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Origins |
Sometime before the 1600's, the Kaws lived
as one nation with a large number of Siouan-speaking people
known as the Dhegiha Siouan group. Originating east of the
Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River, the Dhegiha
tribes migrated west down the Ohio River. Although scholars
differ as to exactly when this translocation occurred, it is
clear that by the 1600s the Dhegihans had separated into the
five tribes we now know as the Kaws, Quapaws, Omahas, Osages,
and Poncas.
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The Quapaws moved down the Mississippi River to the present east
Arkansas area while the other four tribes went upstream to the
present St. Louis area then headed up the Missouri River. By
1700 the Omahas and Poncas established a presence in the present
eastern Nebraska–western Iowa area, and the Osages occupied
present southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas, northwest
Arkansas, and northeast Oklahoma. Sometime in the later 1600s
the Kaws established villages on the west side of the Missouri
River in what is today Doniphan County Kansas.
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The reasons for the Kaws
migration west are open to speculation. It is
possible that the Kaws were subject to pressure from
better-armed eastern Indians who, in turn, were being
forced west by European colonists getting established on
the eastern seaboard. The ravages of contagious disease
among Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries resulting in tribal re-configurations and
population dislocations may have affected the Kaws’
move west. Tribal factionalism, the ambitions of
individual chiefs, or the pursuit of westward-trending
bison herds may have been factors as well.
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Scholars are unable to agree on the English
meaning of the name of the tribe. One source of confusion is
that there are over 125 different spellings of the tribal name
including Can, Caw, Ka-anzou, Kancez, Kanissi, Kansies, Kantha,
Caugh, Keniser, Quans, Escansques, Escanzaques, and Excnjaques.
For generations, Kansas school children have been taught that
the literal meaning of Kanza in English is "People of the
South Wind," "Wind People," or "South Wind
People." However, it is uncertain that the word Kanza
means anything at all to the Kaws themselves, let alone
possessing an equivalent in English. Mahlon Stubbs, long a
teacher, agent, and friend of the Kaws, claimed the name of
the tribe meant plum to the Kaws.
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