LA FLESCHE— OSAGE CEREMONIES 



should happen to run into the house of a member of one of these two 

 groups, he would be given protection by all. 



When a war-party returned, bringing home a captive, all the mem- 

 bers of the tribe who had been initiated into the mysteries of the 

 tribal rites assembled to decide the fate of the captive. The two 

 chiefs were also called to the council. If the warriors, ignoring the 

 presence of the peace-makers, decided to take the life of the captive, 

 these did not interfere; but if the captive were referred to either one 

 of the chiefs, he would say, "Since you have referred the captive to 

 me, I can only say, let him live." No one could then offer harm to 

 the stranger, for to take his life would be murder, and the murderer 

 would have been punished. When the chief thus passed his word, the 

 ceremony of adopting the captive into the tribe proceeded. A mem- 

 ber of the Black Bear gens was called on to draw a little of the cap- 

 tive's blood, a symbolic elimination of his natural relation to the 

 tribe in which he was born. Then a member of the Water gens was 

 summoned to give him water to drink, symbolizing the life of the 

 Osage. Corn was also given him to eat, by a member of the Buffalo gens, 

 which also symbolized Osage life. The captive's face was then painted 

 with yellow clay furnished by the Elk gens, after which two narrow 

 black lines, close together, were drawn upon his face, beginning at 

 one corner of his forehead and ending at a point under the ear on the 

 opposite side. The drawing of the two lines on his face meant that 

 from that time he was the official messenger of the two great divisions 

 at the performance of the ceremonies of the tribal war rites, and that 

 he should be accorded the respect due to his position. If his captor 

 were a H6 n ga, the two lines commenced at the left corner of his fore- 

 head and ended below his ear on the right side. If the captor were a 

 Tsizhu, then the two lines began at the right corner of the captive's 

 forehead and ended below his ear on the opposite side of the face. 



The decree of the chief that the captive should live, and the per- 

 formance of the adoption ceremony, not only made him a member of 

 the tribe but of the gens to which his captor belonged, with all the 

 rights and privileges to which a native Osage was entitled; and he 

 became a member of the family of his captor, who treated him as his 

 own son. This addition to the tribal family was purely by ceremonial 

 acts; nevertheless, it was regarded as sacred, as an addition by nat- 

 ural birth, and did not affect the unity that was vital to the tribal 

 organization. 



Bureau of American Ethnology 

 Washington, D.C. 



[287] 



