212 OMAHA SOCIOLOGY. 



On tliis peninsula was a high mountain, which the Kansas called 

 Ma B -daqpaye and Tce-duiiga-ajabe ; the corresponding Osage name be- 

 Ma" laqpafiV 



Subsequently, these tribes ranged through a territory, including 

 Osage, Gasconade, and other adjacent counties of the State of Missouri, 

 perhaps most of the country lying between the Mississippi and the 

 Osage Rivers. The Iowas were near them ; but the Omahas say that 

 the Otos and Missouris were not known to them. The Iowa chiefs, 

 however, have a tradition that the Otos were their kindred, and that 

 both tribes, as well as the Omahas and Poukas, were originally Wiune- 

 bagos. A recent study of the dialects of the Osages, Kansas, and 

 Kwapas discloses remarkable similarities which strengthen the supposi- 

 tion that the Iowas and Otos, as well as the Missouris, were of one stock. 



At the mouth of the Osage River the final separation occurred. The 

 Omahas and Ponkas crossed the Missouri and, accompanied by the 

 Iowas, proceeded by degrees through Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, 

 till they reached the neighborhood of the Red Pipestone quarry. This 

 must have taken many years, as their course was marked by a suc- 

 cession of villages, consisting of earth lodges. 



Thence they journeyed towards the Big Sioux River, where they made 

 a fort. They remained in that country a long time, making earth lodges 

 and cultivating fields. Game abounded. At that time the Yauktons 

 dwelt in a densely wooded country near the head of the Mississippi ; 

 hence the Omahas called them, in those days, " Ja n 'a^a ni'kaci"ga, The 

 people who dwelt in the woods." After that the Yanktons removed and 

 became known as Yanktons. By and by the Dakotas made war on the 

 three tribes, and maoy Omahas were killed by them. So at last the 

 three tribes went west and southwest to a lake near the head of Oboteau 

 Creek, Dakota Territory, now known as Lake Andes ("?). There they cut 

 the sacred pole (see §§ 36 and 153), and assigned to each gens and subgeus 

 its peculiar customs, such as the sacred pipe, sacred tents, and the taboos. 

 There were a great many geutes in each tribe at that time, far more than 

 they have at present ; and these gentes were in existence long before 

 they cut the sacred pole. 



After leaving the lake, known as "Waq<j:6xe gasai' (fa", Where they 

 cut the sacred pole," they traveled up the Missouri River till they ar- 

 rived at Ni-iigacude, White Earth River. They crossed the Missouri, 



1 The writer was told by an Osage that Ma n qaqpa<|'6 was at Fire Prairie, Missouri, 

 where the lirst treaty with the Osages was made by the United States. But that 

 place is on a creek of the same name, which empties into the Missouri River on the 

 south, in T. 50 N., R. 28 W., at the town of Napoleon, Jackson County, Missouri. 

 This could not have baen the original Ma n jaqpa^e. Several local names have been 

 duplicated by the Kansas in the course of their wanderings, and there are traces of 

 similar duplications among the Osages. Besides this, the Omahas and Ponkas never 

 accompanied the Kansas and Osages beyond the mouth of the Osage River ; and the 

 Kansas did not reach the neighborhood of Napoleon, Missouri, for some time after 

 the senaratiou at the mouth of the Osage River. 



