Padouca

[Rory M Larson]

> SOMEbody used the name a lot earlier: in the first decade of the 18c. we
> have French Panetonka and Panetoca, and in 1718 "Pays des Apaches et des
> Padoucas".
>
> Alan

That would indicate that the French distinguished the Padoucas
from the Apaches by 1718.  The Padoucas were certainly known
directly to the Pawnee and the lower Missouri Valley Siouan
tribes, who were at war with them around this time.  I
understand that the French even encouraged a slave trade of
which Padoucas were among the main victims.

The French became established on the middle Mississippi,
in the area around the Ohio and Missouri River mouths from
the time of the Marquette-Jolliet expedition of 1673.  They
chose the Osage on the Missouri as their primary allies in
that direction.  In 1724, Bourgmont made his celebrated and
officially well-supported expedition west up the Kansas River
to meet the Padoucas and make peace with them to allow French
traders to cross the Plains to trade with the Spanish of New
Mexico.

So the period in which the French became acquainted with the
Padouca as an ethnic group can probably be bracketed between
1673 and 1724, or about half a century.  I think the question
is whether the Padouca were known by that name to other Indian
nations far and wide across the continent, and continuously down
to the time that vocabularies were collected, such that the
Algonquian groups mentioned by David provide independent evidence
of the original meaning of "Padouca", or whether the "Padouca" name
was used primarily by Caddoans and Siouans of the lower Missouri
region, from whom the French picked it up around 1700, and the
Miami, Shawnee, Sauk and Mesquakie after about 1846.  I was
thinking that the Algonquianists might know of earier written
records of the name in Algonquian contexts, or that they might be
able to tell by internal evidence among these groups.

Rory