Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi

by David I. Bushnell

On the plan of the ancient settlement which stood many generations ago are several interesting features in addition to the outline of the oval habitation. North of the space once occupied by the dwelling are many comparatively large caches, with fireplaces between. On the opposite side of the structure were encountered 30 burials, representing children and adults. It would be of the greatest interest at the present time to discover the exact location of one of the Osage villages of a century ago, and to determine the position of the caches and burials, if any exist, in relation to the sites of the habitations.

About the time of Schoolcraft's journey through the Ozarks another traveler went up the valley of the Arkansas, and when far west of the Mississippi came in contact with the Osage. Nuttall, on July 15, 1819, wrote: "The first village of the Osages lies about 60 miles from the mouth of the Verdigris, and is said to contain 7 or 800 men and their families. About 60 miles further, on the Osage River, is situated the village of the chief called White Hair. The whole of the Osages are now, by governor Clark, enumerated at about 8000 souls. At this time nearly the whole town, men, and women, were engaged in their summer hunt, collecting bison tallow and meat. The principal chief is called by the French Clarmont, although his proper name is the Iron bird, a species of Eagle." (Nuttall, (1), p. 173.) Under date of August 5, 1819, he referred to the women of the tribe, saying: "It is to their industry and ingenuity, that the men owe every manufactured article of their dress, as well as every utensil in their huts. The Osage women appear to excel in these employments. Before the Cherokees burnt down their town on the Verdigris, their houses were chiefly covered with hand-wove matts of bulrushes. Their baskets and bed matts of this material were parti-coloured and very handsome. This manufacture, I am told, is done with the assistance of three sticks, arranged in some way so as to answer the purpose of a loom, and the strands are inlaid diagonally. They, as well as the Cherokees and others, frequently take the pains to unravel old blankets and cloths, and reweave the yarn into belts and garters." (Op. cit., pp. 192-193.)

Evidently it was not the custom of the Osage to entirely abandon their villages when they went on their periodical hunts. Some remained, either through choice or necessity. In the above quotation Nuttall spoke of "nearly the whole town" being absent on their summer hunt, and one very familiar with the habits of the tribe said: "The Osages and Kansas live in villages, which, even during the hunting seasons, are never wholly abandoned, as in the case with several tribes settled on the Missouri." (Hunter, (1), p. 334.) Regarding the general appearance of the villages: "Their lodges are built promiscuously, in situations to please their respective proprietors: they are arranged to neither streets nor alleys, and are sometimes so crowded, as to render the passage between them difficult."

That some of the Osage constructed very long structures is told by Morse, but if the dimensions given in his account are accurate they refer to the unusual rather than to the usual form of habitation erected by members of that tribe. He said: "The Osages of the Arkansaw occupy several villages. The principal village contains about three hundred lodges or huts, and about three thousand souls. The lodges are generally from fifty to a hundred feet in length; and irregularly arranged, they cover a surface of about half a mile square. They are constructed of posts, matting, bark and skins. They have neither floors nor chimneys. The fire is built on the ground, in the centre of the lodge, and the family, and the guests, sit around in a circle, upon skins or mats." (Morse, (1), p. 219.) These various statements appear grossly exaggerated, and on page 225 of the same work appears the statement that "Their villages are nothing more than what they can remove on the shortest notice, one horse being capable of carrying house, household furniture, and children all at one load." Morse included in his notes on the Osage several letters written by missionaries then working among the tribe. One communication from Dr. Palmer, dated at Union, March 18, 1820, contained a note on their habitations: "Their houses are made of poles, arched from fifteen to twenty feet, covered by matting made of flags. At the sides they set up rived planks, lining the inside with neatly made flagg matting. They build several fires in the lodge, according to its size, or the number of wives the owner has. For a fire-place, they dig a hole about as big as a bushel-basket, leaving the smoke to ascend through a hole in the roof. Around the fire they spread their mats to sit or eat." And when visiting the settlement, "Having entered the lodge, and had our horses turned out, we took a humble seat around the fire. Presently there was brought to us a wooden bowl, filled with food made of corn. In a short time we were invited to eat at another lodge, and before we had finished, at another, and another." And another letter, from W. C. Requa, dated February 3, 1822, told of the native dwellings. He wrote at that time: "I live at present among the Osages, at one of their villages about fifty miles from Union. This unhappy people live in low huts, covered with long grass or flag, but so badly put together that they leak considerably in a storm of rain. They have very little furniture, merely a few pots or kettles in which they boil their provisions. The art of cooking their meat in any other way than boiling is unknown among them, except roasting it on a stick before the fire. They have very little variety in their food. Wild game, corn, dried pumpkins, and beans constitute about all on which they subsist. With this, however, they are contented. They have wooden bowls, out of which they eat, drink, wash themselves." (Op. cit., pp. 227-233.) Union, where the two communications were written, was probably Union Agency, which stood on the right bank of the Arkansas River, just southwest of Fort Gibson, in the present Muskogee County, Oklahoma. The settlement "about fifty miles from Union" may have been on the Verdigris, near the center of the present Rogers County, Oklahoma.

An interesting description of a deserted camp of the Osage was prepared by Irving, as it appeared, standing near the banks of the Arkansas, October 11, 1832. On that day, so he wrote: "We came in sight of the Arkansas. It presented a broad and rapid stream, bordered by a beach of fine sand, overgrown with willows and cotton-wood trees. Beyond the river, the eye wandered over a beautiful champaign country, of flowery plains and sloping uplands.... Not far from the river, on an open eminence, we passed through the recently deserted camping place of an Osage war party. The frames of their tents or wigwams remained, consisting of poles bent into an arch, with each end stuck into the ground; these are intertwined with twigs and branches, and covered with bark and skins. Those experienced in Indian lore, can ascertain the tribe, and whether on a hunting or warlike expedition, by the shape and disposition of the wigwams. Beatte pointed out to us, in the present skeleton camp, the wigwam in which the chiefs had held their consultations round the council fire; and an open area, well trampled down, on which the grand war-dance had been performed." (Irving, W., (1), pp. 38-39.) The frames probably resembled the example shown in plate [32], a.

This mention of a dance by Irving suggests the description of a ceremony witnessed at the village of the Little Osage during the same year. The account of a "war-dance" was prepared July 25, 1832: "Much of the ceremony consisted in a sort of dancing march round the streets of the village between their lodges.... In their marching round the settlement, the warriors were followed by a band of musicians, some drumming on a piece of deer skin, stretched over the head of a keg, and others singing their wild songs. Among the retinue I observed a great many youths, who appeared to be young disciples, catching the spirit of their seniors and fathers. Another group followed, who appeared to be mourners, crying for vengeance on their enemies, to reward them for the death of some relative." (Colton, (1), pp. 299-300.)

A brief but interesting sketch of the manners and ways of life of the Osage of a century ago is to be found in Morse's work already quoted. Although the notes were prepared to apply to several neighboring tribes, they referred primarily to the tribe now being discussed. First speaking of their gardens: "They raise annually small crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins, these they cultivate entirely with the hoe, in the simplest manner. Their crops are usually planted in April, and receive one dressing before they leave their villages for the summer hunt, in May. About the first week in August they return to their villages and gather their crops, which have been left unhoed and unfenced all the season. Each family, if lucky, can save from ten to twenty bags of corn and beans, of a bushel and a half each; besides a quantity of dried pumpkins. On this they feast, with the dried meat saved in the summer, till September, when what remains is cashed, and they set out on the fall hunt, from which they return about Christmas. From that time, till some time in February or March, as the season happens to be mild or severe, they stay pretty much in their villages, making only short hunting excursions occasionally, and during that time they consume the greater part of their cashes. In February or March the spring hunt commences; first the bear, and then the beaver hunt. This they pursue till planting time, when they again return to their village, pitch their crops, and in May set out for the summer hunt, taking with them their residue, if any, of their corn, &c. This is the circle of an Osage life, here and there indented with war and trading expeditions; and thus it has been, with very little variation, these twelve years past." (Morse, (1), pp. 203-205.)

The cornfields were left without watchers and were probably often destroyed by roving parties of the enemy or by wild beasts. On August 18, 1820, a hunter belonging to a division of the Long expedition "returned with the information of his having discovered a small field of maize, occupying a fertile spot at no great distance from the camp, it exhibited proofs of having been lately visited by the cultivators; a circumstance which leads us to believe that an ascending column of smoke seen at a distance this afternoon, proceeded from an encampment of Indians, whom, if not a war party, we should now rejoice to meet. We took the liberty, agreeable to the custom of the Indians, of procuring a mess of corn, and some small but nearly ripe watermelons, that were also found growing there, intending to recompense the Osages for them, to whom we supposed them to belong." The following morning, August 19, they encountered several small cornfields near a creek along which they were passing, and that day discovered "an Indian camp, that had a more permanent aspect than any we had before seen near this river. The boweries were more completely covered, and a greater proportion of bark was used in the construction of them. They are between sixty and seventy in number. Well worn traces or paths lead in various directions from this spot, and the vicinity of the cornfields induce the belief that it is occasionally occupied by a tribe of Indians, for the purpose of cultivation as well as of hunting." (James, (1), II, pp. 220-221.)

The encampment just mentioned may have resembled the one described by Schoolcraft the preceding year, though many miles away in the heart of the Ozarks.

Although it is quite probable that hunting parties of the Osage, during their wanderings, reached all parts of the Ozarks, and occupied camps on banks of many streams in distant regions far away from their more permanent villages, nevertheless all sites do not present the same characteristic features. Thus in the central and eastern sections of the hill country, as in the valleys of the Gasconade and its tributary, the Piney, and along the courses of the streams farther eastward quantities of fragmentary pottery are to be found scattered over the surface of the many village and camp sites, and here it may be remarked that seldom are traces of a settlement not to be discovered at the junction of two streams, however small or large they may be.