42 Bringier on the Region of the Mississippi, ^c, 



not look so well as the Quawpaws, who have a custom pe- 

 cuhar to them alone, to distinguish the women from the girls, 

 by the different manner in which they put up their hair. 

 These Quawpaws have four small villages, two hundred 

 and sixty miles below the Cherokees, on the south bank of 

 the Arkansas, extending along the bank as low as the post. 

 Although they have been better than one hundred years 

 with the French hunters, they are precisely in their primi- 

 tive savage state ; and what is strange, most of the French 

 hunters who have lived with them, are nearly savages like 

 them. These Indians are very mild; and, in every re- 

 spect, the best savages in the world, though very miserable, 

 and in all other respects they resemble the Osages. 



Anecdote. 



A trait of magnanimity worth figuring in the annals of the 

 aboriginal American heroes, is evinced in the following act 

 of Kaykay Watonica, one of the ancient chiefs of the Quaw- 

 paw Indians. The fact occurred about the time when the 

 French first came on the Arkansas river, which French gave 

 a common name to all the tribes on that river. 



This chief leading a party of one hundred and twenty 

 Quawpaws,* in pursuit of the Chekessas, overtook them at 

 the mouth of St. Francis river. This party consisted of 

 two hundred and sixty men, who were making all speed to 

 cross the river in order to avoid an engagement. Kaykay 

 Watonica taxed the Cliekessas with cowardice ; they replied 

 that they could not make defence, as their powder had got 

 wet. Well, said Kaykay Watonica, send yours here ; we 

 have some which is dry, it is not enough to share with you, 

 but we will mix the whole together, and then we will share. 

 This was done accordingly — all the horns were emptied on 



"* When Mr. Lasalle,nncl after him, Mr. Delatharpe, first came on the Ar- 

 kansas river in 1(517, lliey found it inhabited by flie Quawpa\rs, the IVnsu- 

 nites, the Sacks, the Cherokees, and the Kansas, who were the first tribc^' 

 they met with. They called the river cles Kansas, wliicli meant the river ot 

 the Kansas, and all the other tribes were named after the river. As these 

 Indians made very fine bows with the bow wood mentioned before, whicii 

 g^rows on this river, their bows were in great demand araonj^st the othei' 

 tribes, wlio generally gave a good horse for one (<f them. So a Kansa? 

 bow was something of imf)ortance, which makes .^rckansas in French. The 

 river took the full name, and all the Indians of course : hence tin- Qnaw 

 paws and Arkansas are synonimons. 



