Osage

[rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu]

John writes:
> I find this not unnatural as a historical implication of the naming
> pattern, but really awkward linguistically.  I keep wondering how the
> butler got to the pub in time for the Miami-Illinopis and Shawnee to see
> him sipping a pint in the Ohio room, when he was apparently diverging
> linguistically from the Dakota, Chiwere, and Winnebago in Upper
> Mississippi Manornot too long before.  Unless, of course, they diverged
in
> the pub, but then why don't the other have Ohio Valley mud on their
shoes,
> too?  No matter how you work it, somebody has an energetic itinerary and
a
> tight time table.  Or perhaps the butler has an identical twin?


>> In fact, the Dhegihans differentiated in about the area of
>> southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa. From here, the Osage,
>> Kaw and Quapaw moved south, leaving the Omaha-Ponca in their ancestral
>> homeland.  (This is John's view, as I understand it.)

> I used to get much more specific about this, but as Oneota archaeology
and
> my own understanding of Mississippi Valley Siouan get more complex, I've
> retreated to a sort of core of two things that I take to be facts:

> A) A linguistic entity like Mississippi Valley has to originate in a
> relatively restricted area.  It cannot have come out of the ground over
> the entire territory attested for MVS languages at contact, let alone the
> more extended range that developed subsequently.

I agree that Mississippi Valley would have to have
originated in a relatively restricted area, though
it might have first spread from its point of origin
over a rather wide area as a single language before
diverging into its separate subgroups.

Another question is how mobile the people speaking
the language were.  In an earlier time, with a
smaller population and a less intensified mode of
procuring a living, a single band of people might
have ranged over hundreds or even thousands of
miles in the course of their yearly itineraries.

But suppose we just try relocating that butler a
little to the east, and pushing him back farther
in time to some point earlier than Oneota, say
more like two thousand years ago than one.  If
we give him a range covering roughly the modern
states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and southern
Wisconsin and Michigan, we still have a fairly
compact and reasonable territory for MVS to
differentiate on.  In time, one group intensifies
to the south, along the Ohio River, and evolves
into the Dhegihans.  To the west, another group
intensifies along the Mississippi, and becomes
the Dakotans.  To the north, another group
focusses on the shores of Lake Michigan, and
becomes the Winnebagoes.  In the middle, yet
another group adapts to an upland type of
environment, and becomes the Chiweres, who
remain rather intermediate to the rest.  Later,
the Dakotans move up the river to Minnesota,
while the Dhegihans expand westward into the
Bottom areas of southern Illinois and up the
lower Missouri.  The Winnebagoes become
concentrated around the Green Bay area, and
the Chiweres expand across the Mississippi
into Iowa.  Finally, we have an influx of
Algonquians from the north into the Ohio Valley.
The Dhegihans and Chiweres in this region are
defeated, and many are forced to flee for their
lives, down the Ohio River and across the
Mississippi.  The crossing is a confused mess,
and the Dhegihan refugees break into two groups
here, one moving south to become the Quapaws,
and the other wandering northwest to become the
Omahas.  The immigrant Algonquians know the
Ohio as the River of the Dhegihans, this
specific historic event is remembered by the
Omaha in a much attenuated and garbled form for
hundreds of years after the disaster, all players
are where we want them at the time of contact,
and nobody but the Omahas, Poncas, Quapaws, and
perhaps a few of the Ioways has any Ohio Valley
mud on his shoes.

Would this scenario fit everybody's requirements?


Rory