Chauvignerie located some of the tribe south of
Ounipigan (Winnipeg) lake in 1736, and they were near Lake-of-the-Woods as
late as 1766, when they were said to have 1,500 warriors. It is well known
that in 1829 they occupied a considerable territory west of the Dakota and
north of Missouri river, with a population estimated at 8,000; and Drake
estimated their number at 10,000 before the smallpox epidemic of 1838,
which is said to have carried off 4,000. From this blow the tribe seems
never to have fully recovered, and now numbers probably no more than
3,000, mostly in Canada, where they continue to roam the plains they have
occupied for half a century.
cEGIHA
According to tribal traditions collected by Dorsey, the ancestors of the
Omaha, Ponka, Elwapa, Osage, and Kansa were originally one people dwelling
on Ohio and Wabash rivers, but gradually working westward. The first
separation took place at the mouth of the Ohio, when those who went down
the Mississippi became the Kwapa or Downstream People, while those who
ascended the great river became the Omaha or Up-stream People. This
separation must have occurred at least as early as 1500, since it preceded
De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi.
The Omaha group (from whom the Osage, Kansa, and Ponka were not yet
separated) ascended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, where
they remained for some time, though war and hunting parties explored the
country northwestward, and the body of the tribe gradually followed these
pioneers, though the Osage and Kansa were successively left behind.
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