Omaha sociology (1884 N 03 / 1881-1882 (pages 205-370))

Transcriber's Note:
The letters a-i, upper case and lower case, enclosed in square brackets are script font. All other letters enclosed in square brackets are rotated 180 degress.
Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-82, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 205-370.
The following have the ordinary English sounds: b, d, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, y, and z. A superior n ( n ) after a vowel nasalizes it. A plus sign (+) after any letter prolongs it.
With the exception of the five letters taken from Riggs' Dakota Dictionary, and used only in the Dakota words in this paper, the above letters belong to the alphabet adopted by the Bureau of Ethnology.
OMAHA SOCIOLOGY. By J. Owen Dorsey.
§ 3. The real name of the Omahas is Uma n ha n . It is explained by a tradition obtained from a few members of the tribe. When the ancestors of the Omahas, Ponkas, Osages, and several other cognate tribes traveled down the Ohio to its mouth, they separated on reaching the Mississippi. Some went up the river, hence the name Uma n ha n , from ʞíma n ha n , to go against the wind or stream. The rest went down the river, hence the name Ugáqpa or Kwápa, from ugáqpa or ugáha, to float down the stream.
The tribes that went up the Mississippi were the Omahas, Ponkas, Osages, and Kansas. Some of the Omahas remember a tradition that their ancestors once dwelt at the place where Saint Louis now stands; and the Osages and Kansas say that they were all one people, inhabiting an extensive peninsula, on the Missouri River.
Subsequently, these tribes ranged through a territory, including Osage, Gasconade, and other adjacent counties of the State of Missouri, perhaps most of the country lying between the Mississippi and the Osage Rivers. The Iowas were near them; but the Omahas say that the Otos and Missouris were not known to them. The Iowa chiefs, however, have a tradition that the Otos were their kindred, and that both tribes, as well as the Omahas and Ponkas, were originally Winnebagos. A recent study of the dialects of the Osages, Kansas, and Kwapas discloses remarkable similarities which strengthen the supposition that the Iowas and Otos, as well as the Missouris, were of one stock.