Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/163

 SECT. IV.] BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC. 127 to the hundredth degree of west longitude, on a breadth of forty-five to fifty miles. The territory allotted to the Chero- kees, the Creeks, and the Choctavvs, lies south of that of the Osage, extending in longitude from 94° 20' to 100°, and in lati- tude from the thirty-seventh degree to the Red River, the course of which in that quarter is east and west, between the thirty- third and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude. The Kansas, who have always lived on the river of that name, have been at peace with the Osage for the last thirty years, and intermarry with them. They amount to fifteen hundred souls, and occupy a tract of about three millions of acres, in about the thirty-ninth degree of north latitude, and ninety-sixth to ninety-eighth degree of west longitude. The five other tribes of this subdivision are the Ioways or Pafwja, (Grey Snow), the Missouris or Neojehe, the Ottoes or Wahtootahtah, the Omahaws or Mafias, and the Puncas. The Osages consider themselves the aborigines; but the tradi- tion of these five tribes is, that at a distant epoch they, together with the Winnebagoes, came from the north ; that the Winne- bagoes stopped on the banks of Lake Michigan, while they, continuing their course southerly, crossed the Mississippi, and occupied the seats in which they were found by the Europeans. The Ioways are mentioned, perhaps erroneously, by the first French missionaries, as living east of the Mississippi. It is certain that they were driven away from the banks of that river by the Sauks and Foxes, with whom they have contracted an alliance which borders on submission. Their principal seats are north of the river Des Moines ; but a portion have joined the Ottoes, and are said, though the fact is not fully ascertained, to speak the same dialect. The Missouris were originally settled at the junction of the river of that name with the Mississippi. They were driven away by the Illinois, were found in the year 1724 by M. Bourgmont settled on the Missouri, about two hundred miles above its mouth, near the place where the French fort Orleans stood, and have since joined the Ottoes, with whom they are intermixed, and speak the same dialect. The Ottoes and the Omahaws, after several changes in their villages, now occupy the territory on the southwest side of the Missouri, above and below the mouth of the river Platte ; the Omahaws on the north, and the Ottoes on the south side of that river. They speak kindred though different dialects. The