48 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 



tious awe. The transcribing of the wi'-gi-es from the dictaphone 

 records and the translation of the words from the Osage into the 

 English language were laborious and tedious tasks. This rite will 

 soon be entirely forgotten, as it has been abandoned now for a num- 

 ber of years, and the rescuing of it for preservation has been timely. 



This rite, which will make the first part of the volume now being 

 completed for publication, covers 182 typewritten pages without the 

 illustrations, maps, and diagrams. 



The office of hereditary chief has been abandoned and since 1881 

 has been elective. 



Upon the completion of The Rite of the Chiefs, the work of ar- 

 ranging for publication the ritual entitled Ni'-ki Wa-tho", Song of 

 the Sayings of the Ancient Men, was taken up. This ritual tells of 

 the origin of the people of the Ho"'-ga subdivision of the Ho'^'-ga 

 great tribal dual division. The story of their descent from the sky 

 to the earth and of their subsequent movements is put into wi'-gi-e 

 form and recited at the initiatory ceremonies. Each gens has its own 

 version of the story and has in it a proprietary right, a right that in 

 olden times was not infringed upon by the others. 



Mr. LaFlesche was fortunate in becoming acquainted with an 

 Osage by the name of Xu-tha'-wa-to"-i" and of winning his friend- 

 ship. This man belonged to the Tsi'-zhu Wa-no° gens of the Tsi'-zhu 

 great tribal dual division. Without the slightest hesitation he recited 

 for Mr. LaFlesche the Ni'-ki Wi'-gi-e of his own gens, and he also 

 gave with it some of the shorter wi'-gi-es that accompany certain 

 ceremonial acts of the ritual. 



These origin rituals when completed will cover more than 220 type- 

 Avritten pages, to which two short wi'-gi-es of a like character, nearly 

 ready, will be added. These pages added to those of The Rite of the 

 Chiefs will bring the number of typewritten pages, without the illus- 

 trations, close to 430. 



The Fasting Ritual, which was completed some time ago, and 

 covers 492 pages, exclusive of the illustrations, and the two rituals 

 above referred to, will make the first volume of a projected work on 

 the Osage tribe. 



On July 1, Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnologist, visited Tama, 

 Iowa, and completed his field work on the grammatical analysis of 

 the text of " The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians." On his 

 return to Washington he worked out a practically exhaustive list of 

 A^erbal stems and submitted a manuscript for publication. He also 

 observed mortuary customs under peculiarly fortunate conditions 

 and obtained a number of texts written in the current syllabary on 

 mortuary customs, eschatology, etc. He restored phonetically and 

 translated, with a few exceptions, 310 i)ersonal nam.es. He verified a 

 previous discovery that certain gentes have their own peculiar names 



