588 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



died whilst all the men of his tribe were haatingj in a distant country. 

 His friends buried him in the usual manner, witii his weapons, bis 

 eartlien pot, and the usual accom|)animents, and raised a small mound 

 over his remains. When the nation returned from the hunt this mound 

 was enlarged at intervals, every man assisting to carry materials, and 

 thus the accumulation of earth went on for a long period until it reached 

 its present height, when they dressed it off at the top to a conical form. 

 The old chief further said that he had been informed and believed that 

 all the mounds had a similar origin.."* 



It is altogether probable that these two accounts relate to the same 

 mound, and that Dr. Beck's source of information regarding it is the 

 same as Mr. Featherstonhaugh's. The "ancient chief" may have pur- 

 posely imposed upon Major Sibley's credulity in this matter: at any 

 rate his reliability as a historian of his people is somewhat shaken by 

 his further statement that "the tradition had been steadily transmitted 

 down from their ancestors; that the Whashash (Osages) had originally 

 emigrated from the east in great numbers, ^he population being too 

 dense for their hunting-grounds. He described the forks of the Alle- 

 gheny and Monongahela Rivers, and the Falls of the Ohio, where they 

 had dwelt some time, and where large bands had separated from them, 

 and distributed themselves in the surrounding country, etc." f The 

 Osages, it is well known, are a branch of the Dakotas, and migrated 

 to Missouri from the north, or northwest; and perhaps the only mem- 

 bers of that tribe who have at any time visited the headwaters of the 

 Ohio were the lew who joined the force that defeated General Braddock 

 in 1755, and the peaceful delegations that have since visited Washing- 

 ton City. 



The first mention of the Osages in history is by Father Marquette, 

 who heard of them when descending the Mississippi in 1(373; and in his 

 map of the regions discovered by him he locates them as the "Ouchage," 

 on the Missouri River, about the present site of Jefferson City. We 

 have then no definite account of these Indians until 1719, when Du 

 Tissenet, a young Canadian-Frenchman, was sent with a party, by M. 

 DeBieuville, then governor of Louisiana, to explore the western 

 wilderness in search of ores and precious metals. Du Tissenet's expedi- 

 tion set out from Kaskaskia, and, traversing southern Missouri, followed 

 the Osage River — which he so named — to its northwestern sources in 

 Kansas. He visited the Osages at their "Great Village" near the con- 

 fluence of the Little Osage and the Marmiton, in what is now Vernon 

 County, in Missouri, and which was then the central point of their 

 country. During the next year, 1720, Renault, with his lieutenant, La 

 Motte, and party, including five hundred negro slaves, arrived at Fort 

 Chartres, and at once sent out exploring parties in all directions in 



"Excursion through the Slave States, etc. By G, W. Ffcatherstonhaugh, F. R. S., 

 F. G. S., Two vols., London, 1844, vol. I, pp. 286,287. 

 t Ibid, pages 287, 288. 



