MCGEE] ASINIBOIN AND (/;EGIHA HISTORY 191 



iu 1689-90, wlieii the Essauajie were sixty leagues above; and I'errot's 

 Memoire refers to the Asiuiboin as a Sioux tribe which, in the sev- 

 enteenth century, seceded from their nation and took refuge among the 

 rocks of Lake-of-the-Woods. Chauviguerie hjcated some of the tribe 

 south of Ounipigan (Winnipeg) lake in 173G, and they were near Lake- 

 of-the-Woods as late as 17G(i, when they were said to have 1,500 war- 

 riors. It is well known that in 1829 they occupied a considerable 

 territory west of the Dakota and north of Missouri river, with a popu- 

 lation estimated at 8,000; and Drake estimated their number at 10,000 

 before the smalljjox epidemic of 1838, which is said to have carried oft" 

 •1,000. From this blow the tribe seems never to have fully recovered, 

 and now numbers probably no more than 3,000, mostly iu Canada, 

 where they continue to roam the plains they have occupied for half a 

 century. 



(/:egiha 



According to tribal traditions collected by Dorsey. the ancestors of 

 the Omaha, Pouka, Kwapa, Osage, and Kansa were originally one 

 people dwelling on Ohio and Wabash rivers, but gradually working 

 westward. The first separation took place at the mouth of the Ohio, 

 when those who went down the Mississippi became the Kwapa or Down- 

 stream People, while those who ascended the great river became the 

 Omaha or Up-stream People. This separation must have occurred at 

 least as early as 1500, since it preceded De Soto's discovery of the 

 Mississippi. 



The Omaha group (from whom the Osage, Kansa. and Ponka were 

 not yet separated) ascended the ^Mississippi to the month of the ]\Iis- 

 souri, where they remained for some time, though war and hunting 

 parties explored the country northwestward, and the body of the tribe 

 gradually followed these pioneers, though the Osage and Kansa were 

 successively left behind. Some of the jjioneer parties discovered the 

 pipestoue quarry, and many traditious cling about this landmark. Sub- 

 sequently they were driven across the Big Sioux by the Yankton Indians, 

 who then lived toward the conlluence of the Minnesota and Mississii)pi. 

 The group gradually dirterentiated and finally divided thi-ough the sep- 

 aration of the Ponka. probably about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. The Omaha gathered south of the Missouri, between the 

 mouths of the Platte and Niobrara, while the Ponka pushed into the 

 Black Hills country. 



The Omaha tribe rem.ained within the great bend of the Missouri, 

 opposite the mouth of the Big Sioux, until white men came. Their 

 hunting ground extended westward and southwestward, chiefly north 

 of the Platte and along the Elkhorn, to the territory of the Ponka and 

 the Pawnee (Caddoan); and in 176() Carver met their hunting ])arties 

 on Minnesota river. Toward the end of the eighteenth century they 

 were nearly destroyed by smallpox, their number having been reduced 

 from about 3,500 to but little over 300 when they were visited by Lewis 



