Nearly a century elapsed between the time of La Harpe's visit to the country occupied by the Quapaw and the journey performed by Nuttall. On February 27, 1819, when the latter was ascending the Arkansas River, he wrote: "In the course of the day we passed the outlet of the bayou, or rather river, Meta, which diagonally traverses the Great Prairie, also two Indian villages on the south bank [of the Arkansas].... The first was the periodical residence of a handful of Choctaws, the other was occupied by the Quapaws." (Nuttall, (1), p. 91.) This was near the line between Lincoln and Desha Counties, Arkansas. Some distance beyond, apparently at some point in the present Jefferson County, on March 11, 1819, he saw other native villages, but whether occupied by Quapaw or some other tribe was not told. However, they were probably Quapaw settlements. On that day: "Passed Mr. Embree's, and arrived at Mr. Lewismore's. Six miles above, we also saw two Indian villages, opposite each of those settlements.... The Indians, unfortunately, are here, as usual, both poor and indolent, and alive to wants which they have not the power of gratifying. The younger ones are extremely foppish in their dress; covered with feathers, blazing calicoes, scarlet blankets, and silver pendants. Their houses, sufficiently convenient with their habits, are oblong square, and without any other furniture than baskets and benches, spread with skins for the purpose of rest and repose. The fire, as usual, is in the middle of the hut, which is constructed of strips of bark and cane, with doors also of the latter split and plaited together." (Op. cit., pp. 97-98.)
When returning down the Arkansas, on January 18, 1820, Nuttall evidently reached the Quapaw village which he had passed when ascending the stream during the preceding February. He wrote: "About noon we landed at one of the Quapaw or Osark villages, but found only three houses constructed of bark, and those unoccupied. In the largest of them, apparently appropriated to amusement and superstition, we found two gigantic painted wooden masks of Indians, and a considerable number of conic pelt caps, also painted. These, as we learnt from an Indian who came up to us from some houses below, were employed at festivals, and worn by the dancers.... At the entrance of the cabin, and suspended from the wall, there was a female figure, with a rudely carved head of wood painted with vermillion. Being hollow, and made of leather, we supposed it to be employed as a mask for one of the musicians, having in one hand a pendent ferule, as if for the purpose of beating a drum. In the spring and autumn the Quapaws have a custom of making a contribution dance, in which they visit also the whites, who live in the vicinity, and the chief alms which they crave is salt or articles of diet." The following day the party reached Arkansas Post. (Nuttall, (1), p. 223.)
This account of the ceremonial lodge, for such it undoubtedly was, of the Quapaw of a century ago, is most interesting, as it proves how the rapidly diminishing tribe held to their old customs. The tribe gradually disappeared from the lower Arkansas. The remnants of this once large body moved westward, and on August 11, 1853, some were encountered by the Whipple expedition in the extreme north west corner of the Choctaw Nation, on the right bank of the Canadian, where the Shawnee Hills reach to the river bank. There, on the "high bank of the Canadian, stand still some wigwams or rather log-houses of Quappa Indians, who may boast of not having yet quitted the land of their forefathers. But they have shrunk to a small band that cannot furnish above twenty-five warriors, and it would scarcely be supposed that they are all who are left of the once powerful tribe of the Arkansas, whose hunting grounds extended from the Canadian to the Mississippi." (Möllhausen, (1), I, p. 74.)
Probably no section of the country has revealed more traces of the period of aboriginal occupancy than has that part of the Mississippi Valley which extends southward from the Ohio to the Arkansas. This was the region traversed by the Quapaw during the latter part of their migration from their earlier habitat east of the Mississippi, and may have been occupied by them since the fifteenth century, or before. Many of the mound groups, village sites, and burial places occurring within this area may undoubtedly be justly attributed to the Quapaw. Vast quantities of earthenware vessels, of great variety of forms and sizes, have been recovered from the sites north of the Arkansas, and these often present marked characteristics differing from the ware found farther south. The Quapaw are known to have been skilled pottery makers. As already mentioned, Marquette, in 1673, referred to their "plates of baked earth," and also to the large earthen cooking vessels "of their own make." And in 1687 Joutel wrote of their earthen vessels "with which they drive a Trade." Therefore it is more than probable that much of the ancient pottery encountered in this part of the Mississippi Valley was made by this southern Siouan tribe. Many of the village sites discovered near the Mississippi, north of the Arkansas, were probably once occupied by the Quapaw who, by the latter part of the seventeenth century, had moved as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River, in the present Desha County. The earlier references to the tribe, those contained in the narratives of the De Soto expedition, 1541, mention the towns being protected by encircling embankments and ditches. The former were probably surmounted by palisades. The village or villages of this period probably stood on the bank of the Mississippi, and one may have occupied the interesting site at Avenue, in Phillips County, where some remarkable pottery vessels have been discovered. Other ancient sites in Lee and Crittenden Counties, north of Phillips, were possibly occupied by the same people at different times.
The position of the village of the Algonquian Michigamea, who lived north of the Quapaw, has not been determined.
chiwere group.
This group, so designated by the late Dr. J. O. Dorsey, includes three tribes, the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri, who spoke slightly different dialects of the same language. According to tribal traditions, they were, generations ago, allied and associated with the Winnebago, from whom they separated and scattered while living in the vicinity of the Great Lakes east of the Mississippi, where the Winnebago continued to dwell. It is not the purpose of the present sketch to trace the movements of the three tribes from their ancient habitat to the banks of the Mississippi, thence westward to the Missouri and beyond, but the routes followed in their migrations can be fairly accurately determined by comparing their own statements and traditions with early historical records, and it is quite probable that many village sites now discovered within this region were once occupied by some members of these tribes.
While living east of the Mississippi in a region of lakes and streams surrounded by vast forests, their habitations were undoubtedly the bark or mat covered structures, but when some moved far west and came in contact with tribes beyond the Missouri they evidently learned the art of constructing the earth-covered lodge which they soon began to occupy. Likewise when and where the skin tipi first became known to them is not possible to determine, but probably not until they had reached the valley of the Missouri and were nearing the banks of that stream north of the Kansas.
Iowa.
On September 15, 1819, the expedition under command of Maj. Stephen H. Long arrived at the mouth of Papillion Creek, on the right bank of the Missouri a few miles above the Platte, a site now covered by the city of Omaha, Nebraska. In the narrative of the expedition it is said that at the mouth of the Papillion "we found two boats belonging to the Indian traders at St Louis. They had passed us some days before, and were to remain for the winter at the mouth of the Papillion, to trade with the Otoes, Missouries, and other Indians.