Sometime in the past, the Omahas and the Poncas were one people. In unraveling the mystery as to when these tribes separated, one starting point is language. Throughout the world, language tells us a great deal about ancient migrations and the historic and prehistoric relationships among different groups of people. In North America, the Siouan Language Family is a large group of languages spoken by American Indian tribes in the Great Plains and the Eastern Woodlands.
Linguists often divide language families into small sub-groups. The Siouan Language Family is often divided into at least four sub-groups, and one of these, the Mississippi Valley Group, is further divided into three groups: Chiwere, Dakota (Sioux), and Dhegiha. The Dhegiha includes five languages: Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, Osage, and Quapaw. In their chapter in Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning, James Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados write:
“All the Dhegiha groups have an oral tradition in which they were one great nation. It is believed that they split apart into the five cognate tribes. This split occurred around AD 1200-1250.”
The linguistic and archaeological data suggest that the Omahas and Poncas once lived in the Ohio River valley. Some scholars, however, have suggested that their aboriginal homelands may have been on the Atlantic coast. Writing about the Omaha migrations, sociologist Russell Thornton, in his book American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, reports:
“Tribal ancestors were originally from the Appalachian Mountains and possibly from as far east as the Atlantic Coast.”
Ethnographers Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, in their 1911 book The Omaha Tribe, put it this way:
“The primordial habitat of this stock lies hidden in the mystery that still enshrouds the beginning of the ancient American race; it seems to have been situated, however, among the Appalachian mountains, and all their legends indicate that the people had knowledge of a large body of water in the vicinity of their early home. This water may have been the Atlantic ocean.”
From the Ohio River Valley, the Omahas and Poncas moved onto the eastern portion of the Central Plains in the late 1600s. In their 1917 book Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri, George Will and George Hyde place the date of their arrival on the Plains at prior to 1700 but not earlier than 1675. According to George Will and George Hyde:
“The traditions of these tribes tell of their migration northward through the State of Iowa to the vicinity of the pipestone quarry; then west to the Big Sioux River, where they were attacked by enemies and forced to remove to the Missouri River, in South Dakota.”
In his book Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Carl Waldman reports:
“The Poncas and Omahas lived together in southern Minnesota near Pipestone Quarry, a site famous for the catlinite stone used to make pipes.”
The Omahas and Poncas settled for a while in South Dakota where they were in close contact with the Arikara, from whom they adopted many elements of Plains material culture as well as a number of social and ceremonial features. Oral history tells that the Omahas and the Poncas learned to make earth lodges from the Arikaras. However, because of poor corn harvests and conflicts with the Arikaras, they moved south into present-day Nebraska. Carl Waldman reports:
“These two tribes probably separated where the Niobrara River flows into the Missouri River. The Omahas eventually settled to the southeast of the mouth of the Niobrara River, downriver from the Poncas, in what is now northeast Nebraska.”
At this time, the Poncas numbered about 3,000 people and set up their camp in three concentric circles. The Omahas set up their camp in two circles.
The separation into two distinct tribes seems to have occurred about 1715. According to archaeologists John O’Shea and John Ludwickson, in their book Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Omaha Indians: The Big Village Site:
“The Ponca tribe may have originated as an Omaha clan that split from the rest of the tribe, a suggestion supported by the fact that the other Dhegiha tribes have a Ponca clan, but the Omahas do not.”
When the Poncas separated from the Omahas, they left the Omahas all of the tribe’s sacred objects and ceremonies. For this reason, the Omahas refer to the Poncas as “orphans.”
More tribal histories
Indians 101: Voluntary Associations Among the Omaha Indians
Indians 101: The Omaha Family
Indians 101: Traditional Omaha government
Indians 101: The Removal of the Ponca Indians
Indians 101: The Lenni Lenape Migrations
Indians 101: Keresan Pueblo Migrations
Indians 201: Choctaw Migrations
Indians 101: Choctaw Government
