Part 2

This is the cognomen of a small tribe of Indians, never very numerous,[46] known to the whites for the last one hundred and eighty years,[47] during which period they have been wanderers from the Mississippi to the Missouri, and from the Missouri to the Mississippi: their migrations being confined mainly to the limits of the present State of Iowa, which was therefore very properly named after them.[48] They are now located within a Reservation of land on the west bank of the Missouri, between the Great Nemahaw and Wolf Creeks, in the State of Nebraska, on the borders of Kansas and Iowa.[49]

NOMENCLATURE

The name by which we know them--that of IOWAY--(or IOWA, which is the form the word takes when applied to the State)--is not that for themselves, nor is it a name which belongs to the language of any _one_ Indian tribe; but seems to have been made up, or compounded, by the early French, from the Dakota--Sioux designation for them of Äyu'h'äpä, by taking the first two syllables, Ayu', and adding to it one of the common Algonquin--French terminations to tribal names in _ois_, _vois_, or _vais_ or _ouez_: all of which terminations appear on the early records compounded with Ayu, or a modification of it, to indicate the Ioway Tribe. In La Harpe's[50] narrative of Le Sueur's[51] mining expedition, in 1700, to the Blue Earth region, in now Minnesota, where the Ioways are first of record referred to, they are written of as "AYA--VOIS"; in Pennecaud's[52] relation of the same expedition they are the Aiaos or Aiavos, (his MSS[53] in the Congressional Library is obscure); in Charlevoix's[54] history, 1722, he gives the name with a characteristic effort at precision, as "AIOUEZ"; and in Lewis and Clark's TRAVELS, 1812,[55] they appear as "AYAUWAYS." The French first knew of the Ajowæ through the Dakota--Sioux: (as we will observe hereafter in the gleanings of their early history,) and it is not surprising to me that they should (or that other Indian tribes should) seek to find some easier way of distinguishing the Tribe than to attempt to pronounce the extremely difficult _guttural_ ending of their Sioux designation. THE DAKOTA--LEXICON[56] thus gives its meaning:

"Ayu'hpä, _n. p._ (_sleepy ones_:) the _Ioway Indians_."

The proper name which the Ioway give themselves, acknowledging no other, is Pähutch'æ, _Dusty--Heads_: sometimes translated, but I think erroneously, _Dusty--Noses_.[57] The prefix _pä_ anciently signified _head_; and it does yet in some cognate dialects and in combinations, especially in old hereditary proper names; though in modern parlance it is generally confined to _nose_, but not invariably.

PREPARED AND PRINTED

BY

REV. WM. HAMILTON

AND

REV. S. M. IRVIN.

_Under the direction of the Presbyterian B. F. M._

IOWAY AND SAC MISSION PRESS.

1848.

EXACT SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL ]

Inquiring into the origin of this name Pähutch'æ, which, whether meaning _Dusty--Heads_ or _Dusty--Noses_, is quite a singular one for a people to confer upon themselves, I find recorded a _theory_ to fit each translation. In Schoolcraft's official COLLECTIONS, in a paper prepared February 1, 1848, by the Ioway missionaries,[58] page 262, volume III, I read of the fanciful and somewhat strained solution, as follows:

When they [the Ioway] separated from the first Indian tribe, or family, to hunt game, their first location was near the mouth of a river, where there were large sand--bars, from which the wind blew quantities of sand or dust upon their faces, from which they were called Pa--hu--chas or Dusty--noses.

_Per contra_: During November, 1873, when I was at the former Winnebago Agency, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, I mentioned the above theory of the Ioway name to the intelligent Winnebago ex--Chief "Baptiste," the Half--Breed, who in his youthful wanderings had lived a considerable time on the Missouri amongst the Ioway. He smiled at it, and, in his broken English at first and then through ex--Interpreter Menaige, who was present, said, that the Ioway name meant _Dusty_, or Dusty Gray, _Heads_, and that it occurred in this way: Living on the Missouri as they had done in the earliest time: wandering away from it and then wandering back again; they were accustomed to bathe a great deal in its yellow--muddy waters; and that when they dried off after coming out of the water, the sediment of the water remained on their _heads_ making them look _dusty_ and _gray_; and this was the true reason they became the Pähutch'æ, or _Dusty--Head_ Tribe. Baptiste said this was the accepted theory amongst the old people of the Ioway as to the way Pähutch'æ came to be their name. The Winnebago cognomen for them, which is Wähotch'ærä, the _Gray--Ones_, is evidently but a modification of the same _Dusty--Head_ idea: (in the Hotchank'ærä language hotch is _gray_ and rähätch, _ashes_). And such modification is, also, I think the Dakota--Sioux name for them of Äyu'h'äpä, notwithstanding the Dakota--Sioux Lexicon gives it as meaning the _Drowsy--Ones_, and to doubt such authority may seem presumptuous. But, in these investigations I have noticed, that aboriginal nations, unless there is some special reason to the contrary--for instance a special enmity--(as the Chippeway name for the Sioux of Opwan'äk, "those whom we roast,") all endeavor to _translate_ into their own vernacular the names of neighboring tribes, rather than adopt them bodily: a notable instance of which is, that the name _Saulteurs_, people of the _Sault_ or _Leap_ or _Rapids_, is repeated in idea but in different forms by both the Winnebago and the Sioux, the latter terming them Hähä'towa and the former Ræh'ätche'rä, both meaning, alike, "_The Falls Dwellers_." Sometimes, in these dialectical translations, the original meaning of the tribal name was correctly rendered, and sometimes not: the early French in fact, made frequent failures. Now, the Sioux were well acquainted with the Ioway. They were, at the advent of the whites, their allies and neighbors, living as the Ioway did in 1700, on the borders of Iowa and Minnesota, about the headwaters of the Blue Earth and Des Moines rivers:[59] though they soon wandered from there to the Missouri again. The Dakota must have known the name they called themselves, and the reason for it: and what more likely than that they should endeavor to render the idea it conveyed _literally_ into their own language? May not the Sioux name for them, therefore, have been originally Äyu'h'äpä, deduced thus: Ä is the preposition _on_ or _upon_; yu "as a prefix to _adjectives_ and sometimes to nouns, it sometimes forms verbs, and means to _make_ or _cause to be_" (Dakota--Lexicon); h'ä, is an _adjective_, meaning, (says the Lexicon) "_gray_ or _mixed_, as black and white, the black appearing under the white, as in the badger;" and pä, signifying _head_. This combination would be literally, "upon--to cause--graymixed--the head:" which is exactly the idea that the Ioway themselves and the Winnebago also seek to convey by their respective names Pähutch'æ, the _Dusty--Heads_, and Wähotch'ærä, the _Gray_, (through dust?) People.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE IOWAY

The earliest mention[60] of the Tribe is in Le Sueur's narrative of his expedition in 1700 to the fancied copper mines[61] of _Riviere de Vert_, (the Blue Earth tributary of the Minnesota river), embodied in La Harpe's mss.[62] HISTORY OF LOUISIANA, parts of which including Le Sueur's NARRATIVE, have been recently published.[63] As to this mine, we are told in the mss. copy[64] in the Congressional Library of the RELATION OF PENICAUD, the shipwright who accompanied Le Sueur--"a man, (says Neill,[65] the erudite historian of Minnesota) of discernment but little scholarship"--that:

M. Le Sueur had heard of the mine some years before while travelling in the country of the Aiaos--(or Aivoe: the name has been written twice: and the orthography is obscure,)--where he traded.

This acquaintance with the Ioway must have been achieved when, as chief trader,[66] he occupied the "factory" of "Fort Perrot" on the "left" or east bank of the Mississippi,[67] just below Point Le Sable, near the foot of Lake Pepin: which first trading post of the upper Mississippi was erected in 1683, by Nicholas Perrot[68] and M. le Sueur by order of Governor De la Barre,[69] of Canada, "to establish (says the historian Neill) friendly alliances with the Ioway and Dakota"; and this post was for years the only one in all that region, until Le Sueur himself, in 1695, built the "French factory" of "Isle Pelee," at the "right" bank, on Prairie or "Bald" Island, about ten miles below the St. Croix. The Ioway, (as will hereafter appear), occupied at that time a not very remote nor inaccessible location from Fort Perrot, in the region around and amidst the head waters of the Des Moines and Blue Earth rivers, and being allies of the Sioux, they doubtless brought their furs and obtained their trading supplies of Le Sueur at this "Fort": and it is not improbable that Le Sueur (and his engages) also travelled in their country on hunting or trading expeditions.

In La Harpe's account of Le Sueur's long "voyage" up the Mississippi from its mouth to the "mine" with his "felucca,[70] two canoes and twenty men,"[71] the Ioway are frequently mentioned. The first instance is when about the 14th[72] of July, 1700, as he passed the mouth of the Illinois, he "met three Canadian voyageurs, who came to join his band, and received by them a letter from Father Marest,[73] Jesuit, dated July 10, 1700, at the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin in Illinois:" of which the following is a copy:

I have the honor to write in order to inform you, that the Saugiestas have been defeated by the Scioux and the Ayavois.[74] The people have formed an alliance with the Quincapous, and some of the Mecoutins, Renards, and Metesigamias, and gone to revenge themselves, not on the Scioux, for they are too much afraid of them, but perhaps on the Ayavois, or very likely upon the Paoutees, or more probably upon the Osages, for these suspect nothing, and the others are on their guard. As you will probably meet these allied nations, you ought to take precaution against their plans, and not allow them to board your vessel, since they are traitors, and utterly faithless. I pray God to accompany you in all your designs.

This letter of Father Marest shows, that the Ioway were then in alliance with the Sioux, and establishes, that their Indo--_French_ name of "_Ayavois_" was already pretty well understood: and that even their own name for themselves was not unknown, PAOUTÉES, or--(to transliterate the French orthography into our Indian alphabet),--Päut'æs, was not far off from their true designation of Pähutchæs: though, curiously enough, they are held to be another tribe! The warning of this war-party given Le Sueur by the "Father" proved no false alarm; for just below the Wisconsin, "five Canadians" were met with, "descending from the Scioux to go to Tamarois," who, above the Wisconsin, had been fallen in with by a war--party of "ninety savages in nine canoes," being of "four different nations, the _Outagamis_ [Foxes], _Saquis_ [Saukes], _Poutouwatamis_ and _Puans_ [Winnebago]", who had "robbed and cruelly beat them." Taking these five men with him as volunteers, Le Sueur proceeded up the river until he met this war--party near Black River, returning from an unsuccessful encounter with the "_Scioux_," and brought them to terms, and, being evidently too strong for them to maltreat or meddle with in any way, extorted a kind of apology from them for what they had done.

On the first of October Le Sueur finally reached his destination near his "_mine_." We extract from the narrative of his proceeding while here so much of it as refers to the Ioway:

After he [Le Sueur] entered into BLUE river, thus named on account of the MINES of blue earth found at its mouth, he founded his post, situated in 44 degrees 13 minutes north latitude. He met at this place nine Scioux, who told him the river belonged to the Scioux of the WEST, the AYAVOIS [Ioways], and Otoctatas [Otoes], who lived a little farther off: that it was not their [the "Scioux"] custom to hunt on ground belonging to others, unless invited to do so by the owners, and that when they would come to the fort to obtain provisions they would be in danger of being killed in ascending or descending the rivers, which were narrow, and that if he would show them pity, he must establish himself on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the St. Pierre, where the AYAVOIS, the OTOCTATAS, and the other SCIOUX, could go as well as them.... Le Sueur had forseen that the establishment of BLUE river would not please the SCIOUX, ... because they were the first with whom trade was commenced, and in consequence of which they had already quite a number of guns.... On the 3d of October, they received at the fort several SCIOUX, among whom was WAHKANTAPE, chief of the village. Soon two Canadians arrived who had been hunting, and had been robbed by the SCIOUX of the east, who had raised their guns against the establishment which M. LE SUEUR had made on Blue river. On the 14th the fort was finished and named "Fort L'Huillier," and on the 22d two Canadians were sent out to invite the Ayavois and Otoctatas to come and establish a village near the fort, because these Indians are industrious [?] and accustomed to cultivate the earth, [?] and they hoped to get provisions from them and to make them work [!] in the mines.

An assertion, a hope and an expectation which rather proves, that Le Sueur knew nothing of these Indians from actual observation in their country, but only knew of them from report and by a few individuals whom he probably met for trade at the posts at Forts _Perrot_ or _Isle Pele_; for there is no evidence that they ever were "industrious," or given to "cultivating the earth" any more than other Indians: nor are they at this day. But, to continue our extracts:

The same day [the 24th] the Canadians, who had been sent off on the 22d arrived without having found the road which led to the Ayavois and Otoctates.

... On the 16th [of Nov.] the Scioux returned to their village, and it was reported that the Ayavois and Otoctatas were going to establish themselves towards the Missouri river, near the Maha [Omahaw], who dwell in that region.

In May, 1701, Le Sueur left Fort d'Huillier in charge of M. d'Evaque, a Canadian gentleman, with a force of twelve Frenchmen, while he himself in his felucca with the rest of his men returned to Mobile, carrying with him "three canoe loads," or "four thousand pounds," of the "green earth," supposed to be oxide of copper, but which was really from a kind of shelly marly strata, interposed between the fossiliferous limestone and the sandstone of that region, that was colored bluish--green by silicate of iron. We next find Le Sueur--(who it has been stated was the father of the three distinguished brothers D'Iberville, DeBienville, and Sauvolle)[75]--in the summer of 1701 accompanying D'Iberville, the Governor of Louisiana, on his return to France, and assisting him while on shipboard in concocting a Memorial on the Mississippi Valley, addressed to the French government: in which D'Iberville says:

He [M. LE SUEUR] has spoken to me of another, [nation] which he calls the Mahas, [Omahaw], composed of more than twelve hundred families [!], the Ayooues and the Octootatas, their neighbors, are about three hundred families. They occupy the lands between the Mississippi and the Missouri, about one hundred leagues from the Illinois. These savages do not know the use of (fire?) arms....

The memorial, (a manuscript copy of which, quoted by Professor Neill in his Minnesota history, is in possession of the Historical Society of that State), contains the first _attempt_ we have upon the record at a _Census_ of the Tribes of the Mississippi, and partially of the Missouri Valleys: made thirty--four years before the French Census of the Cass manuscript[76]--a census formerly claimed as being the very first extant--so claimed by Schoolcraft, in the third volume of his COLLECTIONS.

Penicaud, the carpenter, states, that D'Evaque and the men Le Sueur left in charge of the Blue Earth post, abandoned it, and returned to Mobile [arriving there on the 3d of March], 1703, having left, as they alleged, on account of being warred upon "by the nations of Maskoutens and Foxes," and "seeing that he was out of powder and lead." Le Sueur for several years after his operations on the Blue--Earth was kept busy leading expeditions against the Natchez and other Indians of the southwest; and is said to have died[77] on the road during one of them.

Some further information in regard to the Ioway is gathered from a chart of the northwestern part of Louisiana, by "WILLIAM DE L'ISLE, _de l'Academy Royale des Sciences, et Premier Geographe du Roy: a Paris_: 1703" in the preparation of which Le Sueur probably assisted by his notes and observations.[78] A section of this map, (lithographed for Neill's History of Minnesota), shows a traders trail marked "_Chemin des Voyageurs_," across the State of Iowa, commencing at the Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin, and following west by a little north until in the vicinity of Spirit Lake, it struck just below the lowest of the lakes which are at the head of the Little Sioux river, upon which lower lake is marked "Village des Aiaoues _ou_ Paoutez" (Pähutch'æ); then continuing due westward towards the Big Sioux this _Chemin du Voyageurs_ bends a little southward towards the mouth of that river; on which river, near the Missouri, three or four villages of "_Maha_" (Omahaw), are marked. Besides these a couple of minor "_Aianouez_" villages are likewise set down at the west end of the _Chemin des Voyageurs_ where it strikes the Big Sioux, which is apparently about the junction of "Fish Creek" with it: [See Waw--non--que--skoon--a's map of Ioway migrations in Vol. III, Schoolcraft, page 256],[79] and again further westward, considerably beyond the western termination of the "_Chemin_" on the James River, four minor villages of "_Aiaouez_" are also noted: while far south by a little east of the first mentioned main "Village des Aiaoues _ou Paoutez_," upon the north or "left" bank of the Missouri river at a point nearly due west from the mouth of the "_Des Moines ou le Moingona_," we find located the "Yoways," and a few miles above them on the same side, the "Les Octotata": which locations were not a great distance from the spot where the Ioway and Otoe now live upon one common "Reservation," on the opposite side of the Missouri just within Nebraska.

ANTE--WHITE HISTORY OF THE IOWAY

For the history of the Ioway before the whites knew them, there is no data, beyond language and ancestral beliefs and customs, except their own vague traditions or those equally vague and uncertain of other tribes. The Reverends William Hamilton, and S. M. Irvin, their missionaries, communicated to Schoolcraft[80] in 1848, this statement of "an old Ioway Indian [aged] about sixty years or more."

About sixty--six years ago, we lived on a river, which runs from a lake to the Mississippi, from the east, and on the east side of that river. Our fathers and great fathers lived there for a long time, as long as they could recollect. At that time we had about four hundred men fit to go to war, but we were then small to what we had been. Our fathers say, as long as they can recollect, we have been diminishing. (This is a usual Indian complaint: in most instances an unfounded one). We owned all the land east of the Mississippi. (This usual Indian claim of very extended possessions has generally very little foundation in fact). Whatever ground we made tracks through, it was ours. Our fathers saw white men on the [great?] lakes about 120 years ago; [Nearer 200 probably]; do not know where they came from. About the same time we first got guns. We were afraid of them at first, they seemed like the "Great Spirit." Our fathers also, at the same time, for the first received iron, axes, hoes, kettles and woollen blankets. We, the [present] old men of our nation, first saw white men between forty and fifty years ago, near the mouth of the Missouri.

The same missionary gentlemen, in the same paper, make these observations, which every one who has ever engaged in Indian researches, or in inquiries of the Indians themselves, will endorse as entirely correct:

In tracing their history, religion, &c., it will be exceedingly difficult to proceed with certainty and satisfaction, from the differences we find in the notions of different individuals: _e. g._ today we will sit down with an old Indian, who will enter into a plausible detail of their history, or religious belief, or some traditions of their fathers. Another of the same age and patriarchal rights will give quite a different statement about the same things; or perhaps the same individual would tomorrow give his own story quite a different shade. This is the reason why the reports of the transient observers vary so much. It requires long acquaintance, and close observation, to arrive at anything like just conclusions on these points; and it is only by collecting different and conflicting notions, and balancing them, that we can find which prevails.

Now, in regard to the story of the "old Ioway Indian" above quoted, it may be remarked that it is quite certain the Ioway Tribe did not "about sixty years" previous to 1848, that is, in 1788, live anywhere on the east side of the Mississippi, nor had they for more than a hundred years before 1848, and it is doubtful if they had ever done so since the advent of the whites upon the great lakes. But though documents extant negative this story of the "old Ioway Indian" as to _time_, may there not be in this statement the shadowy tribal recollection of the period when they were a Band of the Hotchankærä or Winnebago, and lived near them? This lake and river "east of the Mississippi," their former residence, may have been _Mille Lacs_ and its outlet in Minnesota, subsequently the home of the Sioux when first visited by De Groseilliers and Raddison,[81] and then by DuLuth[82] and Hennepin? or the Chippeway River? or the Wisconsin? or _Rock River_? Traditions of the Santee [Esanyäte] Sioux who up to 1852 occupied the upper Mississippi in Minnesota allege that when they emigrated from the North the Ioway were in possession of the region around the mouth of the Minnesota river, and that they drove them away. On this head, two of their reliable missionaries, Reverends Dr. Williamson and G. H. Pond, have communicated articles to the Minnesota Historical Collections.

Mr. Pond writes, in the number for 1852, pages 23 and 24, as follows: