10 SIOUAN TRIBES OF THE EAST. [ethnology 



Portuguese were emigrants from Brazil, or tliat the English derived 

 their origin from America (Hale, 1). 



As early as 1701 Gravier stated tbat the Ohio was known to the 

 Miami and Illinois as the "river of the Akansea" because that people 

 had formerly lived along it. The Akansea (Arka.iSa or Kwapa) are a 

 Siouan tribe, living at that time on the lower Arkansas river, but 

 now in Indian Territory. More than sixty years ago Major Sibley, one 

 of the best authorities of that period in regard to the western tribes, 

 obtained from an aged chief of the Osage — a well known Siouan tiibe, 

 speaking the same hmguage as the Kwapa — a statement which con- 

 firms that of Gravier. The chief said that the tradition had been 

 steadily handed down from their ancestors that the Osage had 

 originally emigrated from the east, because the population had become 

 too numerous for their hunting grounds. He described the forks of 

 Alleghany and Monongahela rivers and the falls of the Ohio at Louis- 

 ville, where he said they had dwelt some time, and where large bands 

 had separated from them and distributed themselves throughout the 

 surrounding country. Those who did not remain in the region of the 

 Ohio followed its waters until they reached the mouth, and then 

 ascended to the month of the Missouri, where other separations took 

 place, some going northward up the Mississippi, others advancing up 

 the waters of the Missouri. He enumerated several tribes which had 

 sprung from this original migrating body (Featherstonhaugh, 1). 

 Catlin heard a similar story among the Maudan, another Siouan 

 people living far up the Missouri (Catlin, 1), and Dorsey has sijice 

 found the tradition to be common to almost all the tribes of that stock 

 (Dorsey, Migrations, and Kansas). Indeed, two of these tribes, the 

 Omaha and the Kausa, cherish sacred shells which they assert were 

 brought with them from the great water of the sunrise. 



When this western movement took place we can only approximately 

 conjecture. Like most Indian migrations it was probably a slow and 

 devious progress with no definite objective point in view, interrupted 

 whenever a particularly fine hunting region was discovered, or as often 

 as it became necessary to fight some tribe in front, and resembling 

 rather the tedious wanderings of the Hebrews in the desert than the 

 steady march of an emigrant train across the plains. De Soto found 

 the "Caj^aha" or Kwapa already established on the western bank of 

 the Mississippi in 1511, although still a considerable distance above 

 their later position at the mouth of the Arkansas. The name IvAvapa, 

 properly Ugaqpa, signifies people living "down the river," being the 

 converse of Omaha, properly Uma"'ha", which designates those going 

 "up the river" (Dorsey), and the occurrence of the name thus early 

 shows that other tribes of the same stock were already seated farther 

 up the river. The absence of Siouan names along De Soto's route in 

 the interior country held later by the Osage is significant, in view of 

 the fact that we at once recognize as Muskhogean a number of the 



