20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



the Cheyenne River in what is now South Dakota, all these tribes being 

 hostile to the Dakota. (Le Raye, 1908.) This record affords some 

 corroboration of the traditional movement postulated by Dorsey. The 

 subsequent maps of Perrin du Lac, Lewis and Clark, and Long all 

 show them in the northeastern corner of Nebraska. Although the 

 Omaha had practically abandoned their territory east of the Missouri 

 in the eighteenth century, they continued to hunt there on occasion 

 until the middle of the next century. Their eastern territories were 

 ceded to the United States in the treaties of 1830, 1836, and 1854. 

 (Fletcher and La Flesche, 191 1, p. 89.) In 1845 the Omaha were 

 living to the south, a short distance above the Platte, and in 1847 the 

 village in the forks of Papillion Creek was built. The year after the 

 treaty of 1854 they returned north to their former home in the then 

 newly assigned reservation in Dakota County, Nebr., where they are 

 at the present time. (Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Bull. 30, pt. i, p. 120 ; Bush- 

 nell, 1922, p. 81.) 



Thus, on historic evidence alone, the Omaha may only be regarded 

 as a Nebraska tribe since about 1796, during which time they have 

 occupied a strip of territory extending from the Cheyenne River in 

 South Dakota south as far as the Platte River (map, fig. 2). If the 

 migration account given by Dorsey is to be taken literally, all the latter 

 part of the Omaha, Ponca, and Iowa movement, from the White or 

 Cheyenne River region in South Dakota down the west side of the 

 Missouri, must have occurred since 1796. The fact that the Omaha 

 were located in northwestern Iowa at the time of their discovery is, 

 however, no proof that they may not have been in Nebraska in pre- 

 historic times. Not only does the general westward movement of the 

 Dhegiha group seem probable, but the location of two of these tribes, 

 the Osage and Kansa, on the lower Missouri, and the Omaha and the 

 Ponca farther up the same river, suggests possible movements up or 

 down that stream. Thus the latter tribes may well have reached their 

 prehistoric location by moving north on either or both sides of the 

 Missouri, in which case their prehistoric villages should be located in 

 either western Kansas, eastern Nebraska, or both regions. In any 

 case prehistoric Siouan movements along the Missouri River seem 

 probable from both geographic and traditional considerations, although 

 recorded history, so far as the Nebraska area is concerned, indicates 

 that both the Omaha and the Oto were east of the river at the time 

 of their discovery. 



From the archeological standpoint the Omaha and Ponca will prob- 

 ably be found to represent a single culture, although the data regard- 

 ing the time when the Ponca separated from the Omaha are very 



