When White Plume moved from the Agency the other Indians followed him. It was found unprofitable to maintain the Agency, and it was abandoned after 1832. The remainder of the population of the town at the mouth of the Blue had moved down the Kansas River by the year 1830. They had established three villages under the government of as many chiefs. Hard Chief had fixed his village, in 1830, about a mile above the mouth of what is now known as Mission Creek, on the south side of the river, from which his people carried their water. He had more than five hundred followers in his town. The American Chief's village was on American Chief Creek (now called Mission Creek). It was some two miles from the Kansas River, and on the creek bottom. The town consisted of twenty lodges and about one hundred Indians. This village was also established in 1830.⁵ They were built because Frederick Chouteau had told American Chief and Hard Chief that he would build a trading-house on the creek which he named American Chief Creek, for the chief who established his village on its banks. He did move there in 1830, and he and these two villages remained there until the removal of the tribe to the reservation at Council Grove. The other village established by the inhabitants of the town at the mouth of the Blue was that of Fool Chief. It was the largest, containing more than seven hundred people. It was on the north side of the river about a mile west of Papan's Ferry. The location of this town must be determined by that of the ferry at that time, something difficult to do. The town is said to have been immediately north of the present town of Menoken. That would have put it inside the bounds of the lands belonging to the tribe. White Plume must have settled near the town of the Fool Chief when he moved up from the Agency. But there was another Kansas Village. Little is known of it, and its location is not clear. The only information concerning it is given by Fremont, in 1842, as follows:

On Fremont's map this village is found to be on the Little Vermilion, a creek he delineates. But there is no such stream - and there never was. In what is now Pottawatomie County there is a Vermilion Creek. The Oregon Trail crossed it on what the official survey made section 24, township 9, range 10, two and one-half miles east of the present town of Louisville. There is where Fremont camped. From that point the Oregon Trail bore away from the Kansas River starting over the uplands for the Blue River. The Indian town was on the Vermilion below the crossing. Long's detachment to visit the village at the mouth of the Blue crossed the Vermilion. This crossing was on the Indian trail which led up the Kansas River. This village was probably where the Indian trail crossed the Vermilion. Its inhabitants no doubt fled to the lower towns when driven out by the Pawnees.

There is a question as to when the missionaries turned attention to the Kansas Indians. At the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held at St. Louis, Mo., in 1830, Rev. Thomas Johnson was appointed a missionary to the Shawnees, and his brother, Rev. William Johnson, was appointed missionary to the Kansas Indians. Rev. William Johnson seems to have gone at once to the tribe to which he was appointed. According to one statement of Frederick Chouteau the Kansas Agency in what is now Jefferson County was maintained until 1830; and by another statement he fixed the date at 1832. If the Agency was kept up until 1832, Mr. Johnson spent the first two years of his missionary life there. If Mr. Chouteau moved his trading-house to Mission Creek, in Shawnee County, in 1830, then it was there that Mr. Johnson began his missionary labors. The probability is that it was at the more western location that he established the first Kansas Indian Mission, in 1830. In 1832 he was sent as missionary to the Delawares, where he remained about two years. He received then his second appointment to the Kansas Indian Mission, in 1834. He arrived on Mission Creek at the Kansas towns early in the summer, and began work on the mission buildings. These were erected on the northwest corner of section 33, township 11, range 14 east. The principal building was a hewed-log house thirty-six feet long and eighteen feet wide. It was a two-story structure, having four rooms - two below and two above. There was a huge stone chimney at each end. The kitchen was of logs, and apart from the house. There was a smoke-house and other building.

William Johnson labored at this mission until April, 1842, when he died. He accomplished little, and his hard work bore little fruit in the savage minds and hearts of the Kansas Indians. They could not be prevailed on to labor for their own support. They would not plant and cultivate corn and other grains, nor raise cattle. They went into the settlements by the hundred to beg. Rev. Thomas Johnson, brother to the missionary William, on his way to the Kansas Mission in May, 1837, met four hundred to five hundred of these Indians on their way to the Missouri settlements to beg.

In 1844 the widow of William Johnson was married to Rev. J. T. Peery who was in that year sent to continue the work of Christianizing the Kansas Indians. Nothing of account was accomplished, and the school was discontinued. In 1846 the Kansas Indians were given a reservation at Council Grove. They soon removed to their new home. In 1850 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, put up, at Council Grove, what was the best mission building ever erected in Kansas. It was built by Rev. T. S. Huffaker, who was long connected with the Kansas tribe. It still stands, the finest specimen of the buildings of its time, quaint, massive, silent, a splendid monument to the fine spirit of the Church which labored long, zealously, but in vain to make Christians of intractable savages.

In 1851, Mr. Huffaker opened his school. As few or no Indian children would attend, he admitted the children of white settlers, employees of the commerce which rolled over the Santa Fe Trail. It was one of the first schools in Kansas to receive white children. In after years Mr. Huffaker was constrained to admit that all attempts to educate the Kansas Indian children had failed. And these Indians never gave any serious attention the Christian religion.

The Kansas Indians ceded to the United States an immense territory. They did not own so vast a tract. They never had possessed it. Much of it they had never even hunted over. It is very doubtful whether they even claimed some of the land they sold. The Government wished to extinguish the Indian title. Having purchased it from the Kansas Indians, no other tribe could set up a claim.

At St. Louis, on the 3d of June, 1825, the Kansas Indians ceded, by treaty of that date, the tract or territory described as follows:

To understand this cession it must be made plain that at that time the western line of Missouri was a north-and-south line through the mouth of the Kansas River. West of that line, north of the mouth of the Kansas, and east of the Missouri River, lay what are now Andrew, Atchison, Buchanan, Holt, Nodaway, and Platte counties, Missouri. These comprise the best body of land in Missouri. It was attached to that state in 1836.

As construed and mapped the treaty conveyed a tract of the best land in Nebraska, reaching from the Missouri to Red Cloud, and extending north at one point something more than forty miles, and including the present towns of Pawnee, Tecumseh, Beatrice, Fairbury, Geneva, Hebron, Nelson and many others.

This princely domain was cut off at the head of the Solomon, from where it reached down to within twelve miles of the Arkansas, northwest of Garden City. Thence it followed the divide to the Missouri line. It was nearly half the State of Kansas.

Out of this cession, however, there was set aside a reservation for the Kansas Indians, the grantors. This reservation was described as follows:

A tract of land to begin twenty leagues up the Kansas river, and to include their village on that river; extending West thirty miles in width, through the land ceded in the first Article.

There were twenty-three allotments to half-breeds, as has been noticed. The east line of this reservation was through the center of range 14, east, of the public survey made later, and nine miles west of the center of Topeka. It extended west three hundred miles and contained nine thousand square miles of the heart of Kansas. It was held by the Kansas Indians until 1846. On the 14th of January of that year they ceded two million acres off the east end of their tract, embracing the full thirty miles in width, and running west for quantity. It was provided that if the residue of their land should not afford sufficient timber for the use of the tribe, the Government should have all the reservation. This lack of timber was found to exist; thereupon the Government took over the entire Kansas reservation, and laid off another tract for the Indians. This tract was at Council Grove, and was about twenty miles square. It was supposed to lie immediately south of the lands of the Shawnees, but when surveyed it was found to encroach on the Shawnee reservation some six miles. To avoid complications, the Shawnees ceded this overlapped part in 1854. In 1859 the Kansas Indians made a treaty retaining a portion of their reservation - nine miles by fourteen miles - intact. The remainder was to be sold by the Government, and the money used for the benefit of the tribe. These lands were sold by acts of Congress, of May 8, 1872, June 23, 1874, July 5, 1876, and March 16, 1880. The tribe had in the meantime moved to a reservation in Oklahoma. The tract nine by fourteen miles was disposed of under the above named acts of Congress, and the money applied to the use of the tribe. And thus were the Kansas Indians divested of the last of their hereditary soil.

The Osage tribe is theoretically separated into twenty-one fireplaces. These fireplaces were grouped into three divisions -

1. The Seven Tsi-shu Fireplaces.
2. The Seven Xanka Fireplaces.
3. The Seven Osage Fireplaces (the Wa-sha-she Fireplaces).

Each fireplace is a gens, so the Osage tribe is composed of twenty-one gentes, or clans. When the two "sides" of the tribe were fixed - the War Side and the Peace Side - there were but fourteen gentes in the Nation. At that time the Osage camping circle, or tribal circle was adopted. Positions for the fourteen gentes were provided. The circle is shown as follows:

OSAGE CAMPING CIRCLE [From Fifteenth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology]

At some period after the adoption of this camping circle the tribe was enlarged by the admission of the Seven Hanka fireplaces. It was not practicable to enlarge the camping-circle, for it had of necessity. to contain an even number of fireplaces, that it should show an even balance of sides - each side an equal number of fireplaces. In making the adaptation of the tribe, as enlarged, to the old tribal circle, the seven Hanka gentes were counted as but five, and the seven Osage gentes were reckoned as only two.

In the tribal ceremonies it was the law that each fireplace should have a pipe, or be assigned a pipe, or to be in some way associated with or represented by a pipe. The Hanka brought in seven such pipes when it joined the tribe. The Wa-sha-she had seven of these pipes - One for each of their fireplaces. For some reason - yet unexplained - the Tsi-shu had no pipes of this nature. To remedy this defect, the Wa-sha-she, or Osage, gave their seventh ceremonial pipe to the Tsi-shu, with authority to the Tsi-shu to make for themselves seven pipes from it. The Wa-sha-she have now but six ceremonial pipes, though the ceremonies for the seventh are still retained.

The fourteen gentes represented in the Osage tribal circle, with their subgentes, are as follows:

1. Elder Tsi-shu, or Tsi-shu-wearing-a-tail (of hair) -on-the-head.

1. Sun and Comet People.
2. Wolf People.

2. Buffalo-bull face.

1. (Not known.)
2. Hide-with-the-hair-on.

3. Sun Carriers. Carry-the-sun (or Buffalo hides) -on-their-backs.

1. Sun People.
2. Swan People.

4. Tsi-shu Peacemaker, or Villagemaker, or Giver of Life.

1. Touches-no-blood, or Red Eagle.
2. Bald Eagle, or Sycamore People. The principal gens of the left side of the tribal circle.

5. Night People, or Tsi-shu-at-the-end.

1. Night People proper.
2. Black Bear People.

6. Buffalo Bull.

1. Buffalo Bull.
2. Reddish Buffalo. (Corresponds to the Yuqe of the Kansa.)

7. Thunder Being, or Camp-last, or Upper World People, or Mysterious Male being.

(Subgentes not ascertained.)

8. Elder Osage, or Wa-sha-she Wa-nun. This gens embraces six of the seven Wa-sha-she or Osage Fireplaces, as follows:

1. White Osage.
2. Turtle Carriers.
3. Tall Flags.
4. Deer Lights, or Deer People.
5. Fish People.
6. Turtle People. (Turtle-with-serrated-crest-along-the-shell. Possibly a mythical water monster.)

9. Real Eagle People, or Hanka-apart-from-the-rest. The War Eagle gens. One of the original Hanka Fireplaces.

The guards, policemen, or soldiers for the right side of the tribal circle are taken from the eight and ninth gentes.

10. Ponka Peacemaker. This is the principal gens on the right side of the tribe circle. It was one of the original seven Osage Fireplaces.

1. Pond Lily.
2. Dark Buffalo.

Or, as some say.

1. Flags.
2. Warrior-come-hither-after-touching-the-foe.
3. Red Cedar.

11. White Eagle People, or Hanka-having-wings.

1. Elder White Eagle People.
2. Those-wearing-four-locks-of-hair.

These Subgentes were two of the original seven Hanka Fireplaces.

12. Having Black Bears.

A. Wearing-a-tail-of-hair-on-the-head.

1. Black Bear.
2. (Meaning not ascertained.)

B. Wearing-four-locks-of-hair.

1. Swan.
2. Dried Pond Lily.

13. Elk.

One of the seven Hanka Fireplaces.

14. Kansa, or Holds-a-firebrand-to-the-sacred-pipes-in-order-to-light-them

Or, South Wind People.
Or, Wind People.
Or, Fire People.

Each of the divisions A and B of the twelfth gens were originally a Fireplace of the Hanka.

There are four divisions of the Osages which have not yet been identified, the -

1. Beaver People.
2. Crane People.
3. Owl People.
4. Earth People.

OSAGE INDIAN CHIEF [From Photograph Owned by William E. Connelley]

The religious beliefs of the Osages are similar to those of the Kansas and other Siouan tribes. The term Wakanda had almost the same meaning. There were seven great Wakanda - Darkness, the Upper World, the Ground, the Thunder-being, the Sun, the Moon, the Morning Star. The Upper World was perhaps the greatest of the Wakandas. In some of the tribes it was the supreme Wakanda. There, was no set form of worship of Wakanda. Every one thought Wakanda dwelt in some secret place. It was believed that the Wakanda, or some Wakanda was ever present to hear any petition or prayer for help. There were many forms of propitiation, or these may have been sometimes in the nature of invocations, such as the elevation and lowering of the arms, the presentation of the mouth-piece of the pipe, the emission of the smoke, the burning of cedar needles in the sweat house, the application of the major terms of kinship, ceremonial waiting, sacrifice and offerings, and the cutting of the body with knives.

The Osages call the Sun the "mysterious one of day," and pray to him as "grandfather." Prayer was always made toward the sun without regard to its position in the heavens. Here is a prayer.

"Ho, Mysterious Power, you who are the Sun! Here is tobacco! I wish to follow your course. Grant that it may be so! Cause me to meet whatever is good (i. e., for my advantage) and to give a wide berth to anything that may be to my injury or disadvantage. Throughout this island (the world) you regulate everything that moves, including human beings. When you decide for one that his last day on earth has come, it is so. It can not be delayed. Therefore, O Mysterious Power, I ask a favor of you."

The Pleiades, the constellation of the Three Deer (Belt of Orion), the Morning Star, the Small Star, the Bowl of the Dipper, are all Wakandas, and they are addressed as "Grandfather." "In the Osage traditions, cedar symbolizes the tree of life. When a woman is initiated into the secret society of the Osages, the officiating man of her gens gives her four sips of water, symbolizing, so they say, the river flowing by the tree of life, and then he rubs her from head to foot with cedar needles, three times in front, three times on her back, and three times on each side, twelve times in all, pronouncing the sacred name of Wakanda as he makes each pass."

These instances are given to aid in the formation of a proper conception of the Wakanda as regarded by the Osages. In the Siouan tongue "Wakandagi, as a noun, means a subterranean or water monster, a large horned reptile mentioned in the myths, and still supposed to dwell beneath the bluffs along the Missouri river."⁶

TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1 & 2
BIOGRAPHIES — VOLUMES 3, 4, & 5
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z

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