> Witchitas, Buschmann, ibid., (same as his Washita).
Derivation: From the Caddo term ka´-ede, signifying “chief” (Gatschet).
The Pawnee and Caddo, now known to be of the same linguistic family, were supposed by Gallatin and by many later writers to be distinct, and accordingly both names appear in the Archæologia Americana as family designations. Both names are unobjectionable, but as the term Caddo has priority by a few pages preference is given to it.
Gallatin states “that the Caddoes formerly lived 300 miles up Red River but have now moved to a branch of Red River.” He refers to the Nandakoes, the Inies or Tachies, and the Nabedaches as speaking dialects of the Caddo language.
Under Pawnee two tribes were included by Gallatin: The Pawnees proper and the Ricaras. The Pawnee tribes occupied the country on the Platte River adjoining the Loup Fork. The Ricara towns were on the upper Missouri in latitude 46° 30'. The boundaries of the Caddoan family, as at present understood, can best be given under three primary groups, Northern, Middle, and Southern.
[Northern group.—]This comprises the Arikara or Ree, now confined to a small village (on Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota,) which they share with the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes of the Siouan family. The Arikara are the remains of ten different tribes of “Paneas,” who had been driven from their country lower down the Missouri River (near the Ponka habitat in northern Nebraska) by the Dakota. In 1804 they were in three villages, nearer their present location.[21]
According to Omaha tradition, the Arikara were their allies when these two tribes and several others were east of the Mississippi River.[22] Fort Berthold Reservation, their present abode, is in the northwest corner of North Dakota.
[Middle group.—]This includes the four tribes or villages of Pawnee, the Grand, Republican, Tapage, and Skidi. Dunbar says: “The original hunting ground of the Pawnee extended from the Niobrara,” in Nebraska, “south to the Arkansas, but no definite boundaries can be fixed.” In modern times their villages have been on the Platte River west of Columbus, Nebraska. The Omaha and Oto were sometimes southeast of them near the mouth of the Platte, and the Comanche were northwest of them on the upper part of one of the branches of the Loup Fork.[23] The Pawnee were removed to Indian Territory in 1876. The Grand Pawnee and Tapage did not wander far from their habitat on the Platte. The Republican Pawnee separated from the Grand about the year 1796, and made a village on a “large northwardly branch of the Kansas River, to which they have given their name; afterwards they subdivided, and lived in different parts of the country on the waters of Kansas River. In 1805 they rejoined the Grand Pawnee.” The Skidi (Panimaha, or Pawnee Loup), according to Omaha tradition,[24] formerly dwelt east of the Mississippi River, where they were the allies of the Arikara, Omaha, Ponka, etc. After their passage of the Missouri they were conquered by the Grand Pawnee, Tapage, and Republican tribes, with whom they have remained to this day. De L’Isle[25] gives twelve Panimaha villages on the Missouri River north of the Pani villages on the Kansas River.
[Southern group.—]This includes the Caddo, Wichita, Kichai, and other tribes or villages which were formerly in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Indian Territory.