106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 77 
planted in April, and receive one dressing before they leave their 
villages for the summer hunt, in May. About the first week in 
August they return to their villages and gather their crops, which 
have been left unhoed and unfenced all the season. Each family, if 
lucky, can save from ten to twenty bags of corn and beans, of a 
bushel and a half each; besides a quantity of dried pumpkins. On 
this they feast, with the dried meat saved in the summer, till Sep- 
tember, when what remains is cashed, and they set out on the fall 
hunt, from which they return about Christmas. From that time, 
till some time in February or March, as the season happens to be 
mild or severe, they stay pretty much in their villages, making only 
short hunting excursions occasionally, and during that time they 
consume the greater part of their cashes. In February or March 
the spring hunt commences; first the bear, and then the beaver hunt. 
This they pursue till planting time, when they again return to their 
village, pitch their crops, and in May set out for the summer hunt, 
taking with them their residue, if any, of their corn, &c. This is 
the circle of an Osage life, here and there indented with war and 
trading expeditions; and thus it has been, with very little variation, 
these ae: years past.” (Morse, (1), pp. 203-205.) 
The cornfields were left without watchers and were probably often 
destroyed by roving parties of the enemy or by wild beasts. On 
August 18, 1820, a hunter belonging to a division of the Long expe- 
dition “returned with the information of his having discovered a 
small field of maize, occupying a fertile spot at no great distance 
from the camp, it exhibited proofs of having been lately visited by 
the cultivators; a circumstance which leads us to believe that an as- 
cending column of smoke seen at a distance this afternoon, proceeded 
from an encampment of Indians, whom, if not a war party, we 
should now rejoice to meet. We took the liberty, agreeable to the 
custom of the Indians, of procuring a mess of corn, and some small 
but nearly ripe watermelons, that were also found growing there, 
intending to recompense the Osages for them, to whom we supposed 
them to belong.” The following morning, August 19, they encoun- 
tered several small cornfields near a creek along which they were 
passing, and that day discovered “an Indian camp, that had a more 
permanent aspect than any we had before seen near this river. The 
boweries were more completely covered, and a greater proportion of 
bark was used in the construction of them. They are between sixty 
and seventy in number. Well worn traces or paths lead in various 
directions from this spot, and the vicinity of the cornfields induce 
the belief that it is occasionally occupied by a tribe of Indians, for 
the purpose of cultivation as well as of hunting.” (James, (1), II, 
pp. 220-221.) 
