The Dhegihan migration and separation was the long journey on foot by the North American Indians in the ancient Hoga tribe. During the migration from present-day

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

and as far as

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, they gradually split up into five groups. Each became an independent and historic tribe. They are the

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

Ponca The Ponca ( Páⁿka iyé: Páⁿka or Ppáⁿkka pronounced ) are a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca ...

Kaw Kaw or KAW may refer to: Mythology * Kaw (bull), a legendary bull in Meitei mythology * Johnny Kaw, mythical settler of Kansas, US * Kaw (character), in ''The Chronicles of Prydain'' People * Kaw people, a Native American tribe Places * Kaw, Fr ...

or Kansa,

Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage". Osage can also refer to: * Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation * Osage (Unicode b ...

and

Quapaw The Quapaw ( ; or Arkansas and Ugahxpa) people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Ohi ...

. The term "Dhegiha" refers to all five Indian tribes since they speak a Dhegiha Siouan language. Besides having related languages, they share an oral tradition about a common origin from an ancestral tribe. The timing of the separation for these tribes and history prior to their existence as separate groups is the subject of some debate.

Pre-separation

The Quapaw, the Ponca, the Omaha, the Osage and the Kaw share a tradition, that back in time they were one people.Fletcher, Alice C. and F. La Flesche (1992): ''The Omaha Tribe''. Lincoln and London. Baird, W. David (1980): ''The Quapaw Indians. A History of the Downstream People''. Norman Howard, James H. (1965): ''The Ponca Tribe.'' Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 195. Washington. La Flesche, Francis (1921): ''The Osage Tribe''. Smithsonian Institution. 36th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington. Pp. 43-597. Vehik, Susan C.: "Dhegiha Origins and Plains Archaeology". ''Plains Anthropologist'', Vol. 38 (No.v 1993), No. 146, pp. 231-252. The claim is supported by similar tribal organization with kinship groups (

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...

s) and closely related languages, although some of the tribes were widely scattered in historic time. (The Ponca and Omaha settled in Nebraska, the Kaw in

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

, the Osage in

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, while

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

became the homeland of the Quapaw.) The people in the initial tribe called themselves the Hoga. It translates "leaders", meaning the preceding generations or "ancestors".Buffalohead, Eric: "Dhegihan History: A Personal Journey." ''Plains Anthropologist'', Vol. 49 (Nov. 2004), No. 192, pp. 327-343. They lived in villages of bark houses, made pottery, hunted and gathered and raised a small amount of

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

. Ritter, Beth R. (2002): "Piecing Together the Ponca Past. Reconstructing Degiha Migrations to the Great Plains." ''Great Plains Quarterly'', Vol. 22 (Fall 2002), No. 4, pp. 271-284. According to tribal oral history collected by

James Owen Dorsey James Owen Dorsey (October 31, 1848 – February 4, 1895) was an American ethnologist, linguist, and Episcopalian missionary in the Dakota Territory, who contributed to the description of the Ponca, Omaha, and other southern Siouan languages. H ...

Alice Cunningham Fletcher Alice Cunningham Fletcher (March 15, 1838 in Havana, Cuba, HavanaApril 6, 1923 in Washington, D.C.) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American Indian c ...

, Omaha Indian

Francis La Flesche Francis La Flesche (Omaha, 1857–1932) was the first professional Native American ethnologist; he worked with the Smithsonian Institution. He specialized in Omaha and Osage cultures. Working closely as a translator and researcher with the anthro ...

and other interested people, the early Dhegiha people resided in the valley of the lower

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

. Dorsey, J. Owen (1884): ''Omaha Sociology''. Smithsonian Institution. 3rd Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-'82. Washington. This shared tradition has been controversial. As late as 1980, it was "generally rejected by professional

archeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...

". According to one theory, the tribes were longtime residents in the areas west of

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

, where the whites encountered them. However, in 1993, Susan Vehik made a persuasive argument that the archaeology was less than definite, and that the oral histories of the existing Dhegihan nations would reconcile similarities with Mississippian phase cultures and lack of Caddoan features.

Migration

For some reason the tribe started on a journey down Ohio River prior to 1673. The migration may have been an answer to a breakdown of the old culture, climatic changes unfavorable for corn growing,

epidemic An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics ...

s and/or conflicts with

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...

and

Algonquin Indians The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawato ...

. While travelling, they lived in tents with the bottom of the cover secured with stones. Since the Hogas moved into new territory, the migration sometimes turned into an incursion. There are differing chronologies for the migration, as seen below. It may be that some groups traveled ahead into the Missouri/Cahokia area as early as AD 500. Then the rest of the people came later, perhaps drawn by Cahokia. The breakup of Cahokia, and/or pressure from Eastern Natives, could have been the impetus to cross the Mississippi for good, and make the rest of the moves as detailed below. Alternatively, it could have been the breakup of Cahokia around 1250 that allowed the rest of the Dhegiha people to cross the Mississippi. Either way, the Osage, when making their last "movement" (across the Mississippi, to the Osage River) met other Dhegiha people, and added them to the tribe, making them the modern Osage of the time of the first contact with Europeans (The Osage history tells of meeting groups of people who spoke their language but acted differently, the Honga U-ta-non-dsi solated Earth Peopleand the Tsi ha she he Last to Come.

First separation

Reaching the mouth of the Ohio River, the Hoga began crossing the Mississippi River in skin boats. The first separation occurred here. A part of the people either followed the Mississippi southward on the eastern shore or they drifted away with the current. They became the Quapaw, which means Downstream People. Those who went against the current of the river on the western shore became the Omaha or Upstream People. Quapaw oral history describes that the first separation occurred at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. This was stated to Thomas Nuttall in the early 1800s as well as others. In addition, the Ponca also state this, see "Walks on the Earth" by Headman. Just because one ethnographer theorized it was at the confluence on the Mississippi and the Ohio does not make it an accurate statement. The Quapaw tribe may have been encountered by

Hernando De Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1500 – 21 May, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and '' conquistador'' who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire ...

near the Mississippi in 1541. However, the available evidence is contradictory (In 1938, the De Soto Commission concluded it was some Tunica Indians he encountered). Most likely, the Quapaw Indians had recently settled in the Lower Mississippi area, when the French expedition of

Jacques Marquette Jacques Marquette S.J. (June 1, 1637 – May 18, 1675), sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Igna ...

and

Louis Jolliet Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore an ...

encountered them in 1673 along the Mississippi River near the mouth of the

. House, John H.(2013): "Native American Material Culture from the Wallace Bottom Site, Southeastern Arkansas." ''Southeastern Archaeology'', Vol. 32 (Summer 2013), No. 1, pp. 54-69. The Iowa Indians may have joined the Hogas and crossed the Mississippi with them. Other accounts state that the Iowa first met and joined the Indian migrants on the Lower Missouri or at a place on

Des Moines River The Des Moines River () is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwestern United States that is approximately long from its farther headwaters.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe Na ...

Upstream

The main body of the Hoga followed the Mississippi north. They would in time separate and become the Osage, Kaw, Omaha, and Ponca. One account says the large group reached the mouth of the Missouri River and followed it. For a time, they lived in the area of present-day Gasconade County and

Osage County, Missouri Osage County is a county in the central part of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,274. Its county seat is Linn. The county was organized January 29, 1841, and named from the Osage River. Osage County is p ...

. Eventually, the people continued the journey and reached

Osage River The Osage River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 tributary of the Missouri River in central Missouri in the United States. The eighth-largest river i ...

. Again, the group experienced a division. Disagreements over the division of animal

sinews A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...

(used as threads and strings) caused this split.La Flesche, Francis (2010): ''Traditions of the Osage: Stories Collected and Translated by Francis La Flesche''. Mexico Press. Some decided to explore the unknown country by way of Osage River and became respectively the Osage Indians and the Kaw or Kansa Indians. The Kaws may have gathered in a group, turned back, and followed the Missouri River north to

Kansas River The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River dr ...

, where they settled.Wedel, Waldo R. (1946): "The Kansa Indians". ''Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science''. Vo. 49 (Jun. 1946), No. 1, pp. 1-35. Later, the Osage and the Quapaw in Arkansas turned into enemies despite the common origin. Also the Omaha in Nebraska would in time be considered hostile by the Osage.Scherer, Johanna Cohan: "The 1852 Omaha Indian Delegation Daguerreotypes. A Preponderance of Evidence." ''Nebraska History''. Vol. 78 (Fall 1997), No. 3, pp. 116-121. The Omaha, walking away from the Osage/Kaw group in "an angry mood", kept traveling the southern banks of the Missouri. They crossed to the other shore at the mouth of

Chariton River The Chariton River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 26, 2011 tributary to the Missouri River in southeast Iowa and northeast Missouri. The river forms in southe ...

. Two different routes to the pipestone quarry in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

are put forward. One account claims the people first followed Chariton River and later Des Moines River (green route on the map). The other version has the people traveling up the Missouri River and apparently later the

Big Sioux River The Big Sioux River is a tributary of the Missouri River in eastern South Dakota and northwestern Iowa in the United States. It flows generally southwardly for ,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataTh ...

(orange route on the map). A more different migration story has the people going up the Mississippi instead of the Missouri (yellow route on the map). Standing on the shore of Des Moines River, they made up their mind to follow this tributary to its source. From here, they moved on and found the

catlinite Catlinite, also called pipestone, is a type of argillite (metamorphosed mudstone), usually brownish-red in color, which occurs in a matrix of Sioux Quartzite. Because it is fine-grained and easily worked, it is prized by Native Americans, prim ...

quarry.

Settlement near the Pipestone Quarry

The people found the red, workable catlinite in the area. They made the head to a

sacred pipe A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremony, to make a ceremonial ...

of a big piece, later to become a part of the Ponca's tribal pipe. (The Ponca finished the long migration to northeastern Nebraska before they finally made the stem to the pipe). The people built a village near Big Sioux River, maybe at the

Blood Run Site The Blood Run Site is an archaeological site on the border of the US states of Iowa and South Dakota. The site was essentially populated for 8,500 years, within which earthworks structures were built by the Oneota Culture and occupied descendant ...

Thiessen, Thomas D. (2004): "Blood Run Site". ''Plains Anthropologist'', Vol. 49 (Nov. 2004), No. 192, pp. 355-380. in the northwestern Iowa. They came under attack from different groups of

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...

(Dakota) and abandoned the settlement after a major battle. The John K. Bear winter count of the lower Yanktonai Sioux says for the year 1685, "The Santee Dakota fought with the Omaha tribe".Howard, James H.: "Yanktonai Ethnohistory and the John K. Bear Winter Count". ''Plains Anthropologist''. Vol. 21 (Aug. 1976), No. 73. Memoir 11, part 2, pp. 1-78. The many dead were buried in a wide

mound A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher el ...

near the village. In 1879,

Yankton Sioux The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into ...

chief Strikes-the-Ree ascribed the war to conflicting claims to the pipestone quarry.

On the move again

The people went south. Then, they seem to have headed north by following the Missouri upstream. They cut the wood to a sacred pole at a lake. Some Omahas, but not all, identified it as Lake Andes in South Dakota. This may have been sometime in the last quarter of the 17th century. Probably, the people then moved back to a place near the mouth of the Big Sioux. Living east of the Missouri, they harassed the

Arikara Arikara (), also known as Sahnish,
''Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.'' (Retrieved Sep 29, 2011)

Indians residing on the western shores. In time, the Omaha settled in a new village on the Big Sioux and made peace here with the Arikara (and the

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

and the

Oto Oto, Ōtō, or OTO may refer to: People * Oto (name), including a list of people with the name *The Otoe tribe (also spelled Oto), a Native American people Places *Oto, Spain, a village in the Valle de Broto, in Huesca, Aragon * Otorohanga, a to ...

as well). The Arikara women taught the Omaha to build

earth lodge An earth lodge is a semi-subterranean building covered partially or completely with earth, best known from the Native American cultures of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands. Most earth lodges are circular in construction with a dome-like ...

s. The Big Sioux River village came under Indian attack. The Omaha, still followed by the Iowa, left the hostile area for good. All travel was yet on foot. Information given by the Frenchman

Pierre-Charles Le Sueur Pierre-Charles Le Sueur (c. 1657, Artois, France – 17 July 1704, Havana, Cuba) was a French fur trader and explorer in North America, recognized as the first known European to explore the Minnesota River valley. Le Sueur came to Canada with ...

"strongly suggest" the presence of Omahas somewhere on the Upper Big Sioux at least before the end of the 17th century. After 1714, French sources locate the Omaha Indians other places.

The Ponca become a tribe

The Upstream People went north again and crossed the Missouri River at the mouth of White River in South Dakota. Some evidence point to a temporary halt of the migration here.Johnson, Craig M. (2007): ''A Chronology of Middle Missouri Plains Village Sites''. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology. Number 47. Washington. It seems, the Ponca clan of the Omaha became more independent in the new surroundings. While it explored the land westward, either as a clan or as a distinct tribe, the rest of the Omahas and the Iowa stayed in the White River belt. The Ponca made it to the

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black Elk P ...

. They returned to the Omaha and the Iowa and the three groups began a joint journey down the Missouri. The Ponca settled near the city of

Niobrara, Nebraska Niobrara (; Omaha: ''Ní Ubthátha'' ''Tʰáⁿwaⁿgthaⁿ'' , meaning "water spread-out village")Dorsey, James Owen (1890)''The Cegiha Language: Contributions to North American Ethnology'' 4. Washington: US Department of the Interior: Governmen ...

. The Omaha and the Iowa continued downstream, but remained in the future state of Nebraska. This final and lasting split may have taken place between 1714 and 1718. The Ponca would undertake long journeys from the villages to the Black Hills and even further west. On one trip to the Black Hills, they fought the "Padouca" - either

Plains Apache The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan group who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are centered in Southwestern Oklahoma and Northern Texas an ...

Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...

Indians. Later it came to a truce, and the Ponca received the first horses from the Padouca. The whites mention the Ponca tribe for the first time in 1785. A

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

document gives the Ponca homeland accurately as the northeastern corner of Nebraska.

Post-separation

See

Omaha people The Omaha ( Omaha-Ponca: ''Umoⁿhoⁿ'') are a federally recognized Midwestern Native American tribe who reside on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, United States. There were 5,427 enrolled members as of 2012. The ...

Kaw people The Kaw Nation (or Kanza or Kansa) is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma and parts of Kansas. It comes from the central Midwestern United States. It has also been called the "People of the South wind",

Osage nation The Osage Nation ( ) ( Osage: 𐓁𐒻 𐓂𐒼𐒰𐓇𐒼𐒰͘ ('), "People of the Middle Waters") is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC along ...

, and

References

{{reflist Dhegiha Siouan peoples Plains tribes Native American tribes in Oklahoma Native American tribes in Kansas Native American tribes in Iowa Native American tribes in Nebraska Native American tribes in Missouri Native American tribes in Arkansas