The Osage Tribe (“People of the Middle Waters”) is an American Indian tribe whose ancestral territory included much of Oklahoma.
The tribe originated in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC with other bands of its language family.
However, the Osage people migrated west in the 18th century and settled along the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers due to an invasion from the Iroquois tribe.
We, however, review the historical development, culture, and facts about the Osage Tribe.
Osage Tribe History
Pre-colonial contact
The Osage are offspring of indigenous peoples that have been in North America for millenniums.
Their language and traditions reveal that they were among a group of Dhegihan-Siouan-speaking tribes living in the Ohio River region, stretching into contemporary Kentucky
. Following their stories, they moved west because of the war with the Iroquois tribe or to hunt more game. They connected their mode of government to the effects of the several years of war with the invading tribes.
After relocating to the Mississippi River, the Osage tribe was often allied with the Illiniwek and sometimes contended with them, as the Illiniwek were also pushed west of Illinois by conflict with the vicious Iroquois.
In the 17th century, most Osage tribes had made home close to the Osage river, West of present-day Missouri. They were said to have adopted the use of horses by the year 1690.
Their desire to get more horses contributed to their trading with the French.
They invaded and conquered indigenous Caddo tribes to exert dominance over the Plains region in 1750, with control over most of Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas, which they managed for about 150 years.
In alliance with the Comanche, Apache, and Kiowa tribes, they controlled western Oklahoma.
The American Indian tribe attained a high rank among the hunting tribes of the Great Plains. In their native homes in today’s Missouri and Arkansas forests, the Osage would make semi-annual buffalo hunting ambushes into the Great Plains in the West.
They also chased down rabbits, deer, and other wild animals in the central and eastern areas of their territory.
The settlements of the Osage people were essential hubs in the Great Plains trading network, tended by the Kaw people as middlemen.
Colonial contact (1600s-1700s)
The first half of the 1720s saw more business interaction with the French colonizers and the American Indian people.
In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, both French explorers, were part of the first Europeans recorded to come in contact with the Osage people on a journey south of Canada along the Mississippi River. Marquette’s map of 1673 recorded the Osage, Pawnee, and Kanza dwelling in much of present-day Kansas.
The tribe labeled the Europeans I’n-Shta-Heh (Heavy Eyebrows) because of their facial hair.
As trained warriors, the tribesmen allied with the French, with whom they traded, contrary to the Illiniwek in the 18th century.
A fort was established in their territory, Fort Orleans; it was the foremost European colonial fort on the Missouri River.
The French forts were filled with Jesuit missionaries who attempted to convert the Osage people and learn their language.
In 1724, the Osage tribe associated with the French rather than the Spanish in their struggle for possession of the Mississippi area.
In 1725, Bourgmont steered a delegation of Osage and other Native chiefs to Paris.
During the Seven Years’ War, France was subdued by Great Britain and, in 1763, relinquished control over their land east of the Mississippi River to the British Crown.
At the end of the 1700s, the tribe did numerous business with the French Creole fur trader René Auguste Chouteau.
The Osage were happy to have a fur trading post close, as it made manufactured goods accessible and amplified their prestige among the tribes.
Reservations and missionaries (1800 – 1850)
Amidst the first treaty with the U.S. and 1825, the Osage tribe gave up their ancestral lands across what is now today Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma in the treaties of 1818 and 1825.
In exchange, they were given reservation lands to the West and provisions to enable them to adapt to agriculture and a more settled way of life.
The Osage people first moved to a southeast Kansas reservation called the Osage Diminished Reserve. The city of Independence, after that, emerged there.
The first Osage reservation was a 240 km strip. Clergies were sent to them by the United Foreign Missionary Society, and the Presbyterian, Associate Reformed, and Dutch Reformed churches and many other religious bodies supported it.
The Osage people were intrigued by their sense of mystery and custom but felt the Catholics didn’t fully accept the tribe’s sense of spirit incarnate in nature.
During the reservation period, the tribe suffered from the pandemic of smallpox of 1837-1838, which resulted in a colossal loss amongst the Native people from New Mexico to Canada.
All churches but Roman Catholics abandoned the Osage people during the crisis.
This made the Osage believe that the devotion of the Catholic priests, who stayed and died in the epidemic, invoked a special covenant between them. However, the Osage didn’t convert in large numbers.
The Osage tribe, in 1843, asked the U.S. government to send Jesuit missionaries to their reservation to school their children; the Osage believed the Jesuits were best at working with their culture than the Protestant missionaries.
They planted numerous mission stations, taught, built churches, and instituted the longest-running school system in Kansas.
After 35 years, many of the missionaries were new hires from Europe.
Present day
Presently, the tribe has 13,307 registered tribal members, with 6,747 residing in Oklahoma.
Since 2006 it has categorized membership based on a person’s ancestral descent from a member registered on the Osage rolls during the time of the Osage Allotment Act of 1906.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs disallowed federal education scholarships to individuals with about 25% or more blood quantity in one tribe, but the Osage Nation sponsors higher education for its students who fail to meet the requirements.
A little blood quantity was required.
The present governing council of the Osage nation contains three distinct branches; an executive, a judicial, and a legislative.
These three branches match the United States government in numerous ways. Osage tribal government has its headquarters in Oklahoma Pawhuska and has jurisdiction in Osage county, Oklahoma.
The tribe has its official website and operates a variety of communication media. It also operates a weekly newspaper, Osage News.
Osage Culture
Food and Shelter
The Osage people traditionally obtain their food by gathering, hunting, and farming. They hunted wild animals such as deer, elk, and bison.
They built arch-oval structures with smoke holes using bark sheets, timber, buffalo hides, and woven mats. These buildings stood 36-100 feet high.
They had two bison hunts a year, one during the summer and the other during the fall.
The reason for the summer hunting was to get meat and fat, while that of the fall was to obtain food and thick winter coats of the bison.
The bison hides were made into elaborate robes, dresses, leggings, and moccasins.
Men hunted for games while the women butchered, prepared the meat, and tanned the hides.
Religion
As people, the Osage had pantheistic beliefs.
They considered all living organisms and changes in the universe as the output of a single mysterious life-giving force called Wa-kon-tah, the supreme mystery spirit or great power.
Individuals were one manifestation of Wa-kon-tah, as other living forms.
Their clan totems were believed to be various personifications of Wa-kon-tah.
The tribe’s creation myths tell of a period when the People of the Sky (Tzi-sho) encountered the People of the Land (Hunkah) to make one tribe.
This new tribe was known as the Children of the Middle Waters (Niuko’nska), which became the Osage tribe.
The Indigenous people tribe life focused on religious ceremonies in which clans were grouped into the symbolic sky and earth groups, with the earth group further subdivided to represent wetland and dry land.
They also had rituals for symbolic events in life, such as war, peace, child naming, mourning, and the like.
They were also remarkable for their poetic rituals.
Among these rituals was the recitation of the history of the creation of the universe to newborns.
Art
The men were very proud of their appearance, shaving the hairs on their heads but leaving only a tuft on the top, which forms a pigtail in the back, and plucking them from their eyebrows and faces.
They also decorated themselves with bones and beads for their ears and had tattoos on their bodies.
Artworks consist of headdresses and war clubs for warriors, wedding dresses, fans, rattles, dance costumes, and other fancy beadwork.
They did not commercialize their art; artisans typically made items exclusively for their families or community members.
Osage facts
- Many Osage became prosperous when oil was discovered on their reservation in 1894, as they earned money in royalties. However, the full amount of what was earned in royalties was not paid to the Osage tribe by the US Government. In 2000, the tribe sued the US Government for the long over-due payment as well as failure to protect their ancestral lands. The US Government thus had to pay the outstanding sum with a promise to make necessary changes regarding protection of their lands.
- George Catlin, a 19th-century painter, describes the Osage tribe as the tallest race of men in North America.
- Isaac McCoy, a missionary, described the Osage people as an unusually courageous, fierce, warlike nation and said that they were the finest native Indians.
- Many Osage visited Paris in 1725 and met with King Louis XV. The trip was organized in a bid to convince the tribe to align with the French against the Spanish. King Louis XV was impressed by the Osage tribesmen as well as their Native American counterparts. The Osage tribesmen were impressed by the grandeur of Paris as they visited the Palace of Versailles.
Conclusion
The Osage tribe is the only tribe since the early 20th century to keep a federally recognized reservation within the state of Oklahoma.
This tribe is one of the most resilient and prosperous Native American tribes. Unraveling the history of America’s first settlers is fascinating to read.
