KANSA

also spelled Konza, also called Kaw North American Indian people of Siouan linguistic stock who lived along the Kansas and Saline rivers in what is now central Kansas. They are related to the Omaha, Osage, Quapaw, and Ponca. The Kansa were a semi-sedentary people who combined hunting and farming. Their villages were loosely organized and presided over by chiefs chosen for wisdom and bravery. Later, chieftainship became hereditary. Two or three Kansa families might live together in a large conical-shaped lodge. The men wore breechclouts over deerskin trousers. They were notable for carefully plucking all their facial and head hair, except for a scalp lock running along the top and back of the head. Religious beliefs involved a pantheon of mysterious spirits, or wakans, of differing rank and power, associated with naturee.g., with the sun, light, darkness, woods, and plains. Adolescent boys went through a puberty rite known as the vision questa period of isolation and self-denial entered upon to invoke dreams of future exploits and supernatural phenomena. Burial customs were well developed and of considerable complexity. After the women of the tribe had painted the face of the corpse and covered it with bark and a buffalo robe, it was given directions to the land of the dead. The body, accompanied by garments, weapons, pipe, and a supply of food, was placed in a shallow grave on a hill and covered with rock slabs. In 1846 the Kansa were assigned a reservation at Council Grove (Kansas), their last home before removal to Indian Territory (present Oklahoma) in 1873. In their early history the Kansa had migrated in stages, presumably from a prehistoric location on the Atlantic coast. Their numbers had been decimated by recurrent warfare with the Fox, Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, and Cheyenne. Pressure from white sourcesSpanish, English, French, and, finally, U.S. land speculatorsundermined their subsistence economy. Their estimated population in the late 18th century was 3,000. In the late 20th century there were fewer than 600 Kansa living in Oklahoma.