CHAPTER XXIII
STANDING BEAR SEEKS A HOME (1877-1880)
THE INDIAN WHO WON THE WHITE MAN'S VERDICT
The Ponca Indians were members of the large Siouan family. They had not always been a separate tribe. In the old days they and the Omahas and the Kansas and the Osages had lived together as Omahas, near the mouth of the Osage River in eastern Nebraska.
Soon they divided, and held their clan names of Poncas, Omahas, Kansas and Osages.
The Poncas and Omahas clung as allies. Finally the Poncas remained by themselves, low down on the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska.
When the captains, Lewis and Clark, met some of them, the tribe had been cut by the small-pox to only some two hundred people. They never have been a big people. Their number today, about eight hundred and fifty, is as large as ever in their history.
