OSAGE

North American Indian tribe of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan linguistic stock. They are now concentrated on a reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. Like other members of this subgroup (the Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, and Quapaw), the Osage migrated westward from the Atlantic coast, settling first in the Piedmont Plateau between the James and Savannah rivers in Virginia and the Carolinas. After a time they moved to the Ozark Plateau and the prairies of what is now western Missouri. At this point the five tribes separated, the Osage remaining in villages on the Osage River, where Jacques Marquette recorded their location in 1673. They remained there until the early 19th century, when they ceded their Missouri lands to the United States and moved west to the Neosho River valley in Kansas. Osage culture was of the prairie type, marked by the characteristic combination of village agriculture and buffalo hunting. Other important game animals were deer, bear, and beaver. Their villages consisted of longhouses covered with mats or skins and arranged irregularly about an open space used for dances and council meetings. Tepees were used during the hunting season. Osage tribal life centred on religious ceremonials in which clans were divided into symbolic sky and earth groups, with the latter further subdivided to represent dry land and water. The Osage were remarkable for their poetic rituals. Among them was the custom of reciting the history of the creation of the universe to each newborn infant. After settling on the Kansas reservation, the Osage were notable for their rejection of white culture; they continued to dress in animal skins and discouraged the drinking of whiskey. Following the American Civil War (186165), pressure on the U.S. government to open all Indian lands to white settlement resulted in the sale of the Kansas reservation. The proceeds were used to purchase land for the Osage in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The discovery of oil on the Osage reservation in the late 19th century and an agreement with the U.S. government by which all mineral rights on the reservation were to be retained by the tribe, with royalties divided on a per capita basis, made the Osage a uniquely prosperous Indian tribe. In the late 20th century they numbered about 5,000.