Osage

expand_more Description

The Osage live mostly in Oklahoma. Their language is in the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan language family, which also includes the Omaha, Ponca, Kansa and Quapaw. Traditional Osage society was divided into five named bands. Each band had its own chiefs who represented it at the assembly of clans and religious leaders called "little Old Men". Pre-reservation Osage economy was based on horticulture, hunting, the collection of wild food plants, and the fur trade. Having lost most of their land, the Osage receive income mostly from wage work, oil and mineral rights, and per capita payments from interest paid on the Kansas land sale money in the Federal Treasury.

Identifier

Region

• North America

Subregion

• Plains and Plateau

Subsistence Type

• primarily hunter-gatherers

Countries

• United States