About the Osage Indians
The Native American Osage Indians own a reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. They obtained this land after being forced to move from their homeland in Missouri and Arkansas in 1870.
Now, the tribe benefits from the discovery of oil on their reservation. They have a rich cultural history which was interrupted when the Europeans and Americans pushed west beginning in the 17th century, displacing the Osage Indians from their homes.
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Geography
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The Osage were Dakota Sioux people who controlled the areas west of the Mississippi River and between the Kaw River and the Arkansas River when the Spaniards and French began to move across the American Midwest. The Osage dominated this area until 1804, when the US bought the Louisiana Purchase from France.
As more Americans moved west, the Osage were pressured to move again. This time they had to sign treaties with the US to give up their land. Several treaties between the US and the Osage were made between 1808 and 1865. Then the tribe moved to northeastern Oklahoma.
Features
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The Osage built their oval houses with a frame of poles covered with animal hides. They arranged the houses in villages near the land where the women grew corn and other vegetables. The men hunted buffalo, beaver and deer for food and to trade the fur and hide.
They were a tall people, perhaps the tallest of all the Native American tribes, with the average height of a grown man standing taller than six feet. The men shaved their heads and wore heavy earrings of wampum, which was made from polished beads and shells and was used for both jewelry and money. They also painted their arms and chests and wore bracelets and rings. They were considered very skillful at capturing wild horses. -
Size
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When Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet met the Osage during their 1673 exploration of the Mississippi River, Marquette noted that this tribe was the biggest and strongest of all the Native Americans west of the Mississippi. Fifteen years later, there were 17 Osage villages, but by the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, only 2,300 Osage men remained.
Identification
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Osage is not what the tribe called themselves. The French could not pronounce the tribal name, Wa-Sha-She. They used French phonetics to write the name, spelling it "Ouasages" and then the Americans changed that to Osage. This Americanized name has become the official name for this Indian nation, according to the American Bureau of Ethnology.
Expert Insight
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Some very wise things have been said by Osage tribal elders and have been passed on in the Osage oral history. One example is the story of a long search for a symbol for wisdom. Elders decided to select the spider. The spider was chosen as it waits and waits, eventually receiving all it needs.
The tribe is eager to not lose this kind of cultural wisdom. They also want to preserve the Osage language before the native speakers die so they have been participating in an oral history project. So far more than 400 hours of recorded Osage stories and similar parables have been collected.
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