The best and most complete body of information about the Osage was recorded by Francis LaFlesche, a member of the kindred Omaha

Osage Culture and Change, 1673 – Present

By Stephen A. Martin

Since their first contact with Europeans in the seventeenth century, the Osage have gone from being the most powerful American Indian nation in the central portion of the present-day United States, to being the most wealthy people in the world, per capita, to, like many native peoples, being a nation in search of rebirth and attempting to reassert the traditional culture. Through it all, the Osage have displayed a remarkable capacity for adapting to new situations, new technology, and new environments. The best and most complete body of information about the Osage was recorded by Francis LaFlesche, a member of the kindred Omaha tribe who began working for the Indian Service in 1881, studied under anthropologists James Owen Dorsey and Alice Fletcher, and joined the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1910. By the time LaFlesche began his formal study of the Osage, the tribe had been twice subjected to removal. The first removal came after migrant Cherokees obtained title to lands held by the Osage in 1818, and the Osage were forced from the Arkansas River valley into present-day Kansas. The second came in 1870, when officials sought to remove the Osage from the path of transportation interests and settlers and herded them back into what was then Indian Territory. Although the Dawes Act provided for the sale of land beyond what was needed to provide individual allotments, the tribe continues to hold in common mineral rights to its 1.47 million-acre former reservation in Osage County, Oklahoma.

The Osage speak the Dhegiha Siouan language, as do the related Kansas, Omaha, Ponca, and Quapaw. Oral tradition maintains the five tribes came as a single group from somewhere east of the Mississippi River. Different factions eventually separated, becoming the tribes known in the historic period. Some stories indicate the Missouri, Oto, Iowa, and Winnebago, all of which speak the Chiwere Siouan language, were also part of the same group. As some groups of people broke away, others were adopted into the tribe. The different versions of tribal stories passed down within each clan shows how the legends and ceremonies of the others were merged into those of the original group.[1]

In their own language, the Osage are Ni-U-Kon-Ska, Children of the Middle Waters.[2] The name by which they became known to French explorers in the late seventeenth century, the Osage, is thought to be a corruption of the name of one of the tribe’s principal subdivisions. Members of a clan belonging to the water subdivision, the Wah-sha-she, had been trading with some Illini who served as informants for Père Marquette during his 1673 explorations. Spelled phonetically in French, the name became Ouazhaghi on the earliest maps. It would later come to be Anglicized to the present Osage, a name the tribe has since embraced.[3]

When first encountered by Europeans in the late 1600s, the Osage were living in two villages on the Osage River headwaters, about sixty miles north of present-day Joplin, Missouri. From this location, the Osage were able to exploit the resources of the grassy plains to their west, the prairies to the east, and the woodland hills to the south. By the time of the 1803 purchase of Louisiana, the settlements of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve and a small population of American Indian refugees made the St. Francis River the practical eastern border for the Osage. On the north, the hostile Sauk and Meskwakie held Osage wanderings beyond the Missouri River in check. Years of successful warfare with various Caddoan tribes to the west and south had rendered them virtually impotent against Osage attack. However, the powerful Comanches kept the Osage presence limited to little except isolated raids beyond the headwaters of the Salt Fork in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma.[4]

Weakened by internal divisions and the breakdown of traditional leadership structures, the tribe gave nearly all of modern-day Missouri and Arkansas to the United States in an 1808 treaty. In 1818, after the Cherokee victory at the Battle of Claremore Mound near what is now Claremore, Oklahoma, inhabitants of the last Osage village outside of present-day Kansas were forced to move. When the tribe was forced to move again in 1870, however, Osage leaders were able to use the money they received for giving up their land to purchase a new reservation from the Cherokees. This allowed the tribe to return to a portion of their ancient hunting grounds.

Osage cosmology represents a conscious attempt to recreate patterns observed in nature. The order and regularity found in nature implied a controlling force, which the Osage called Wo-kon-da, the Great Mystery. There were many manifestations of Wo-kon-da, such as the sun, the stars, the winds, and the earth. However, there was only one Wo-kon-da.[5] Osage cosmology emphasized duality in the universe, which is divided between the earth and sky. These two divisions correspond to the two Osage moieties, the Hon-ga, or earth division, and the Tsi-zhu, or sky division. Each of the moieties is itself divided, with the Hon-ga division separated into the earth and water, or Wa-sha-she, subdivisions. The moieties are further divided into a total of twenty-four clans, some of which were yet further divided into subclans. The Tsi-zhu division is associated with life, peace, the left, and the number six. The Hon-ga division is associated with death, war, the right, and the number seven.[6]

Osage villages were aligned along both sides of a single east-to-west main street. The east-to-west alignment was likely a representation of the sun’s daily path across the sky, the sun being central to the Osage religion. Clans belonging to the Tsi-zhu division arranged their homes on the north side of this street, while clans belonging to the Hon-ga division organized their homes on the south side of this street. Several other streets branched off of the main street, and each clan had its own section within the village. Each of the two chiefs, one for the Tsi-zhu and another for the Hon-ga, placed their lodges in the center of the village. The Tsi-zhu chief’s lodge was north of the main street while the Hon-ga chief’s lodge was directly across the street to the south.[7]

Both political and religious authority rested in the Society of Little Old Men, or Non-hon-zhin-ga. The society was made up of members of each clan who had been raised according to Osage traditions, lived their lives in the prescribed custom, and had completed the requisite war and peace rites for their clan. Rather than having a specific council house, as other tribes did, the Little Old Men met in the lodge of a respected society member. This lodge became the House of Mystery, and the owner of this lodge became the Keeper of the Little Old Men, presiding over its meetings.[8] There were also some women who belonged to the society. [9] These were widows of men who had been members. Originally, the Non-hon-zhin-ga controlled nearly every aspect Osage life by controlling the customs that governed it.

Members of the society were required to obtain ritual knowledge, which was considered a real possession among the Osage. Among the things initiates were required to know were a set of clan-specific ritual prayers called the wi-gi-e. In reciting the wi-gi-e, the Osage described the ideals of their culture and retold what they understood to be the history of their people from the beginning of time. Anthropologist Garrick A. Bailey’s analysis of the wi-gi-e, as recorded by La Flesche, indicates that the prayers were composed in an archaic version of the Dhegiha language centuries removed from the everyday language spoken by La Flesche’s informants. This suggests literal word-for-word memorization and recitation over a long period of time.[10]

The Osage relied upon hunting, horticulture, and foraging for subsistence. Generally, hunting was a male activity while the tending of crops was a female activity. In the period before acquisition of horses, however, both males and females were involved in hunts that required animals to be surrounded and driven into an area in which they could be more easily killed. Once horses became common and a smaller number of mounted hunters could be employed to do what it once had taken nearly all of the occupants of a village to do, the tribe still engaged in mass movements to the plains. Rather than taking an active role in the hunt itself, however, women primarily prepared the meat and hides of animals taken during the hunt, and supported the activities of the men by keeping up the usual domestic functions associated with village life. Men hunted bison, elk, deer, bear, and smaller game, while the women planted and harvested corn, beans, and squash, and collected wild roots, tubers, berries, fruits, and nuts. Of primary importance among the wild foods were water lily roots, which the Osage utilized in a manner much like other tribes used potatoes, and persimmons.[11]

The importance of the buffalo in the Osage religion implies that the animal was an important food source even before the tribe extended its domain well into the plains. Ancient tradition holds that the sun showed the Osage how to make arrows from the dogwood and ash trees, and bows from the wood of the Osage orange. The buffalo is said to have given corn and squash to ancient members of the tribe, as well as to have instructed the Osage in the use of the animal’s hide, fat, sinew, and horns. Similarly, the Osage credit the crayfish with bringing the four sacred colors and the panther with introducing the lotus fruit and the root of the water lily.[12] These traditions may indicate having encountered the food and fiber sources together. The dogwood is an Eastern woodland tree species, while the Osage orange is indigenous to the mid-South region and the ash tree is found from Minnesota to Texas. All three would have been common in the forested Ozark highland region that was home to the Osage. Similarly, association of the buffalo with corn and squash may indicate that ancient members of the tribe encountered these crops and the animal together on the plains.

The Osage were patrilineal. Marriages were customarily arranged, with Tsi-zhu grooms marrying Hon-ga brides and vice versa. As the fur trade expanded, polygyny became more common, with men customarily marrying all of the sisters in one family. In later life, a man sometimes married his brother-in-law’s wife’s brother’s daughter, or, if he had no wife or only one wife, he was expected to marry his own brother’s widow.[13] The Osage recognized three forms of marriage, but only two forms were sanctioned. First marriages were me-shin, while second and subsequent marriages were omeho. Both of these forms were considered honorable. Ka-shon-le-me-gro-ka, “to marry recklessly,” was the least honorable form of marriage. Children born of ka-shon-le-me-gro-ka unions were originally ineligible to receive clan names, and thus were not persons. Intermarriage between white men and Osage women could only be honorable if the man were first adopted into the tribe, and thus had a clan name to give any children born to the couple.[14]

Each clan possessed a part of tribal ceremonies, and the participation of all 24 clans was necessary in order for some of the most important rituals to be carried out. Among these are the Wa-sha-be A-thin, or War Ceremony.[15] Participation of the entire tribe was necessary for the raising of a Grand War Party, although smaller parties could be raised by members of a group of clans within a specific subdivision, or even by members of a single clan. Sacred war bundles, wa-xo-be, were kept by each clan. The bundles consisted of hawk skins, the hawk being a totem of warfare among the Osage, encased in wrappings of woven rushes, woven buffalo hair, and deer skin. Each of the wrappings had a symbolic significance. In addition to the clan bundles, there were also divisional and tribal bundles. Raising of a Grand War Party required seven days of ritual preparation. Because of this, they were rarely organized. More commonly, military actions were organized as small war parties assembled by members of a single clan.[16] While a war party might carry a single clan’s wa-xo-be, however, capable military leaders might attract a large number of warriors from a variety of clans.

Once ritually organized on the path to war, directions were reversed. While the left side of the village circle was still Tsi-zhu and the right side still Hon-ga, but the circle was reversed to face west rather than east. Warriors covered their faces with charcoal of redbud or willow, which symbolized the power of an all-consuming fire, which destroyed everything in its path. The Osage recognized two types of warfare. One form, which historian Louis F. Burns describes as “no quarter” warfare, was aimed at complete destruction of an enemy. In practical terms, this meant genocide. The other, more common, form was “bluff warfare.” This stylized warfare sought to bait an enemy with insults, and was only between warriors. Women and children were left unharmed in “bluff warfare.” Additionally, those warriors who sought refuge and adoption could not be harmed. A third type of war ritual developed sometime during the historic period as a rite of mourning and revenge. It was believed that a slain warrior needed a companion to accompany him to the spirit world, therefore it was up to his surviving companions to set upon and kill someone — usually an enemy, but often a hapless white trader or settler would do — to join the deceased warrior on his journey. Once the mourning-war ritual was begun, it was believed, it could not be stopped.[17]

Hunting and warfare were equated by the Osage, as each involved death. The Osage engaged in three major hunts each year, beginning with the spring buffalo hunt. Nearly every able-bodied man, woman and child participated in these hunts, which were ritually organized according to the War Ceremony. The division chiefs took turns leading their people on the way to the hunting villages, beginning with the Tsi-zhu chief on the first day. The chiefs selected the route, the departure times, and the stopping times. A ceremonial hunt leader was responsible for performing rituals to ensure success; eight a-ki-da, or “soldiers,” chosen on the basis of their ability, assisted the leader. The spring hunt was followed by a return to the plains for a similarly organized fall hunt, and a winter hunt in which members of the tribe spread out to find deer and other smaller game.[18]

One of the most remarkable Osage rituals was the morning prayer, which began each day at sunrise. The tribe had three customary prayer times, symbolized by the Red Eagle, the White Eagle, and the Black Eagle. As the red of sunrise makes the eagle’s wings appear red, the Red Eagle symbolized the morning prayer. To the Osage, sunrise symbolized the beginning of life and was the most sacred time of day. A number of early journals note how the Osage greeted day with great wailing for those who had died. However, the Osage belief system also called upon adherents to truly regret the suffering of all living things, even enemy warriors killed in battle. The other prayer symbols indicate noon, when the eagle’s wings are white from the bright midday sun, and evening, when nightfall makes the eagle’s wings appear black. Although there were prayers at each of these times, contemporary observers were most fascinated with the morning prayers because of the loud wailing it involved.[19]

In contrast with other tribes living on the plains, the Osage built longhouses in their permanent villages reminiscent of those built by tribes of the Eastern woodlands. The longhouses were generally oblong, measuring from forty to one-hundred feet in length, about twenty feet wide, and fifteen to twenty feet wide. The Osage built their homes of flexible saplings, covering them with overlapping mats made of woven grass. Only later, in the early nineteenth century, did they begin to use animal skins as a covering for their homes. Inside, a line of posts running the length of the structure supported a ridgepole, over which the ends of the posts were bent. One end of each post was driven into the ground. The other ends were tied to stakes driven into the ground on the opposite sides of the structure. Each longhouse had two entrances, each covered with a reed flap or a piece of buffalo hide. One end was oriented toward the rising sun, with the other end placed toward the setting sun. Floors were covered with mats and hides. Clothing, food, and tools were either hung from the wooden framework or set along the sides or ends of the structures. Inside, the houses were dark and smoky, since there were few places for light to enter and only part of the smoke from a fire located in the center of the structure could escape through small holes in the roof. Between ten and fifteen people lived in each longhouse.

The Osage returned to their longhouses periodically, although they spent most of their time away at communal hunts. By late May or early June, most of the able-bodied men, women, and children traveled to semi-permanent hunting villages on the plains. Families removed the mat coverings from their longhouse, leaving the frames for use upon their return. Most of the mats were stored in pits near the permanent village, but enough were taken along to cover the frames of temporary houses in the hunting village. Some lodge poles were also taken along. The lodges were similar to the longhouses in the permanent villages, but were shorter and lower. Each was about fifteen feet long, seven feet wide, and five feet high.

A third style of home was constructed for the winter hunt. Most of these were circular, wigwam-style homes. Construction used wooden frames similar to those of the longhouses and hunting lodges, but the winter lodges were smaller. Each was a circular affair about ten to fifteen in diameter. There were also a few homes, which were more like the longhouses of the permanent villages. These were smaller, measuring not more than about fifteen feet long, seven feet wide, and five feet high.

Examination of some Osage archeological sites has shown a strong relationship with the Neosho phase of the prehistoric Oneota culture. Pottery remains found at Osage sites is shell-tempered and often bears a distinctive pattern of “incised and trailed, straight-line hachures.”[20] Pottery making degenerated after contact with Europeans provided ready access to copper and brass kettles. Once introduced to metal, the Osage made stone molds and used them to cast entirely new items from the ones acquired through trade.[21] Once it was possible to either trade for metal arrow points or make them from other trade goods, the art of flint knapping also began to die out.[22] Metal, or mon-ce, became so important to the Osage that, in the eighteenth century, the Non-hon-zhin-ga created a ceremony dedicated to it. [23]

Stone tools found at early Osage archeological sites include stone scrapers, triangular projectile points of flaked stone, stone knives, and paired stones with grooves for straightening and smoothing arrow shafts. Bone tools for finishing arrow shafts have also been found, as have needles, awls, beads, and buttons made from bone. Starting in about 1700, the availability of metal trade items, including firearms, changed Osage material culture dramatically. Iron saws, scissors, files, hoes, axes, knives, and projectile points are common finds at later sites.[24] Osage orange was the preferred wood for crafting bows for hunting and warfare because of its strength. The tree is also known as bois d’arc for this reason. Once introduced through trade with Europeans, firearms quickly replaced the bow and arrow for hunting in small parties. For mounted hunts and warfare, however, the bow and arrow remained superior until repeating rifles found their way into native hands in the nineteenth century, since a skilled bowman could shoot several arrows in the time it took to reload a musket once. Unlike early firearms, arrows could also be fired from any angle.[25]

Woven rush mats were the most common items in Osage households in early historic times. Mats were used as an outer covering for Osage lodges, and as floor coverings, seating, and bedding inside the homes. Other household items included wooden plates, spoons carved from antler or shell, and wooden sticks which were rubbed together to kindle the fire. A cradleboard was also a fixture in most Osage homes. The boards were generally three feet long and about a foot wide, with a frame to hold a young child while the board was strapped to the back of the child’s mother. The use of cradleboards resulted in a characteristic flattening of the back of the skull, which was considered a unique and desirable trait among the Osage.[26]

Clothing was made from the hides of deer, elk and buffalo. The Osage also made items from woven buffalo wool. Men wore narrow, decorated belts made either of leather or of native-made cloth. Later, these were replaced with ones made of trade cloth. The men wrapped deerskin breechcloths over and under these belts, then covered their legs and hips with deerskin leggings, decorated with scalplock fringe, which they gathered below the knee with cloth or leather garters. On their feet, the men wore deerskin or buffalo hide moccasins, secured with leather thongs. In warm weather, the men wore little else. When it was cold, they wore either buffalo robes or woolen trade blankets. Women wore similar moccasins and leggings, although their leggings were usually dyed blue or red and fastened with either a leather or braided buffalo wool belts. The women wore either leather or cloth skirts, long buckskin shirts, or tunics. Children generally wore nothing until they reached age six or seven. Then they began dressing as the adults did. The hair of both boys and girls was cut in distinctive patterns, which varied by clan.[27]

European observers made note that Osage men used the sharp edges of freshwater mussel shells to shave most of the hair from their bodies and heads, including their eyebrows. Only during a ritual period of mourning did the men allow their hair to grow. The pre-contact Osage decorated their bodies with earrings made of clay, shell, bone, or beads. Later, jewelry made of metal became common. Men who had been awarded war honors were allowed to tattoo signs of their honors on their bodies, as well as on the bodies of their wives and daughters. The designs were drawn with hot irons and coals drawn from a fire. Sometimes tattoos covered the entire body.[28]

Due largely to the influence of Europeans and Americans in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, traditional Osage governmental and ceremonial structures began to break down. Under the dual chieftainship structure, the Tsi-zhu and Hon-ga chiefs were equal within their respective realms. If approaching in peace, an outsider was greeted and dealt with by the Tsi-zhu chief. Hostile outsiders, although they rarely would have gotten close enough to realize it, were greeted by warriors commanded by the Hon-ga chief. As the Osage increasingly became dependent upon interaction with outsiders, however, and as production of furs and skins became the dominant economic activity, the Tsi-zhu chief’s role acquired additional importance. The Tsi-zhu chief was the principal intermediary with the outside world.[29] Recognized within the tribe for his role as a conduit for trade with outsiders, and recognized by the outsiders as their principal liaison, the position of Tsi-zhu chief evolved into the role of principal chief in modern Osage governance.[30]

The decline in power of the Non-hon-zhin-ga corresponded with a decline in observance of traditional Osage religious practices. Many found a comfortable home in the Catholic Church, which had been involved in missionary work among the Osage since French colonial days. The Osage had a ceremony in their native religion almost identical to baptism, and funeral practices were similar. Mission records find thousands of recorded Osage baptisms and hundred of burials. Today, many traditional Osage religious practices continue to be observed within the framework of Catholicism. Among the distinctive artwork found at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, informally known as the “Cathedral of the Osage,” is a large stained glass window depicting an early missionary with members of the tribe in traditional Osage dress. About eighty percent of church members are American Indian, the highest percentage in any Catholic parish north of Mexico.[31]

Also significant is the Native American Church, which continues to use the peyote rituals first introduced to the Osage after their final removal back to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. A prophet from the neighboring Caddo people, called John Wilson but known as Moonhead to the Osage, told the Osage about the visions he had been given. His teachings mixed Christian theology with native spirituality, and gained a wide following among many of the tribes.[32] The church and its peyote rituals are credited with saving many in the tribe from the ravages of alcoholism. The Native American Church was granted a charter by the state of Oklahoma in 1911. Churches were known as roundhouses, for their distinctive shape, and many are still seen in rural parts of Osage County. There are still many Native American Church congregations, although the religion is no longer practiced as widely as it was in the early twentieth century.[33] Another custom borrowed from a neighboring tribe is the I’n-Lon-Schka, of Playground of the First Son. This dance, introduced by the Ponca tribe around 1885, is a communal event with exchanges of gifts, feasting, and games.[34] Today, the I’n-Lon-Schka is performed on three successive June weekends in the old towns of the Osage.

Along with changes in religious and political life came profound economic changes. For the first years after removal to Indian Territory, the Osage continued to make their annual trips to the plains for their communal bison hunts. Agency reports from 1873 indicate efforts to increase the amount of land in cultivation were somewhat successful, and some tribal members stopped going on the hunts. But the same reports also indicate the 1873 hunt was particularly good, and the Osage were well stocked with meat and hides for trade. The hunt in 1874 was suspended and the party called back by the agent after the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho left their reservations, prompting the so-called Red River War. Authorities were concerned that, allowed to leave their own reservation, the Osage might get caught up in the hostilities. To compensate for the shortage of meat and absence of trade, rations were issued. Agents later continued to prohibit the hunts in an effort to force the Osage into adoption of farming for sustenance.[35]

By this time, some of the Osage had found they could profitably lease portions of their land to white farmers. The amount of cultivated land increased from about 10,000 acres in 1888 to 28,860 acres in 1893, although few members of the tribe were actively involved in agriculture themselves. A new tribal government, pattered after the elected government of the neighboring Five Civilized Tribes, was created in 1884. This new government was in place as the Dawes Act placed pressure on all Native American tribes to begin selling off reservation lands. Although the Osage agreed to do so, the new tribal leadership took the unusual step of maintaining join ownership of mineral rights. In time, it would prove to be a highly astute move.[36] The Osage and other tribes had long used surface seeps of petroleum for treatment of frostbite, cuts, sprains, burns, and as a horse liniment. The oil business first developed in southeastern Kansas, but soon spread to Indian Territory. The first successful commercial exploration in present-day Oklahoma was near Bartlesville, when a crew struck oil 1,303 feet below the surface on April 15, 1897. If there was oil in Bartlesville, which borders Osage County on the east, it was assumed that there must also be oil in Osage County. Those assumptions were confirmed on October 28, 1897, when oil was discovered two miles west in the Osage reserve.[37] By the 1920s, the Osage were the wealthiest people in the world. But the Osage wealth unleashed a wave of crimes known as the Osage Reign of Terror, in which seven suspicious deaths were linked to a Texas man who had married an Osage woman, presumably in the hope of inheriting her oil wealth and that of her family. Others were swindled without being murdered, and by the time of the Great Depression, what had once been fantastic wealth in Osage County had been replaced with fantastic poverty.[38]

As of June 2002, the Osage Nation estimates there are some 18,000 people throughout the world bearing some quantum of Osage blood. If this figure is correct, then the Osage population may be greater now than it has ever been at any point in history. [39] It is most certainly a tremendous increase since the removal to present-day Oklahoma, when there were only about 3,000 remaining Osages. With help from a variety of federal programs and revenues from tribal enterprises, the Osage Nation is preserving its legacy through a tribal museum, archives, and educational programs. Though much has changed since the first Europeans encountered the Osage, many of the core beliefs of the old religion have been preserved in new contexts. In all likelihood, the Osage Nation will continue to grow and adapt regardless of whatever changes may take place in its future.

Notes: