The Kaws are among the wildest of the American aborigines, but are an intelligent and interesting people. Descent, inheritance and marriage regulations among them are the same as among the Punkas. It will be observed that there are two Eagle gentes, and two of the Deer, which afford a good illustration of the segmentation of a gens; the Eagle gens having probably divided into two and distinguished themselves by the names of white and black. The Turtle will be found hereafter as a further illustration of the same fact. When I visited the Missouri tribes in 1859 and 1860, I was unable to reach the Osages and Quappas. The eight tribes thus named speak closely affiliated dialects of the Dakotian stock language, and the presumption that the Osages and Quappas are organized in gentes is substantially conclusive. In 1869, the Kaws, then much reduced, numbered seven hundred, which would give an average of but fifty persons to a gens. The home country of these several tribes was along the Missouri and its tributaries from the mouth of the Big Sioux river to the Mississippi, and down the west bank of the latter river to the Arkansas.

3. Winnebagoes. When discovered this tribe resided near the lake of their name in Wisconsin. An offshoot from the Dakotian stem, they were apparently following the track of the Iroquois eastward to the valley of the St. Lawrence, when their further progress in that direction was arrested by the Algonkin tribes between Lakes Huron and Superior. Their nearest affiliation is with the Missouri tribes. They have eight gentes as follows:

1. Wolf.2. Bear.3. Buffalo.4. Eagle.
5. Elk.6. Deer.7. Snake.8. Thunder.[156]

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same among them as among the Punkas. It is surprising that so many tribes of this stock should have changed descent from the female line to the male, because when first known the idea of property was substantially undeveloped, or but slightly beyond the germinating stage, and could hardly, as among the Greeks and Romans, have been the operative cause. It is probable that it occurred at a recent period under American and missionary influences. Carver found traces of descent in the female line in 1787 among the Winnebagoes. “Some nations,” he remarks, “when the dignity is hereditary, limit the succession to the female line. On the death of a chief his sisters’ son succeeds him in preference to his own son; and if he happens to have no sister the nearest female relation assumes the dignity. This accounts for a woman being at the head of the Winnebago nation, which, before I was acquainted with their laws, appeared strange to me.”[157] In 1869, the Winnebagoes numbered fourteen hundred, which would give an average of one hundred and fifty persons to the gens.

4. Upper Missouri Tribes.

1. Mandans. In intelligence and in the arts of life the Mandans were in advance of all their kindred tribes, for which they were probably indebted to the Minnitarees. They are divided into seven gentes as follows:

1. Wolf.2. Bear.3. Prairie Chicken.4. Good Knife.
5. Eagle.6. Flathead.7. High Village.[158]

Descent is in the female line, with office and property hereditary in the gens. Intermarriage in the gens is not permitted. Descent in the female line among the Mandans would be singular where so many tribes of the same stock have it in the male, were it not in the archaic form from which the other tribes had but recently departed. It affords a strong presumption that it was originally in the female line in all the Dakotian tribes. This information with respect to the Mandans was obtained at the old Mandan Village in the Upper Missouri, in 1862, from Joseph Kip, whose mother was a Mandan woman. He confirmed the fact of descent by naming his mother’s gens, which was also his own.

2. Minnitarees. This tribe and the Upsarokas (Up-sar′-o-kas) or Crows, are subdivisions of an original people. They are doubtful members of this branch of the Ganowánian family: although from the number of words in their dialects and in those of the Missouri and Dakota tribes which are common, they have been placed with them linguistically. They have had an antecedent experience of which but little is known. Minnitarees carried horticulture, the timber-framed house, and a peculiar religious system into this area which they taught to the Mandans. There is a possibility that they are descendants of the Mound-Builders. They have the seven following gentes:

1. Knife.2. Water.3. Lodge.
4. Prairie Chicken.5. Hill People.6. Unknown Animal.
7. Bonnet.[159]