Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi Part 1

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

by David Ives Bushnell.

PREFACE

When Louisiana became a part of the United States the great wilderness to the westward of the Mississippi was the home of many native tribes, or groups of tribes, retaining their primitive manners and customs, little influenced by contact with Europeans. Their villages were scattered along the water courses or skirted the prairies, over which roamed vast herds of buffalo, these serving to attract the Indians and to supply many of their wants--food, raiment, and covering for their shelters. But so great are the changes wrought within a century that now few buffalo remain, the Indian in his primitive state has all but vanished, and even the prairies have been altered in appearance. The early accounts of the region contain references to the native camps and villages, their forms and extent, tell of the manner in which the habitations were constructed, and relate how some were often removed from place to place. Extracts from the various narratives are now brought together, thus to describe the homes and ways of life of the people who once claimed and occupied a large section of the present United States.

THE TRIBES AND THEIR HABITAT.

The country occupied by the tribes belonging to the three linguistic groups whose villages are now to be described extended from south of the Arkansas northward to and beyond the Canadian boundary, and from the Mississippi across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains. It thus embraced the western section of the valley of the Mississippi, including the entire course of the Missouri, the hilly regions bordering the rivers, and the vast rolling prairies. The climatic conditions were as varied as were the physiographical features, for, although the winters in the south were comparatively mild, in the north they were long and severe.

The three linguistic families to be considered are the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan. Many Algonquian and Siouan tribes formerly lived east of the Mississippi, and their villages have already been described (Bushnell, (1)),[1] but within historic times all Caddoan tribes appear to have occupied country to the westward of the river, although it is not improbable that during earlier days they may have had villages beyond the eastern bank of the stream, the remains of which exist.

[1] For citation of references throughout this bulletin, _see_ "Authorities cited," p. 186.

The Algonquians included in this account comprise princ.i.p.ally the three groups which may be termed the western division of the great linguistic family. These are: (1) The Blackfoot confederacy, composed of three confederated tribes, the Siksika or Blackfeet proper, the Piegan, and the Kainah or Bloods; (2) the Arapaho, including several distinct divisions, of which the Atsina, or Gros Ventres of the Prairie, who were closely allied with the Blackfeet, were often mentioned; (3) the Cheyenne, likewise forming various groups or divisions. Belonging to the same great family were the Cree or Kristinaux, whose habitat was farther north, few living south of the Canadian boundary; also the Ojibway, whose villages were scattered northward from the upper waters of the Mississippi. Some Sauk later lived west of the Mississippi, as did bands of the Foxes and some of the Illinois tribes.

The Siouan tribes were among the most numerous and powerful on the continent, and those to be mentioned on the following pages belonged to several clearly defined groups. As cla.s.sified in the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico,[2] these include:

[2] Bull. 30, Bur. Amer. Ethn., part 2, p. 579.

I. Dakota-a.s.siniboin group: 1, Mdewakanton; 2, Wahpekute (forming, with the Mdewakanton, the Santee); 3, Sisseton; 4, Wahpeton; 5, Yankton; 6, Yanktonai; 7, Teton--(a) Sichangu or Brules, (b) Itazipcho or Sans Arcs, (c) Sihasapa or Blackfeet, (d) Miniconjou, (e) Oohenonpa or Two Kettles, (f) Oglala, (g) Hunkpapa; 8, a.s.siniboin.

II. Dhegiha group: 1, Omaha; 2, Ponca; 3, Quapaw; 4, Osage--(a) Pahatsi, (b) Utschta, (c) Santsukhdhi; 5, Kansa.

III. Chiwere group: 1, Iowa; 2, Oto; 3, Missouri.

IV. Winnebago.

V. Mandan.

VI. Hidatsa group: 1, Hidatsa; 2, Crows.

The Caddoan family is less clearly defined than either of the preceding, but evidently consisted of many small tribes grouped, and forming confederacies. Those to be mentioned later include: (1) The Arikara; (2) the p.a.w.nee confederacy, composed of four tribes--(a) Chaui or Grand p.a.w.nee, (b) Kitkehahki or Republican p.a.w.nee, (c) Pitahauerat or Tapage p.a.w.nee, (d) Skidi or Wolf p.a.w.nee; (3) the Wichita confederacy, including the Waco and various small tribes; (4) the Caddo proper.

Although the latter are included in the same linguistic group with the Arikara, p.a.w.nee, and others as mentioned above, they are regarded by some as const.i.tuting a distinct linguistic stock.

During the years following the close of the Revolution, the latter part of the eighteenth century, many tribes, or rather the remnants of tribes, then living east of the Mississippi, sought a refuge in the West beyond the river. Many settled on the streams in the southern part of the present State of Missouri and northern Arkansas, and, as stated by Stoddard when writing about the year 1810: "A considerable number of Delawares, Shawanese, and Cherokees, have built some villages on the waters of the St. Francis and White Rivers. Their removal into these quarters was authorized by the Spanish government, and they have generally conducted themselves to the satisfaction of the whites. Some stragglers from the Creeks, Chocktaws, and Chickasaws, who are considered as outlaws by their respective nations, have also established themselves on the same waters; and their disorders and depredations among the white settlers are not unfrequent." (Stoddard, (1), pp.

210-211.) And at about the same time another writer, referring to the same region, said: "Below the Great Osage, on the waters of the Little Osage, Saint Francis, and other streams, are a number of scattered bands of Indians, and two or three considerable villages. These bands were princ.i.p.ally Indians, who were formerly outcasts from the tribes east of the Mississippi. Numbers have since joined from the Delawares, Shawanoes, Wayondott, and other tribes towards the lakes. Their warriors are said to be five or six hundred. They have sometimes made excursions and done mischief on the Ohio river, but the settlements on the Mississippi have suffered the most severely by their depredations."

(Cutler, (1), p. 120.)

No attempt will be made in the present work to describe the habitations or settlements occupied by the scattered bands just mentioned.

It is quite evident that during the past two or three centuries great changes have taken place in the locations of the tribes which were discovered occupying the region west of the Mississippi by the first Europeans to penetrate the vast wilderness. Thus the general movement of many Siouan tribes has been westward, that of some Algonquian groups southward from their earlier habitats, and the Caddoan appear to have gradually gone northward. It resulted in the converging of the tribes in the direction of the great prairies occupied by the vast herds of buffalo which served to attract the Indian. Until the beginning of this tribal movement it would seem that a great region eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains, the rolling prairie lands, was not the home of any tribes but was solely the range of the buffalo and other wild beasts, which existed in numbers now difficult to conceive.

THE BUFFALO.

(_Bison america.n.u.s_.)

With the practical extermination of the buffalo in recent years, and the rapid changes which have taken place in the general appearance of the country, it is difficult to picture it as it was two or more centuries ago. While the country continued to be the home of the native tribes game was abundant, and the buffalo, in prodigious numbers, roamed over the wide region from the Rocky Mountains to near the Atlantic. It is quite evident, and easily conceivable, that wherever the buffalo was to be found it was hunted by the people of the neighboring villages, princ.i.p.ally to serve as food. But the different parts of the animal were made use of for many purposes, and, as related in an early Spanish narrative, one prepared nearly four centuries ago, when referring to "the oxen of Quivira ... Their masters have no other riches nor substance: of them they eat, they drink, they apparel, they shooe themselves: and of their hides they make many things, as houses, shooes, apparell and ropes: of their bones they make bodkins: of their sinews and haire, threed: of their hornes, maws, and bladders, vessels: of their dung, fire: and of their calves-skinnes, budgets, wherein they drawe and keepe water. To bee short, they make so many things of them as they neede of, or as many as suffice them in the use of this life."

(Gomara, (1), p. 382.) A crude engraving of a buffalo made at that time is reproduced in figure 1.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--The buffalo of Gomara, 1554]

The preceding account describes the customs of the people then living in the southern part of the region treated in the present sketch, either a Caddoan or a neighboring tribe or group, and it suggests another reference to the great importance of the buffalo, but applying to the tribes of the north more than three centuries later.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE SOUTHWESTERN PRAIRIES"

J. M. Stanley, 1845]

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BUFFALO HUNT"

Carl Wimar, 1860]

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BUFFALO HUNTING ON THE FROZEN SNOW"

Peter Rindisbacher, about 1825]

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: _a._ "A Buffalo Pound." Paul Kane, 1845]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _b._ Scene in a Sioux village, about 1870. Photograph by S. J. Morrow]

"The animals inhabiting the Dakota country, and hunted more or less by them for clothing, food, or for the purposes of barter, are buffalo, elk, black- and white-tailed deer, big-horn, antelope, wolves of several kinds, red and gray foxes, a few beaver and otter, grizzly bear, badger, skunk, porcupine, rabbits, muskrats, and a few panthers in the mountainous parts. Of all those just mentioned the buffalo is most numerous and most necessary to their support. Every part of this animal is eaten by the Indian except the horns, hoofs, and hair, even the skin being made to sustain life in times of great scarcity. The skin is used to make their lodges and clothes, the sinews for bowstrings, the horns to contain powder, and the bones are wrought into various domestic implements, or pounded up and boiled to extract the fatty matter. In the proper season, from the beginning of October until the 1st of March, the skins are dressed with the hair remaining on them, and are either worn by themselves or exchanged with the traders." (Hayden, (1), p. 371.)

In the early days the tribes who occupied a region frequented by or in the vicinity of the range of the buffalo could and undoubtedly did kill sufficient numbers to satisfy their various wants and requirements, but hunting was made more easy in later times when horses were possessed by the Indian. Then it became possible for the bands of hunters, or even the entire village, to follow the vast herds, to surround and kill as many as they desired, and to carry away great quant.i.ties of meat to be "jerked," or dried, for future use. So intimately connected were the buffalo with the life of the tribes of the plains and the circ.u.mjacent country that frequent allusions will be made to the former when describing the camps and villages of the latter.

The various ways of hunting the buffalo and other wild beasts of the plains and mountainous country, as practiced by the different tribes, have been described by many writers. The several methods of hunting the buffalo were often forced through natural conditions, but nothing could have exceeded the excitement produced during the chase by well-mounted Indian hunters. This was the usual custom of the tribes of the plains after horses had become plentiful and the buffalo continued numerous.

The paintings reproduced in plates 2 and 3 vividly portray this phase of the hunt. In the north the hunters were compelled during the long winters to attack the herds on the frozen, snow-covered prairies, and plate 4 shows a party of hunters, wearing snowshoes, mingled with the buffalo. This sketch, made about the year 1825, bears the legend: "Indian Hunters pursuing the Buffalo early in the spring when the snow is sufficiently frozen to bear the men but the Animal breaks through and cannot run." This graphic sketch may represent a party of Cree or a.s.siniboin hunters, probably the latter, and it will be noticed that they are using bows and arrows, not firearms, although other drawings by the same artist representing a summer hunt shows them having guns.