Lamiae
Mémoire online frontières Intimes, Indiens, Français, et Africains dans la Vallée du Mississippi, tutoriel & rapport en PDF.
Part I: Liaisons and Alliances: French Settlers and Quapaw Indians
In a tale passed on for generations, the O-Gah-Pah remember that during creation time the heaven and the earth were separated, the breath of the sky set their Ancient Ones ashore and fell into the water. The tale also recalls that the Early Ones, who once lived east of the River near the great waters, were driven out by their enemies (the Iroquois). During a winter, they embarked upon a long journey from their homeland in the lower Ohio River Valley, descending the Father of the Waters or Big River (Mississippi River). A big storm separated the brothers during their crossing of the river and gave birth to the Osage, Omaha, Kansas, and Poncas, people who went up the river. Separated from their kinsmen, the O-Gah-Pah became to be known as the “lost tribe.” They were the people who went down stream the River, O-Gah-Pah –from which the name Quapaw derived. The Quapaw established four villages Kappa, Tongigua, Tourima, and Osotouy, near the confluence of the Big River and a newly found river (Arkansas) and made it their new homeland.
The downstream people hunted and grew crops. Men fished and hunted deer, bear, and buffalo, as well as managed political affairs and warfare. Women grew corn, beans, and pumpkins, and gathered wood and wild foods. In addition to cooking and rearing children, weaving baskets, producing pottery vessels, they also butchered the hunted animals and prepared the hides. During warm seasons, deerskin skirts were women’s only covering while men went naked. In cold season, both men and women wore Leggings, moccasins, and robes. Married women wore their hair loose, but unmarried women wore their hair in braids knotted behind each ear.
They built longhouses, each being occupied by several related families. The houses surrounded an open plaza where ceremonies were performed. Everything they had came from Waha kon Dah, the great spirit symbolized by the sun. They lived in a universe is structured by reciprocal relationships between communities and powerful spiritual forces. The Quapaws performed ceremonies for planting, harvesting, hunting, warfare, adoption, and marriage, to sustain the balance between their world and the other. The Sky People performed rituals involving spiritual affairs, while the Earth People performed the rituals that maintained the physical balance of the community. The Quapaws were patrilineal, as their children were members of their fathers’ clan and moiety. Meanwhile, kinship relations were extended to guests in the calumet ceremony, through adoptions, and marriage. The calumet ceremony used sacred pipes to unify the two parties under the obligation of reciprocity. The guests were received at a platform built near the plaza, where the ceremonies were held.
Many winters had passed when the Quapaws of the Kappa village noticed the approach of two bark canoes which descended the Big River. The downstream people encountered the pale-faced people for the first time. Frightened and uncertain about the intentions of the bearded visitors, the Quapaws shot few a arrows towards them. Accustomed to the culture of the natives, the French chief who wore a black robe held out the calumet, to indicate good intentions. The strangers were escorted by two individuals from the Illinois tribe, who introduced the Quapaw as the Akensea, later spelled Arkansas, the Illini word for the “broken off” People. The Quapaw people, their river and land would be known as the Arkansas by the French. As the French seemed to pose no immediate threat to them, the Arkansas received their guests with the Calumet. The Calumet ceremony symbolized hospitality, kinship, and reciprocal obligations, insisting upon the guests’ participation. As part of gift exchange between the two parties, a painted deerskin was placed ceremoniously on the Black Robe’s shoulders. The strangers were carried, on the shoulders and backs of their host, to the plaza which was covered with willows and bear skins. The ceremony continued with two days of drumming, singing, dancing, and feasting. The visitors were rocked all night to the rhythm of the drums. Before returning up the River, Black Robe erected a big cross in the village as a symbol of their friendship.
…………..
