Desert Hawk Books

 

The Osage and the Invisible World
From the Works of Francis La Flesche

Francis La Flesche

 

 

344  pages
9 Illustrations
8 figures, 3 Tables, 1 Map
5.5" x 8.5"

Paperback

Quantity:   $16.95 & S/H

Hardcover

Quantity:   $29.95 & S/H

 

Francis La Flesche (1857-1932), Omaha Indian and anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology, published an enormous body of work on the religion of the Osage Indians, all gathered from the most knowledgeable Osage religious leaders of their day. Yet his writings have been largely overlooked because they were published piecemeal over the course of twenty-five years and never adequately collected or analyzed. In this book, Garrick A. Bailey brings together in a clear, understandable way La Flesche's data for two important Osage religious ceremonies--the "Songs of Wa-xo'-be," an initiation into a clan priesthood, and the Rite of the Chiefs, an initiation into a tribal priesthood. To put La Flesche's work into perspective, Bailey offers a short biography of this prolific Native American scholar and an overview of traditional Osage religious beliefs and practices.

"Bailey assembled La Flesche's copious field notes into one of the most valuable collections on early American Indian ceremony. . . . His detailed accounting is tantamount to an examination of the entire spectrum of Osage religious customs." - Choice

Garrick A. Bailey, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa, has studied the Osages for more than twenty-five years.