BULL. 30] 



QUAPAW 



335 



places the Acansa village on the s. side of 

 Arkansa.s r. Gravier (1700) locates the 

 village of Kappa on the Missis^sippi half a 

 league from the water's edge and 8 leagues 

 above the mouth of the Arkansas. Tour- 

 ima seems to have been close by. Gravier 

 says: "The Sitteoui Akansea are five 

 leagues above its [the Arkansas'] mouth 

 and are much more numerous than the 

 Kappa and Tourima; these are the three 

 villages of the Akansea." A document 

 of 1721 (N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., v, 622, 

 1855) says, on "what authority is un- 

 known, that the "Acansa" who were on 

 the E. side of the Mississippi, as has been 

 noted above, differed from the "Acansia" 

 who dwelt on the w. side. Nuttall says 

 the people called Arkansa by Charlevoix 

 were then (1761) made up of confeder- 

 ated remnants of ruined tribes. 



At the time Le Page Dupratz visited 

 that section, a few years later, it seems 

 the Akansea had retired up the Arkansas 

 r. and were living about 12 m. from the 

 entrance of White r., and had been joined 

 by tlie Michigamea and some Illinois. 

 Sibley (1805) states that the Arkensa were 

 then in 3 villages on the s. side of Ar- 

 kansas r. about 12 m. above Arkansas 

 Post. They claimed to be the original 

 proprietors of the country on Arkansas 

 r., extending up it about 300 m. to the 

 Osage country. According to a Mexican 

 document there were 150 families on Sul- 

 fur cr., a southern affluent of Red r. of 

 Texas, in 1828. Porter in 1829 said they 

 were then in the Caddo country on Red 

 r. in Louisiana. In 1877 they were on 

 their reservation in tlie n. e. corner of 

 Indian Ter., and in that year the Ponca 

 tribe was brought on their reservation 

 for a short time, being removed to the 

 present Ponca res., w. of the Osage, in 

 1878. Most of the Quapaw soon left their 

 reservation and removed to that of the 



On account of the great change wrought 

 in the condition of these Indians by con- 

 tact with the whites, their true character 

 and customs can be learned only by ref- 

 erence to the accounts of the early ex- 

 plorers. Father Zenobius (Le Clercq, 

 Estab. Faith, Shea ed., 2, 168, 1881) says: 

 " These Indians do not resemble those at 

 the north, who are all of a morose and 

 stern disposition; these are better made, 

 civil, liberal, and of a gay humor." 

 Joutel says they are strong,* well made, 

 and active; "the females better made 

 than those of the last village [Cahinnio?] 

 we passed." That the people had made 

 considerable advance in culture is evident 

 from the accounts given of their struct- 

 ures; as, for example, the walled village 

 described above. They also built large 

 mounds — the height of one is given as 40 

 feet — on which they placed, in some in- 



stances, their chief buildings. Joutel 

 (Margry, Dec, in, 442, 1878) mentions a 

 house " built on a place a little elevated 

 [mound]," of great pieces of wood jointed 

 one with another dovetailed to the top, 

 of beautiful cedar (cedre) wood (cy- 

 press?), and covered with bark. Their 

 village houses he describes as long, with 

 " domed" roofs, each containing several 

 families. Mention is made of a fish 

 weir near one of their villages, in an arti- 

 ficial canal, and of nets which De Soto's 

 followers utilized on their arrival for 

 procuring a supply of fish . The A kansea 

 were active tillers of the soil, and also 

 manufacturers of pottery, many of the 

 finest specimens taken from the mounds of 

 E. Arkansas in all probability having been 

 made by this tribe. Their drum was 

 made by stretching skin over a large pot- 

 tery vessel. Du Poisson (1727) speaks 

 of their painted designs on skins. A 

 matachee, he says, "is a skin painted by 

 the Indians with different colors, and on 

 which they paint calumets, birds, and 

 animals. Those of thedeer serve as cloths 

 for the table, and those of the buffalo as 

 coverings forthe bed." Thesameauthor 

 describes their dress of ceremony as ' ' well 

 matache, that is having the body entirely 

 painted of different colors, with the tails 

 of wildcats hanging down from places 

 where we usually represent the wings of 

 Mercury, the calumet in their hands, and 

 on their bodies some little bells" (Kip, 

 Early Miss., 258, 1866). Their method of 

 disposing of their dead was by burial, 

 often in the floor of their houses, though 

 usually they were deposited in graves, 

 sometimes in mounds; sometimes the 

 body was strapped to a stake in a sitting 

 position and then carefully covered with 

 clay. Though polygamy was practised 

 to some extent, it was not common. 



The population of the Quapaw at the 

 time of De Soto's visit in 1541 must have 

 been considerable, as the number of those 

 of the village of Pacaha, who fled to the 

 island on the approach of the Spaniards, 

 is given as 5,000 or 6,000. Father Vivier 

 (1750) speaks of the "Akansas" as "an 

 Indian tribe of about 400 warriors," equal- 

 ing 1,400 to 1,600 souls (Kip, Early Miss., 

 318, 1866). Porter (Schoolcraft, Ind. 

 Tribes), gives 500 as their number in 1829. 

 In 1843 they numbered 476. In 1885 

 there were 120 on the Osage res. and 54 

 on the Quapaw res. ; and in 1890 the total 

 number on both reservations was given as 

 198. The population in 1909, including 

 all mixed-bloods, was 305, all under the 

 Seneca School superintendency, Ok la. 



The following are the gentes of the 

 Quapaw as obtained by J. O. Dorsey: 

 Zhawe ( beaver ) , Wazhingka ( small bird) , 

 Wasa (black bear), Te (buffalo), Petang 

 (crane), Nanpanta(deer), Shangke (dog), 



