the Great Osage, on the waters of the Litle Osage, Saint Francis,
and other streams, are a number of scattered bands of Indians, and
two or three considerable villages. these bands were principally
Indians, who were formerly outcasts from the tribes east of the Mis-
sissippi. Numbers have since joined from the delawares, Shawa-
noes, Wayondott, and other tribes towards the lakes. Their warriors
are said to be five or six hundred. they have sometimes made excur-
sions and done mischief on the Ohio river, but the settlements on
the Mississippi have suffered the most severely by their depredations."
( Cutler, (1), p. 120.)

No attempt will be made in the present work to describe the habi-
tations or settlements occupied by the scattered bands just mentioned.

It is quite evident that during the past twoor three centuries great
changes have taken place in the locations of the tribes which were
discovered occupying the region west of the Mississippi by the first
Europeans to penetrate the vast wilderness. thus the general move-
ment of many siouan tribes has been westward, that of some Algon-
quian groups southward from their earlier habitats, and the Caddoan
appear to have gradually gone northward. it resulted in the converg-
ing ofthe tribes in the direction of the great prairies occupied by
the vast herds of buffalo which served to attract the Indian. Until
the beginning of this tribal movement it would seem that a great
region eastward from the base of the Rocky Mountains, the rolling
prairie lands, was not the home of any tribes but was solely the range
of the buffalo and other wild beasts, which existed in numbers now
difficult to conceive.

With the practical extermination of the buffalo in recent years,
and the rapid changes which have taken place in the general appear-
ance of the country, itis difficult to piture it as it was two or more
centuries ago> while the country continued to be the home of the
native tribes game was abundant, andthe buffalo, in prodigious
numbers, roamed over the wide region from the Rocky Mountains to
near the Atlantic. It is quite evident, and easily conceivable, that
wherever the buffalo was to be found it was hunted by the people of
the neighboring villages, principally to serve as food. but the differ-
ent parts of the animal were made use of for many purposes, and,
as related in an early Spanish narrative, one prepared nearly four
centuries ago, when referring to the "the oxen of Quivira... Their
masters have no other riches nor substance: of them they eat, they
drink, they apparel, they shooe themselves: and of their hides they
make many things, as houses, shooes, apparell and ropes; of their

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