5 i Ip BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 77 
sippi Valley which extends southward from the Ohio to the Ar- 
kansas. This was the region traversed by the Quapaw during: the 
latter part of their migration from their earlier habitat east of the 
Mississippi, and may have been occupied by them since the fifteenth 
century, or before. Many of the mound groups, village sites, and 
burial places occurring within this area may undoubtedly be justly 
attributed to the Quapaw. Vast quantities of earthenware vessels, 
of great variety of forms and sizes, have been recovered from the 
sites north of the Arkansas, and these often present marked char- 
acteristics differing from the ware found farther south. The Quapaw 
are known to have been skilled pottery makers. As already men- 
tioned, Marquette, in 1673, referred to their “ plates of baked earth,” 
and also to the large earthen cooking vessels “of their own make.” 
And in 1687 Joutel wrote of their earthen vessels “ with which they 
drive a Trade.” Therefore it is more than probable that much of 
the ancient pottery encountered in this part of the Mississippi Valley 
was made by this southern Siouan tribe. Many of the village sites 
discovered near the Mississippi, north of the Arkansas, were probably 
once occupied by the Quapaw who, by the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century, had moved as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas 
River, in the present Desha County. The earlier references to the 
tribe, those contained in the narratives of the De Soto expedition, 
1541, mention the towns being protected by encircling embankments 
and ditches. The former were probably surmounted by palisades. 
The village or villages of this period probably stood on the bank of 
the Mississippi, and one may have occupied the interesting site at 
Avenue, in Phillips County, where some remarkable pottery vessels 
have been discovered. Other ancient sites in Lee and Crittenden 
Counties, north of Phillips, were possibly occupied by the same 
people at different times. 
The position of the village of the Algonquian Michigamea, who 
lived north of the Quapaw, has not been determined. 
CHIWERE GROUP. 
This group, so designated by the late Dr. J. O. Dorsey, includes 
three tribes, the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri, who spoke slightly differ- 
ent dialects of the same language. According to tribal traditions, 
they were, generations ago, allied and associated with the Winne- 
bago, from whom they separated and scattered while living in the 
vicinity of the Great Lakes east of the Mississippi, where the Winne- 
bago continued to dwell. It is not the purpose of the present sketch 
to trace the movements of the three tribes from their ancient habitat 
to the banks of the Mississippi, thence westward to the Missouri and 
beyond, but the routes followed in their migrations can be fairly 
