and influenced by La Flesche's work. Cadman spent time on the Omaha reservation to learn many songs and how to play the traditional instruments. In 1908 La Flesche proposed a collaboration with Cadman and Nelle Richmond Eberhart, to create an opera based on his Omaha stories. Eberhart had written lyrics for Cadman's Four American Indian Songs, as well as other of his songs. The team worked for four years on Da O Ma, which was changed to feature Sioux characters. Each approached the collaboration from a different point of view, and the opera was never published or performed. LaFlesche contributed also to Cadman's ''The Robin Woman (Shanewis) (1918), but the composer completed the project with Tsianina Redfeather Blackstone, a Creek singer who contributed to the libretto. Beginning in 1910, La Flesche gained a professional position as an anthropologist in the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, serving there until 1929. This marked the second part of his career. He wrote and lectured extensively on his research, publishing most of his works during this time. His focus changed with his independent research on the music and religion of the Osage, who are closely related to the Omaha. His primary objective was to explain Osage ideas, beliefs, and concepts. He wanted his readers to see the world of the Osages for what it was in reality-not the world of simple "children of nature" but a highly complex world reflecting an intellectual tradition as sophisticated and imaginative as that of any Old World people. Wax cylinder recordings La Flesche recorded on wax cylinders. His recordings are held by the Library of Congress, and digitized versions of more than 60 are available online. Contemporary Osage tribal members have compared the effect of hearing the recordings of their traditional rituals to that of Western scholars reading the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. Marriage and family La Flesche married Alice Mitchell in June 1877, but she died the next year. In 1879 he married Rosa Bourassa, a young Omaha woman, about the time of his tour in 1879-1880 with his sister and Standing Bear. They separated shortly before he began working in Washington, DC, in 1881 and divorced in 1884. For most of his years in Washington, La Flesche shared a house on Capitol Hill with Alice Fletcher, with whom he worked closely, and Jane Gay. Fletcher and La Flesche kept the nature of their relationship private.