People of the Middle Waters: the Osage
One of the more formidable tribes with whom early explorers had to contend in what is now Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma were the Osage. The Osage are a Midwestern tribe, a Dhegihan-Siouan-speaking people. Their name in English comes from a French word meaning war-like. Their name for themselves refers to People of the Middle Waters. Their home range extended between the Missouri and Red Rivers, the Ozarks to the Wichita Mountains. They were both buffalo hunters and did practice agriculture. Like many tribes who later migrated to the Plains, the Osage, along with the Kansa, Quapaw, Omaha and Ponca, who also speak Dhegihan languages, came from the lower Ohio Valley. Pressure from the Iroquois caused their early ancestors to migrate during the 17th century Beaver Wars, at which point the various Dhegihan-speaking people spread out and split up. They were encountered in their present homelands by the French in 1673 near the Omaha River i...