Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/168

157 OSAGES' CUATH TOTEM. 157 4 <* ago by the French traders who established trading points in this territory. It is a contraction of the proper name. History recites that the old men of this tribe, told of their coming from the northeast near the Great Lakes, and this is borna out by the fact of their using the same class of teats a3 the natives of the timber country, the only difference be- ing the Kansans used the buffalo skins to cover the tents instead of the bark of trees, and it is also con- ceded that the Kansas and Osaga tribes came to Qui- vira at the same time and in one body, but on their arrival, they divided into tv^^o bands, a3 did Abraham and Lot, the difference only is, that ths old patriarchs I>arted because they had so miny cattle that there was not sufBcient pasture for both of them in the same locality, whereas the tribes divided because there was too many of them to hunt the game in one confined territory. Again, it is authoritatively s'lated, that the Kansas and the Osages speak the sam? language, but the Pawnees and the Padoucas had each different dialects but all could readily comprehend by signs, which surprised Coronado and caused him to comment thereon in his commentaries. But to come back to the totem of the Kansas clan. They had a Black Eagle tattooed on their breasts right in the center; the Osages used the White Eagle to designate their band; then another branch had a deer, and still a fourth a Deer TaU. A peculiar thing about this totem was that they must not eat of the flesh 'of the animal represented or they would be in- jured in health or break out in sores. The books