REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 51 



The theme of these composite rites is the desire of the people for 

 a long, peaceful life and a never-ending line of descendants, and the 

 wigie, songs, and dramatic acts constitute a supplication to the 

 unseen power for aid toward the realization of this desire. The 

 never-ending life so devoutly sought for the tribe seemed to the 

 people to be exemplified in the unfailing recurrence of night and 

 day, in the constancy of the movements of the heavenly bodies, in 

 the manifestation of a like desire among the living forms upon the 

 earth, and thus to point to an ever-present unseen animating power 

 to which the people must appeal for the granting of their prayers. 

 In this appeal for never-ending life the Osage naturally personified, 

 and to a degree deified, those objects to which, as he thought, the 

 unseen power had granted this form of life. Among these he in- 

 cluded the vast space within which the heavenly bodies mysteriously 

 moved and into which all living forms are born and exercise their 

 functions. Thus all aspects of nature are made to play a part in 

 the great drama of life as presented in these rituals. 



Early in the year Mr. La Flesche finished transcribing the wigie, 

 as well as his notes on two complete versions and a portion of a third 

 version of the Child-naming rituals, comprising 107 typewritten 

 pages. On completing this task he undertook the translation of the 

 Osage personal names in current use and of arranging them by 

 gentes. The Osage generally cling tenaciously to the ancient custom 

 of ceremonially naming their children in the belief that the cere- 

 monies aid the young in attaining old age. In this work Mr. La 

 Flesche was able to determine that many members of the Osage tribe 

 enrolled as full bloods are in reality of mixed blood. The tabulation 

 of these names by sex and gentes, with their translations, together 

 with a transcription of some characteristic tales, occupies 201 type- 

 written pages. 



During the last four months of the fiscal year Mr. La Flesche was 

 engaged in assembling his notes on the Fasting ritual of the Tsizhu 

 Washtage gens. Most of the songs are quite different from those be- 

 longing to the Fasting rituals of the Honga, while some of the wigie 

 are the same, these being used in common with slight modifications 

 among the different gentes. These Fasting rituals cover 139 com- 

 pleted pages, including the music. 



A wigie was obtained by Mr. La Flesche from an old woman dur- 

 ing his visit to the Osage in January, 1917. This wigie, which con- 

 sists of 8 pages, fills a hiatus in the rush-mat "ceremony previously 

 recorded. 



At the opening of the fiscal year Dr. Truman Michelson, ethnol- 

 ogist, was engaged in continuing his studies among the Sauk and 

 Fox Indians of Iowa, the main work accomplished being the pho- 

 netic restoration of a long text, written in the current syllabary, on 



