50 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



responsive reading in a church, with the difference that the reciting 

 is not in unison, as each man recites for himself independently of 

 the others. Fourteen of these wi-gi-es have been transcribed and 

 translated, and they cover about 100 pages of hand-written manu- 

 script. 



Besides these 22 wi-gi-es, Mr. La Flesche secured the penalty 

 wrgi-es owned exclusively by the Thunder gens. He also obtained 

 the penalty wi-gi-e owned in common by the various gentes of the 

 Tsi-zhu division and the one owned by the gentes of the Wa-zha-zhe 

 and Ho n/ -ga subdivisions of the Ho n '-ga great division. These pen- 

 alty wi-gi-es are recited by their owners to the man who offers him- 

 self as a candidate for initiation into the mysteries of either the 

 fasting or the shrine degree of the tribal rites. Like the " sword of 

 Damocles," the penalty hangs over the head of the candidate and 

 drops upon him the moment he violates his initiation obligations, 

 and punishment comes to him by supernatural means. These two 

 wi-gi-es have been transcribed, but are yet to be translated. 



While in the office Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, was en- 

 gaged in correlating the Indian texts of the White Buffalo Dance 

 with the English translation, and revising the latter. He left Wash- 

 ington near the middle of July and, arriving at Tama, Iowa, re- 

 sumed his field work among the Sauk and Fox. His attention was 

 mainly directed to the esoteric meaning of the songs of the White 

 Buffalo Dance, and to verifying sociological work of the previous 

 season. - He obtained the names of nine-tenths of the Fox Indians 

 and obtained information regarding the gens and dual divisions to 

 which their owners belong. A number of ceremonies of these Indians 

 were witnessed and he also learned some facts on Fox eschatology. 

 During his work he purchased a number of sacred packs for the 

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

 right to publish by the bureau the information pertaining to them. 

 On leaving Tama, Dr. Michelson proceeded to Mayetta, Kans., to 

 conduct a preliminary survey of the Potawatomi, as it was very clear 

 that the dual divisions of the Sauk and Fox could only be thoroughly 

 understood after that of the Potawatomi was unraveled. Although 

 unable to completely work out the regulations governing member- 

 ship in the Potawatomi dual divisions, he determined definitely that 

 this division was for ceremonial as well as athletic purposes, as 

 among the Sauk and Fox. He successfully studied the gentile organ- 

 ization of the Potawatomi and obtained a number of folk tales in 

 English which show very clearly that a large body of European 

 (French) element have been absorbed by the Potawatomi and that 

 certain elements of the Plains Indians are present. To account for 

 the distribution of the surviving tales we must assume an early asso- 

 ciation with the Ojibwa and a later one with the Sauk and Fox group, 



