hewitt was able 

 to clear up satisfactorily certain mooted questions concerning the 

 ritual of the League Condoling and Installation Council. 



Mr. Hewitt also obtained from Mrs. Emily Carrier a list of 50 

 Nanticoke words which represent all that were remembered by the 

 informant ; this short list is of unique interest, as the Nanticoke 

 dialect of the Algonquian stock has become practically extinct. Mr. 

 Hewitt also made about 70 photographs, chiefly of persons. 



O.SAGE SONGS AND RITUALS 



During the year 1914, Mr. Francis La Flesche, ethnologist, secured 

 from Wa-thu-xa-ge, a member of the Tsi-zhu Wa-shta-ge, one of 

 the two peace gentes of the Osage tribe, the rituals and songs of the 

 Wa-xo-be A-wa-tho n , which form the first of the seven degrees of 

 the great Osage tribal war rites. It was with much difficulty that 

 Wa-thu-xa-ge was finally persuaded to give this information. He 

 had three reasons for refusing to give information concerning the 

 rites, which are now being fast forgotten, as most of the older 

 members of the tribe have adopted a new religion to which they give 

 nearly all their thought and attention, and the younger members who 

 are being educated care very little, if at all, for these ancient rites. 



