MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 277 



The limits of this paper will not permit us to go into the discus- 

 sion as to the identity of the pre-historic tribes of the State. Certain 

 it is that such existed, since they have left behind them, in the system 

 of mounds which are scattered every where, especially in Southeastern 

 Missouri, evidences which go to prove that a vast population inhab- 

 ited this region long before her rivers were navigated by the first 

 white men. There is no richer tield for the archreologist than may be 

 found among the mounds and terraces of the Mississippi, and those of 

 1he Missouri and her tributaries. 



To Father Marquette we owe the first knowledge of the red men 

 who inhabited the Ozarks. He named them the Osage Indians, al- 

 though they called themselves the Wa-saw-see. There were two bands, 

 the Great and Little Osages, whom he located on the Missouri river, 

 in the neighborhood of the present site of Jefferson City. It is very 

 unfortunate that the literature concerning this aboriginal race is so 

 meager, since the facts which have been handed down indicate the ex- 

 istence of much that is interesting in regard to them. They have 

 occupied the most rem-^rkable gorges and eminences of the Ozark 

 highlands from the earliest times, and claimed, as original possessors, 

 the whole territory of the Ozarks, as well as all of this country north 

 of Arkansas to the Meramec. In the days of their glory they were 

 powerful and warlike, eager to cope with every foe, for, like the sons 

 of Ishmael, " theii hand was against every man, and every man's hand 

 was against them." They were manly, good-looking, stout-limbed men; 

 the tallest race that North America has ever produced, few individuals 

 having been less than six feet in height, and many of them six and a 

 half and seven feet, and well proportioned, though inclined to stoop a 

 little, as many tall people do. They were the scourge and terror of the 

 country, dreaded by red and white men alike, by whom they were re- 

 garded as little short of ogres and giants, ready to thieve and plunder 

 whenever opportunity permitted. Schoolcraft mentions in his journal 

 the fact of having had pointed out to him the spot where the Osages 

 had pinioned and robbed one of the most successful trappers, whom 

 they found trapping their beaver on Swan creek, and adds, "I thought 

 it was an evidence of some restraining fear of our authorities at St. 

 Louis, that they had not taken the enterprising old fellow's scalp, as 

 well as his beaver packs." 



Although at the time of Catlin's visit to them they had long been 

 in communication with white settlements, they studiously rejected 

 every civilized custom, and dressed in skins, with plenty of war paint 

 and feathers by way of adornment. They shaved their heads, which 

 operation, before they had ybtained knives and scissors from the tra- 



