NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG IQ 



met by the Omaha in comparatively recent times on the Platte. He 

 also speaks of the Cheyenne as dwelling with the Comanche in a 

 sandy region on a great lake near the head of the Elkhorn River, 

 neither tribe using the bow but employing darts instead. The Cheyenne 

 are likewise said to have checked the northward advance of the Kansa 

 near the Nebraska-Kansas State line. (Dorsey, 1886, pp. 218-222.) 



It is impossible to determine the assumed period of each of these 

 different movements from either Dorsey's account or the vague out- 

 line presented by Fletcher and La Flesche. According to the former, 

 the traditional evidence suggests that the Ponca split from the Omaha 

 sometime about 1390, that all migrations prior to the separation of 

 Iowa, Omaha, and Ponca occurred prior to 1673, and that the split be- 

 tween Quapaw and Omaha occurred prior to 1540.' Aside from the 

 confusing problem as to the relative time of these postulated move- 

 ments, Dorsey's references to the Iowa and Cheyenne do not seem to 

 agree with the historic locations of these groups. This matter will be 

 referred to shortly. The traditional evidence as to the Dhegiha migra- 

 tion gathered by Dorsey is undoubtedly significant, but only the most 

 painstaking historical and archeological research can authenticate and 

 clarify the picture thus presented. 



From the maps here summarized (table i) it appears that prior to 

 1796 the Omaha were located on the east side of the Missouri in Mie 

 vicinity of the Big Sioux River. Collot's map of the above date first 

 shows them within the territory now included in Nebraska. How- 

 ever, in 1 801 Le Raye mentions bands of the Omaha and Ponca being 

 associated with the Cheyenne and other tribes on the headwaters of 



* Dorsey, 1886, pp. 221-222. Dorsey translated the term " Pana " on Mar- 

 quette's map as Ponca and this has since been generally accepted, Handbook of 

 American Indians, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Bull. 30, pt. 2, pp. 216, 278. This 

 identification seems extremely dubious since both La Salle and Father Henne- 

 pin use the term " Pana " as though referring to one of the Pawnee tribes 

 (Margry, 1874, 11, pp. 201-202, and Hennepin, 1903, it, p. 443), while on the 

 N de Fer map of 1718 (Partie Meridionale de la Riviere de Mississippi) and 

 the Von Keulen Map of New France, 1720, the "Apana " are located between 

 the " Panimaha " (Skidi Pawnee) and the " Paniassa " (Wichita). Wedel 

 (no date) has tacitly assumed that Marquette's term "Pana" referred to 

 the Pawnee and, on the evidence above cited, I am inclined to agree with him. 

 The point is an important one and merits' further research, since it has been 

 generally stated that the Marquette reference proved the separate existence of 

 the Ponca in 1673. Since all Marquette's locations of Missouri River tribes 

 were based on hearsay evidence, it seems far more probable that he would have 

 been told of the important Pawnee groups rather than a small, slightly differ- 

 entiated branch of the Omaha. In the present paper I have assumed Wedel's 

 identification to be correct. 



