Francis La Flesche

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Francis Laflesche

Francis La Flesche (1857-1932) was the student and adopted son of anthropologist Alice Fletcher. A Native American of the Omaha tribe, he worked with her to record Omaha culture, which both of them believed was vanishing.

He was the son of the Omaha chief Iron Eye, and the brother of Susette "Bright Eyes" La Flesche Tibbles and Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte. He accompanied Bright Eyes and the Ponca chief Standing Bear on a lecture tour of the eastern United States and Europe following the landmark trial of Standing Bear in 1879, in which a U.S. District Court determined that "an Indian is a person" under Federal law, with all the rights of other citizens.

Later, he not only worked with Alice Fletcher to interpret Omaha tribal culture for Western ethnologists, but also did independent research on the music and rituals of the Osage, who are closely related to the Omaha. La Flesche was on the professional staff of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology from 1910 until 1929. His extensive study of the Osage rituals included written documentation combined with his (now priceless) original recordings of the songs described in the text. Osage tribal members have compared the impact of hearing the actual recordings of their own ancient rituals to the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls.