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The religious beliefs of the Osages are similar to
those of the Kansas and other Siouan tribes. The term Wakanda had
almost the same meaning. There were seven great Wakandas—Darkness, the
Upper World, the Ground, the Thunder-being, the Sun, the Moon, the Morning
Star. The Upper World was perhaps the greatest of the Wakandas. In some of
the tribes it was the supreme Wakanda. There was no set form of worship of
Wakanda. Every one thought Wakanda dwelt in some secret place. It was
believed that the Wakanda, or some Wakanda was ever present
to hear any petition or prayer for help. There were many forms of
propitiation, or these may have been sometimes in the nature of
invocations, such as the elevation and lowering of the arms, the
presentation of the mouth-piece of the pipe, the emission of the smoke,
the burning of cedar needles in the sweat house, the application of the
major terms of kinship, ceremonial waiting, sacrifice and offerings, and
the cutting of the body with knives.
The Osages call the Sun the “mysterious one of day,”
and pray to him as “grandfather.” Prayer was always made toward the sun
without regard to its position in the heavens. Here is a prayer.
“Ho, Mysterious Power, you who are the Sun! Here is
tobacco! I wish to follow your course. Grant that it may be so! Cause me
to meet whatever is good (i. e., for my advantage) and to give a wide
berth to anything that may be to my injury or disadvantage. Throughout
this island (the world) you regulate everything that moves, including
human beings. When you decide for one that his last day on earth has come,
it is so. It can not be delayed. Therefore, O Mysterious Power, I ask a
favor of you.”
The Pleiades, the constellation of the Three Deer
(Belt of Orion), the Morning Star, the Small Star, the Bowl of the Dipper,
are all Wakandas, and they are addressed as “Grandfather.” “In the Osage
traditions, cedar symbolizes the tree of life. When a woman is initiated
into the secret society of the Osages, the officiating man of her gens
gives her four sips of water, symbolizing, so they say, the river
flowing by the tree of life, and then he rubs her from head to foot with
cedar needles, three times in front, three times on her back, and three
times on each side, twelve times in all, pronouncing the sacred name of
Wakanda as he makes each pass.”
These instances are given to aid in the formation of a proper
conception of the Wakanda as regarded by the Osages. In the Siouan
tongue “Wakandagi, as a noun, means a subterranean or water monster,
a large horned reptile mentioned in
the myths, and still supposed to dwell beneath the bluffs along the
Missouri river.”6
Much concerning the early history of the Osages has
already been told in the account of Pike's expedition and the history of
the Kansas. They called themselves Wa-zha-zhe. This name the French
Traders corrupted to the present Osage. In historic times the tribe was
divided into three bands—
1. Pahatsi, or Great Osages 2. Utsehta, or Little Osages 3. Santsnkhdhi, or the Arkansas Band.
There are different accounts as to how the tribe became
separated into the two principal bands—Great
and Little Osages. Some insist that the division occurred in
primal times. The Osages then dwelt about a great mountain, an
immense mound, or a big hill. One part of the tribe lived on the
mountain, the remainder on the plain. Those on the elevation came to
be called there the Great Osages, and those living in the plain were
the Little Osages. It has been suggested that the names represented
a social difference or some tribal distinction long forgotten by
even the Osages themselves. In all probability there is no
foundation for any of these explanations. Isaac McCoy, in his
History of Baptist Indian Missions says the division was the
result of some fault of the early traders among them. There were
then two towns on the Missouri belonging to the Osages. The one
above became known as the Upper town, and the people dwelling there
as the Upper People. In like manner, those at the town below were
the Lower People. Each town had its chief and separate local
government. The white people, having an imperfect knowledge of the
language and conditions of the Osages, supposed that the names of
the towns signified that all the tall or large people of the tribe
lived at the Upper settlement, and that all the short or small
people lived in the Lower settlement. There came to be told among
the white people in pioneer times the story that the tribe had made
an arrangement whereby all the tall people should be in one band and
live in one town, while all the short men should dwell together in
another town. Intelligent travelers never did mention that there was
any difference in the stature of the Great and Little Osages. The
terms may not have originated as McCoy says. They may have grown out
of the relative size of their two towns in early times. Or in some
other way not now remembered by the Osages themselves.
The origin of the Arkansas Band is known. About 1796 Manuel Lisa
secured from the then government of Louisiana a monopoly to trade
with all the Indians on the waters of the Missouri River. This, of
course, included the Osages. Previous to that time the trade went to
traders in competition, among these the Chouteaus. The monopoly of
Lisa cast out the Chouteaus. Pierre Chouteau had at one time enjoyed
a monopoly of the Osage trade. When he was superseded as agent of
the tribe by Lisa, he sought some means of continuing his profitable
business relations with the tribe. He determined to divide
it, and to settle a part of it beyond the jurisdiction of Lisa. He
induced the best hunters of the tribe to go with him to the Lower
Verdigris. This stream is a branch of the Arkansas River, none of
the waters of which were included in the grant to Lisa. Chouteau
took only young men and their families, and they were from both the
Great and Little Osages. They built towns near the mouth of the
Verdigris River. Later they went to the Arkansas and had towns both
above and below the mouth of the Verdigris. By the French they were
known as Osage des Chenes (Osage of the Oaks). Des Chenes
was corrupted into a number of terms, of which Chancers was
one. The date of the formation of this band and its migration to the
Verdigris is given as about 1803 by Lewis and Clark, Dr. Sibley and
Mr. Dunbar, in their report published in 1806. They say nearly
one-half the Osage nation followed Chouteau. Also, that “The Little
Osage formerly resided on the S. W. side of the Missouri, near the
mouth of the Grand River; but being reduced by continual warfare
with their neighbors, were compelled to seek the protection of the
Great Osage, near whom they now reside.” Their village was set up,
on their return, where Pike found it when he ascended the Osage on
his way to the Pawnee country. Fort Osage, afterwards Fort Clark, where Sibley, Mo.,
now is, was established in October, 1808, as a protection to the
Osage Indians, as cited in the preamble of the treaty of November 10, 1808, with the tribe. But the Government
dealt unfairly in that matter. The fort and trading post had been
promised in 1804 and in 1806. In less than a month after it was
built, Pierre Chouteau appeared at the fort with the treaty of the
10th of November already written out. It had been prepared without
any consultation with a single Osage. Chouteau had the treaty read
and explained to the assembled chiefs and warriors. Then he
announced that those who signed it would be considered friends of
the United States and treated accordingly, and those who refused to
sign would be regarded as enemies. The chief, White Hair, protested,
but acknowledged the helplessness of the Indians. He signed the
treaty, and fear of being counted enemies of the United States
caused all present to sign. This treaty exacted a large tract of
land as the price of building Fort Osage. The land was thus
described in the treaty: Beginning at Fort Clark (Fort
Osage) on the Missouri, five miles above Fire Prairie, and running
thence a due south course to the river Arkansaw and down the same to
the Mississippi.
All the land east of that line was ceded to the United
States. There was much dissatisfaction on the part of the Osages,
and they never did understand why the concession was enacted. The Ossges began to move to the westward from their
homes in what is now Vernon County, Mo., in 1815. Some of them may
have gone before that date. They fixed their new towns on the
Neosho. In the year 1817 the Cherokees destroyed the Osage town on
the Verdigris. They also destroyed the crops and carried off as
prisoners some fifty old people and children. The warriors were
absent at the time, but they took up the hatchet upon their return.
The Delawares assisted the Cherokees, and the war continued until
1822.
Footnote
6.
All that is said in this article, as well as much in the article on the
Kansa, when not otherwise indicated, is taken from the writings of J. Owen
Dorsey, in the Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology. He is the best
authority, and often the only authority.
