Osage is the French version of Wazhazhe, one of their three historical bands (Great Osage, Little Osage, and Arkansas Osage). Their self-designation was Ni-U-Ko’n-Ska, or "Children of the Middle Waters."
Location In the late seventeenth century, Osage Indians lived along the Osage River in western Missouri. Today, most live in Osage County, Oklahoma.
Population The early-eighteenth-century Osage population was about 1,000. The people had grown to over 6,000 within the century. In 1993, the Osage tribe had about 11,000 enrolled members.
Language Osage is a member of the Dhegiha division of the Siouan language family.
Historical Information
History A group of Siouan people, known as Omaha, split into five separate tribes after they reached the Mississippi in the late sixteenth century from the Wabash and Ohio River regions. The initial exodus was prompted in part by pressure from the Iroquois. Those who continued north along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers became known as Osage, Kaw, Ponca, and Omaha; the people who headed south were known as Quapaw.
The French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet encountered the Osage in 1673, when the Indians were living in two villages along and nearby the south fork of the Osage River. Around 1700, the Osage acquired horses and began hunting buffalo. They organized a smaller hunt in June for about four weeks and a larger hunt in October and November. Nearly the whole tribe was involved in the fall hunt; only the very young and old stayed behind to guard the crops against birds and animals. Soon half of their food came from the buffalo, and they relied on that animal for material needs as well.
In the early eighteenth century, the Osage formed a strong alliance with the French, who gave them special trade treatment in exchange for pelts and slaves. The Osage captured the slaves from raids on Ponca and Pawnee villages. Osage warriors helped the French fight Fox Indians, the English, and various other enemies. During the mid-eighteenth century, the Osage were well armed and powerful, able both to defend their farming villages and to hunt buffalo on the western plains. The Spanish, a presence in the later eighteenth century, also tried to stay on good terms with the Osage, despite Osage raids on their outlying settlements.
In 1802, half of the Great Osage Band, under Chief Big Track, moved to the Arkansas River in Oklahoma to be near a trading post opened by the friendly Chouteau family. Thereafter they were known to non-Indians as the Arkansas Osages. In 1808, however, following the large-scale arrival of non-Indians in the region, the Osage ceded most of Missouri and northern Arkansas to the United States. The Little and Great Bands then moved to the Neosho River in Kansas.
By treaties in 1818 and 1825, the Osage ceded all of their lands except for a reservation in extreme southern Kansas, to which all bands had relocated by 1836. In the 1850s, in alliance with Plains tribes such as the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche, they fought and lost a battle to stem the tide of eastern bands, such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, who had been moved to their lands by the United States. The Osage fought for both the United States and the Confederacy during the Civil War. Following that war, Osage men scouted for the United States in its wars against the Cheyenne in 1868-1869.
By 1870, the Osage had sold their Kansas lands and bought roughly one million acres of land from the Cherokee in northeastern Indian Territory (Oklahoma). There, they settled in five villages and retained a structure of 24 clans and two divisions. Many Osage embraced the Native American Church in the 1890s.
Large oil deposits were discovered on the reservation in 1897, and the Osage became very wealthy during the 1920s. In 1906, influenced by the prospect of oil wealth, the Osage created and implemented a voluntary allotment plan, dividing the tribal land individually, with the tribe retaining mineral rights. By the 1960s, however, half of the allotted parcels were lost. Although the oil wealth conferred many benefits, it also brought a large measure of corruption, through which people were cheated out of land and money, as well as greatly increased substance abuse. There was a general decline in revenues during the Depression and a resurgence during the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s.
Religion Wakonda was the supreme life force, with which people might connect through the acquisition of supernatural visions. Shamans provided religious leadership. There was a secret religious society to which both men and women belonged. Ceremonies revolved around planting, peace, and war. The oral history of the tribe was recounted in the Rite of Chiefs.
Government Each of two divisions (see "Customs") had a peace and a war chief. In certain cases, clan leadership was hereditary. There was also a council of older men to make laws and arbitrate disputes. From the nineteenth century on, the tribe was divided into three political divisions (bands): Great Osage, Little Osage, and Arkansas Osage. Discipline during the hunt was provided by the hunt/camp police, who could publicly whip offenders in order to maintain order.
Customs Two divisions, Sky/Peace (Tzi-sho) and Land/War (Hunkah) people, encompassed a total of 21 patrilineal clans, each of which held distinctive ceremonial and political functions. Marriage was exogamous. Men who married older sisters were entitled to marry the younger ones as well. At death, chiefs and other important people were placed in a sitting position, surrounded by rocks and logs, and covered with earth. Others were buried in the ground with food, water, and various possessions. From the eighteenth century on, mourning ceremonies required the promise of an enemy scalp.
Dwellings The Osage located their villages along wooded river valleys. They built oval or rectangular pole-frame houses, 36-100 feet long, 15-20 feet wide, and 10 feet high, covered with woven rush mats or bark. The arched poles were tied together on top and then interlaced with saplings. People lived in tipis while on buffalo hunts.
Diet Women grew corn, squash, pumpkins, and beans and gathered foods such as persimmons, wild fruits and berries, and acorns and other nuts. In addition to buffalo, men hunted deer, wild fowl, beaver, and wildcat. Before they acquired horses, men hunted buffalo by using fire and costumes to stampede them over cliffs.
Key Technology Osage orange was considered the best wood for bows. The people also built carved wooden cradleboards, cattail and rush mats, and buffalo-hair bags.
Trade By around 1700, the Osage were supplying the French with Indian (mainly Pawnee and then Apache) slaves in exchange for guns, among other items. In the later eighteenth and into the nineteenth century, Osages had a surplus of horses to trade, in part because they did not require as many as did the truly nomadic Plains buffalo hunters. Being short on winter pastureland, they generally traded most of their horses in the fall, restocking again in the spring. Osages acted as middlemen in the horse trade, moving Comanche horses to the Midwest markets. They also traded with Wichita and Comanche Indians, generally horses for guns.
Notable Arts Osages were particularly skilled at woodcarving and skin tanning.
Transportation The people acquired horses around the late seventeenth century, probably from the Apache.
Dress Most clothing was made of deerskin. Women wore a shirt and a cape; men wore leggings and a breechclout. They wore their hair in a roach. Men also wore body paint, jewelry, and scalp locks. Through acts of bravery, a warrior gained the privilege to tattoo himself and his wife and daughter(s).
War and Weapons On the Plains, war was a way of life, and the Osage fought with most tribes on both sides of the Mississippi, especially nearby Plains and Caddoan-speaking peoples.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations Most Osage live in Osage County, Oklahoma. The administrative center is in Pawhuska. Only those people who have inherited land from the original (1906) allottees may vote in tribal elections.
Economy Oil dollars have made the Osage tribe rich, although revenues have slipped in the 1990s, and the future of the oil fields is uncertain. Individual Osages work in the local economy. Some work in tribal administration or for the tribal bingo parlor; others farm or ranch.
Legal Status The Osage Tribe is a federally recognized tribal entity.
Daily Life In the mid-1990s only about one-third of the parcels allotted in 1906 were still owned by Osage Indians. There are also three 160-acre community-held village sites (Pawhuska, Hominy, and Grayhorse) and a larger site for tribal administration and facilities.
Any Osage can live free of charge in one of the villages.
By law, the oil wealth (and thus political power) must remain among inheritors of the original (1906) allottees. In the mid-1990s, the group of Osage Indians who did not meet these criteria constituted a majority of enrolled members. The effective disenfranchisement of these people is one reason that the concern over oil leases and payments still dominates the business of the tribal council.
Most Osages are Catholic, some are Protestant, and some are also members of the Native American Church. Fewer than 300 people spoke Osage fluently in 1993. Traditional dances are held in June, and Osage people attend many pan-Indian powwows across the country.
