The Iowa Part 2

(Pahutch'ae); then continuing due westward towards the Big Sioux this _Chemin du Voyageurs_ bends a little southward towards the mouth of that river; on which river, near the Missouri, three or four villages of "_Maha_" (Omahaw), are marked. Besides these a couple of minor "_Aianouez_" villages are likewise set down at the west end of the _Chemin des Voyageurs_ where it strikes the Big Sioux, which is apparently about the junction of "Fish Creek" with it: [See Waw-non-que-skoon-a's map of Ioway migrations in Vol. III, Schoolcraft, page 256],[79] and again further westward, considerably beyond the western termination of the "_Chemin_" on the James River, four minor villages of "_Aiaouez_" are also noted: while far south by a little east of the first mentioned main "Village des Aiaoues _ou Paoutez_," upon the north or "left" bank of the Missouri river at a point nearly due west from the mouth of the "_Des Moines ou le Moingona_," we find located the "Yoways," and a few miles above them on the same side, the "Les Octotata": which locations were not a great distance from the spot where the Ioway and Otoe now live upon one common "Reservation," on the opposite side of the Missouri just within Nebraska.

ANTE-WHITE HISTORY OF THE IOWAY

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP of the COUNTRY _formerly occupied by the_ IOWAY TRIBE of INDIANS from a map made by WAW-NON-QUE-SKOON-A AN IOWAY BRAVE

Drawn by Capt. S. Eastman. U.S. Army Engraved by W. Williams.]

For the history of the Ioway before the whites knew them, there is no data, beyond language and ancestral beliefs and customs, except their own vague traditions or those equally vague and uncertain of other tribes. The Reverends William Hamilton, and S. M. Irvin, their missionaries, communicated to Schoolcraft[80] in 1848, this statement of "an old Ioway Indian [aged] about sixty years or more."

About sixty-six years ago, we lived on a river, which runs from a lake to the Mississippi, from the east, and on the east side of that river. Our fathers and great fathers lived there for a long time, as long as they could recollect. At that time we had about four hundred men fit to go to war, but we were then small to what we had been. Our fathers say, as long as they can recollect, we have been diminishing. (This is a usual Indian complaint: in most instances an unfounded one). We owned all the land east of the Mississippi. (This usual Indian claim of very extended possessions has generally very little foundation in fact). Whatever ground we made tracks through, it was ours. Our fathers saw white men on the [great?] lakes about 120 years ago; [Nearer 200 probably]; do not know where they came from. About the same time we first got guns. We were afraid of them at first, they seemed like the "Great Spirit."

Our fathers also, at the same time, for the first received iron, axes, hoes, kettles and woollen blankets. We, the [present] old men of our nation, first saw white men between forty and fifty years ago, near the mouth of the Missouri.

The same missionary gentlemen, in the same paper, make these observations, which every one who has ever engaged in Indian researches, or in inquiries of the Indians themselves, will endorse as entirely correct:

In tracing their history, religion, &c., it will be exceedingly difficult to proceed with certainty and satisfaction, from the differences we find in the notions of different individuals: _e. g._ today we will sit down with an old Indian, who will enter into a plausible detail of their history, or religious belief, or some traditions of their fathers. Another of the same age and patriarchal rights will give quite a different statement about the same things; or perhaps the same individual would tomorrow give his own story quite a different shade. This is the reason why the reports of the transient observers vary so much. It requires long acquaintance, and close observation, to arrive at anything like just conclusions on these points; and it is only by collecting different and conflicting notions, and balancing them, that we can find which prevails.

Now, in regard to the story of the "old Ioway Indian" above quoted, it may be remarked that it is quite certain the Ioway Tribe did not "about sixty years" previous to 1848, that is, in 1788, live anywhere on the east side of the Mississippi, nor had they for more than a hundred years before 1848, and it is doubtful if they had ever done so since the advent of the whites upon the great lakes. But though doc.u.ments extant negative this story of the "old Ioway Indian" as to _time_, may there not be in this statement the shadowy tribal recollection of the period when they were a Band of the Hotchankaera or Winnebago, and lived near them? This lake and river "east of the Mississippi," their former residence, may have been _Mille Lacs_ and its outlet in Minnesota, subsequently the home of the Sioux when first visited by De Groseilliers and Raddison,[81] and then by

DuLuth[82] and Hennepin? or the Chippeway River? or the Wisconsin? or _Rock River_? Traditions of the Santee [Esanyate] Sioux who up to 1852 occupied the upper Mississippi in Minnesota allege that when they emigrated from the North the Ioway were in possession of the region around the mouth of the Minnesota river, and that they drove them away.

On this head, two of their reliable missionaries, Reverends Dr.

Williamson and G. H. Pond, have communicated articles to the Minnesota Historical Collections.

Mr. Pond writes, in the number for 1852, pages 23 and 24, as follows:

Takoha, the old war prophet, says that the Iowa Indian never occupied the country around the mouth of the Minnesota river.

He affirms that it once belonged to the Winnebagoes who were long ago driven from it by the Dakotas-a few others of the Dakotas agree with Takoha. But Black Tomahawk, who is by some of the most intelligent half-breeds considered the best Mdewakantonwan traditionist, says that in the earliest years of the existence of the Dakotas they became acquainted with the Iowa Indians, and that they lived in a village at the place which is now called Oak Grove, seven or eight miles from Fort Snelling, on the north side of the Minnesota river. The numerous little mounds which are to be seen about Oak Grove, he says, are the works of the Iowa Indians.

The old man says that in ancient times, when the Dakotas had no arms but the bow and stone or horn headed arrows, and used knives and axes manufactured from the same materials, these little mounds which we now see at the place above named were the dwellings of the Iowas. They were the enemies of the Dakotas, who used occasionally to make a warpath from Mille Lac, where they then resided, down to the Iowa village, and carry off with them scalps, which made glad the hearts of their wives and daughters. The strife between the two nations eventually became desperate, and the G.o.ds, who are always deeply interested in Indian wars, espoused the cause of the Dakotas.

The thunder, which the Dakotas believe to be a winged monster, and which in character seems to answer very well to the Mars of the ancient heathen, bore down upon the Iowa village in a most terrible and G.o.d-like manner. Tempests howled, the forked lightnings flashed, and the thunders uttered their voices; the earth trembled; a thunderbolt was hurled at the devoted village, which ploughed the earth, and formed that deep ravine near the present dwelling of Peter Quinn. This occurrence unnerved the Iowas, and the Dakotas, taking advantage of it, fell upon their enemies and drove them across the Minnesota river and burned up their village.

The Iowas then built another village on the south side of the river near the present planting grounds of Grey Iron, where they remained till the Dakotas obtained firearms, when they fought their last battle with them in Minnesota, on Pilot k.n.o.b, back of Mendota. The Iowas who escaped on this occasion fled and erected their next village at the mouth of the Iowa river, from which they were again eventually driven by the Dakotas towards the Missouri. The old man from whom we gather the substance of what has gone before says that these mounds are the remains of the dwelling houses of the ancient Iowas.

Some say that they are not the remains of the dwellings of the Iowas, but those of some other people with whom tradition does not acquaint them; and others still say that they are ancient burial places.

The following two or three facts may not be without interest to the reader. Some six years since, Mr. Quinn of Oak Grove removed the earth of one of these mounds at the same place where Black Tomahawk says the ancient Iowa village stood. As the earth was removed on a level with the natural surrounding surface, charred poles and human bones were found.

It was easy and natural for the imagination to supply the rest, and make the fact corroborate the tradition of the old man, when he says that the Iowas constructed their houses by leaning poles together at the top and spreading them at the foot, forming a circular frame, which they covered with earth.

In one of these houses a man or woman had been killed, and the timbers of the house fired, which, of course, would let the earth fall in upon the dead body and burning poles.

Dr. Williamson, on page 10 to 12, of the Minnesota Historical Collections of 1856, says:

We think it is sufficiently manifest that the Sioux occupied the better part of Minnesota when Europeans entered it, a little after the middle of the seventeenth century. It does not, however, appear that they were the first, much less the only inhabitants of the country. Their common and most reliable traditions inform us, that when their ancestors first came to the Falls of St. Anthony, the Iowas-whom they call AYUHBA [Drowsy]-occupied the country about the mouth of the Minnesota river, and the Shiens, called by the Dakotas SHA-I-ENA, sometimes written by the French Chaienne, and by others Shiene, dwelt higher up on the same river. We cannot pretend to determine with certainty at what time the Sioux first came to the Falls of St. Anthony; but may say, with confidence, it was a long time ago, probably before the discovery of America by Columbus. One of the best informed men concerning their traditions that I have met with among the Dakotas, who has been dead more than ten years, when questioned on this point, told me, that they supposed it to be at least equal to the lifetime of four old men, who should live one after the other; and as an example of an old man, named his father, who, I suppose, was at the time at least eighty years old, [which would make the time three hundred years.]

The Winnebagoes, Otoes, and Omahas, have been named among the nations driven by the ancestors of the Dakotas from the Minnesota valley. I have not found any evidence, satisfactory to my mind, that the Winnebagoes ever had a home in this Territory prior to their late removal into it by the United States government. As respects the Otoes and Omahas it seems not improbable that they were reckoned as a part of the Dakota nation, when the Sioux first hunted on the banks of the Mississippi, and for some time after. The Anthontantas, mentioned as a part of the Nadouesiouz, by Hennepin, were probably the same people as the Otoctatas, mentioned in connection with the Ayavois, as owners of the country about Blue Earth river, in the fragment of Le Sueur, preserved by La Harpe, and again some further on, as having recently left their village in that neighborhood, and settled near the Mahas on the Missouri river, and it is highly probable that the Otoctatas of Le Sueur are the same people now called Ottoes or Otoes. The Mawhaws, Shiens and Schiannesse, are mentioned by Carver, as bands of the Naudowessiex of the plains. Thus it appears that the Shiens, the Iowas, the Omahas and the Ottoes, were the earliest inhabitants of Minnesota of whom we have any written or certain traditional account. I have neither seen nor heard of any artificial mounds, ancient fortifications, or monuments of any kind in or near the Minnesota valley, which might not have been constructed by these Indians. Such mounds are probably as numerous in the lower part of the valley of the Minnesota, and the contiguous part of the Mississippi, as anywhere else between the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; but they are very small, compared with those near the Ohio, not to speak of those farther south. Some of them are still used by the Dakotas, as burying places for their dead, and in this way are receiving a small increase almost every year. The situation of many others indicates that they had a similar origin.

But by far the most numerous cla.s.s appear from their size and situation, to be what Dakota tradition says they are, the remains of houses, made of poles and bark, covered with earth, such as were a few years since, and probably still are, the habitations of the Mandans, and some other tribes living on the Missouri.... Mounds of this cla.s.s are found in cl.u.s.ters, of from less than half a dozen to upwards of fifty, arranged irregularly as we find the bark houses of the Indians at present. Their base usually approaches to an oval form. Their length is from ten to forty feet, and a few exceed this, with a height of from one or two feet, to three or four. Very few of this cla.s.s exceed four feet; though some of those used for places of sepulture are more than twice that height. Back of them we find the land level, or nearly so, dry and fertile. In front it descends towards some water, and almost always there is a lake or mora.s.s in sight, indicating that the inhabitants depended for a subsistence partly on cultivating the earth, and partly on water fowl or roots, which they obtained from wet swampy land. Several cl.u.s.ters of such mounds may be seen about Oak Grove, where the Dakotas say the Iowas lived, when their ancestors first came to this country. The path from Mendota to Shakopee, or Prairieville, pa.s.ses through several.

One large one, a little south of what has been called Black Dog's or Grey Iron's village, where the IOWAS are said to have resided after they were driven from Oak Grove. Another is not far from the tamarack swamp below Shakopee. Many may be found on the bluffs of the Mississippi and Lake Pepin. Such mounds are very numerous in the prairie near the mouth of Cannon river.

It is somewhat remarkable that the Iowas, whose language shows that they are descended from the same stock as the Dakotas, should have been viewed and treated by the Dakotas as enemies.

While the SHIENS, who Gallatin says have a language kindred to the Algonquin, were received as allies, and though speaking a different language were long, if they are not still counted as a part of the Dakota nation. Hence their name, Sha-i-e-na in the Ihanktonwan dialect, being equivalent to Sha-i-api in the Isanyati [missionary special alphabet spelling][83] both applied to those who speak a different language from the Dakotas, and applied especially to Shiens, because all others speaking a different language were counted as enemies. It is also worthy of remark, that notwithstanding the hostility between the Iowas and Sioux, the former, who are called by the latter Ayukba, (they sleep, or "sleepy ones"), from which we probably got Iowa, remain much nearer their original location than the Shiens, or any of the other tribes, who dwelt in the Minnesota valley before the Dakotas.

When the Dakotas first came in contact with the Shiens, I have not been able to learn, farther than that the Shiens formerly planted on the Minnesota, between Blue Earth and Lac-qui-Parle, whence they moved to a western branch of Red River of the North, which still bears their name; being called by the Dakotas who hunt in that region, Shai-e-na-wojupi, ("the place where those of another language plant"). The various spellings of this name, all show plainly their origin from the Dakota name. From this planting place on the Chaienne, or Shienne of the North, this people removed across the Missouri, where they gave their name to another river; and having ceased to cultivate the soil, it is said they now hunt on the head waters of the Platte and of the Arkansas. From their retiring so rapidly, it is probable that the Shiens had not occupied the Minnesota valley long before the arrival of the Dakotas, and that the first inhabitants of it, if not the Iowas, were Otoes, Omahas, or some other family of the Dakota stock. The languages of the tribes just named, as well as of the Winnebagoes and Osages, are so similar to the Dakota, as to indicate a common origin. In the languages of the Mandans, Minetares and Crows or Upsarakas, so many Dakota words have been found, as to render it highly probable, that they also, in part at least, belong to the same stock....

Various circ.u.mstances, ... indicate that the Sioux resided long in the region where Hennepin found them. Many of them suppose that they originated there. They [the modern Sioux],[84] have a tradition, however, that their ancestors came thither from the Northeast, where they had resided on a lake. It has been generally supposed, that the lake referred to in this tradition, is Rainy lake, or Lake of the Woods. It is more probable, however, that it was the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior, or Hudson's Bay, or some of the lakes between those large expanses of water. The Ojibwas have a tradition, that their ancestors drove the Sioux from the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior.

In Schoolcraft's COLLECTIONS, Volume III, page 256, there is presented a map drawn by the Ioway Missionaries, the Reverends Hamilton and Irvin, from the rough draft of "WAW-NON-QUE-SKOON-A," an Ioway brave, showing the successive migrations of the tribe: their starting point being given from the mouth of Rock River in Illinois: which last named river, it may be observed, answers exactly the description of the one on which was the ancient or first residence of the Tribe mentioned in the tradition before given as being "a river which runs from a lake to the Mississippi from the east, and on the east side of that river:" Rock river heading as is well known in the "Four Lakes" upon the banks of one of which Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, is built, and also in another, Lake Koshkonong; which lakes, however, did not become the seat of the Winnebago until long after they were known to the whites. The letter-press description of this map of the "Migrations of the Ioway,"

Vol. III, at page 257, of Schoolcraft, we here copy, with additional explanations, inserted in brackets:

The object of Waw-non-que-skoon-a was to denote the places where the Iowas had lived during the sixteen migrations which preceded their residence at their present location, the Missouri; and, in truth, it nearly exhausts their history. The marks to denote a fixed residence, are a symbol for a lodge.

These are carefully preserved, with their exact relative position. Their order, as given, is also preserved by figures.

Could eras be affixed to these residences, it would give entire accuracy to the modern part of their history.

As it is, it depicts some curious facts in the history of predatory and erratic tribes, showing how they sometimes crossed their own track, and demonstrates the immense distances to which they rove.

The earliest date to which their recollection extends, as indicated by location No. 1, is at [or near] the junction of Rock river with the Mississippi. This was, manifestly, in or very near Winnebago territory, and confirms the traditions of several of the Missouri tribes (vide Fletcher's paper), [and also of the Ioway Indian aged "sixty years or more"]. From this point they migrated down the Mississippi to the river Des Moines, and fixed themselves at No. 2, on its south fork.

[eighty miles above the mouth]. They next made an extraordinary migration, abandoning the Mississippi and all its upper tributaries, and ascending the Missouri to a point of land formed by a small stream, on its east sh.o.r.e, called by the Indians Fish creek, which flows in from the direction of, and not far from, the celebrated Red Pipe stone quarry, on the heights of the Coteau des Prairies. No. 3.

They next descended the Missouri to the junction of the Nebraska, or Great Platte river, with that stream. No. 4. They settled on the west [or right] bank, keeping the buffalo ranges on their west. They next migrated still lower down the Missouri, and [crossing to its left side], fixed themselves on the headwaters of the Little Platte river. [not far from Fort Leavenworth], No. 5.

From this location, when circ.u.mstances had rendered another change desirable, they returned to the Mississippi, and located themselves at the mouth of Salt river. No. 6. Here pa.s.sed another period. They next ascended the Mississippi, and settled on its ["left"] east bank, at the junction of a stream in the present area of Illinois. [about midway between the Des Moines and the Ioway]. No. 7. Their next migration carried them still higher on that sh.o.r.e, [nearer the mouth of the Ioway] to the junction of another stream, No. 8, which is well nigh-[within fifty or sixty miles], to their original starting point at No. 1.

They receded again to the south and west, first fixing themselves on Salt river, No. 9, above their prior site, No.

6, and afterwards changing their location to its very source.

[about thirty miles higher]. No. 10. They then pa.s.sed, evidently by land, [about sixty miles due west], to the higher forks of the river Chariton, of Missouri, No. 11, and next descended that stream to near its mouth. No. 12. The next two migrations of this tribe were [about thirty miles] to the west valley of the Grand river, and then to its forks. [twenty-five miles from them]. No. 14. Still continuing their general migrations to the south and west, they chose the east bank of the Missouri, opposite the present site of Fort Leavenworth, No. 15, and finally settled on the west bank of the Missouri, [on their Reservation] between the mouth of the Wolf and Great Namahaw, No. 16, where they now reside.[85]

These migrations are deemed to be all of quite modern date, not excepting the probable period to which well-known tradition could reach. They do not, it would seem, aspire to the area of their ancient residence on the lower and upper Iowa rivers, and about the region of St. Anthony's falls.[86]

We are taught something by these migrations. They were probably determined by the facility of procuring food. They relied, ever, greatly on the deer, elk, and buffalo. As these species are subject to changes, it is probable they carried the Indians with them.[87] It is not probable that their locations were of long continuance at a place. Not over a dozen years at a location, on the average. It might be longer at some places, and less at others. This would not give a period of more than 180 years, before their arrival at their present place....[88]

It is not probable that the game-pursuing Indians were more fixed in their ancient, than in their modern locations.

Indeed, the very reverse is true; for the modern hunter tribes avail themselves of the proximity of military posts, and out-settlements, to guard themselves from the approaches of hostile bands.

The population of the Iowas, as given at early dates, is very uniform, having evidently been copied by one writer from another. In some ancient MS. data in the Royal Marine Office, at Paris, which were submitted to the inspection of the American Minister (General Ca.s.s) in 1842, their numbers were put down, for about 1730, at 1100. When Colonel Bouquet marched over the Alleghanies against the western Indians, in 1764, the same numbers were used. Each of these dates a.s.signs their residence to the Missouri, and there had, evidently, no recent information been received. The French alone were at that time in communication with them, and their alliance with the western Indians, in this war, made it impracticable to obtain further data.

By the official returns made to the Indian Bureau, in 1848, they are stated at "a fraction under seven hundred and fifty souls," but in Sub-Agent Vaughan's report in the fall of the same year, 669 is the enumeration.[89] In the report of 1844 their census is stated at 470.

In 1701,[90] D'Iberville's memorial[91] to France says:

the Ayooues and the Octootatas, their neighbors, are about 300 families. [In M. Chauvignerie's Report[92] of the Census of tribes, made to the French government in 1736, the "Ayouas"

are put down at 80 warriors].

In the report of the Indian Bureau for 1874, the Ioway and Otoe together, including some Sauk and some Missourie, numbered 864 persons.

It is recorded, that there were ten Ioway ("Ayeouais") with Montcalm and the French Army at the seige of Ticonderoga in July, 1757, and also 48 Winnebago ("Puants")-De Tailly being their joint Interpreter.

According to Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike's report of 1806,[93] the "Aiowais" were called by the French, colloquially, "_Ne Perce_"; which was probably "_Nez Perce_," Pierced or Perforated Noses:[94] the first syllable of Pahutchae, their own tribal name, being translated _nose_, which in some word-relations would be correct; while probably the last two syllables-ru'tchae-were deemed to be in the sense of Keru'tchae, a word signifying to _divide_ or _part_. This was a near enough translation for the early French traders, who were not particular.