nterlock with those of the Neeozho. Nechoumani, or Walking Rain, principal chief. [Called Nezuma, or Rain that Walks by Pike and Wilkinson.]
Of the Chaneers, or Arkansas tribes of Osages, I say nothing, because they do not resort here to trade. I have always rated that tribe at about an equal half of all the Osages. They hunt chiefly on the Arkansas and White rivers, and their waters.
From this time until after the Civil War the Osages lived principally in Kansas. One post in Kansas resulted from trade with the Osages while they lived yet in Missouri. The Missouri Fur Company had a trading post near their towns before 1812. It was abandoned that year. When other posts were established is not now known, but the founders of Harmony Mission, who came out in 1821, found several traders seated in the country along the Osage River. One was where Papinville, Vernon County, Missouri, was afterwards laid out. Another was at the Collen Ford, on the Osage. The founders of these posts are not now known. About 1831 Michael Gireau and Melicourt Papin had stores at Collin Ford. Papin had another at the site of Papinville. There were half a dozen French families at Gireau’s store, as well as some half-breed families. They were probably hunters and petty traders. In 1839 Gireau moved his store and established himself further up the Marais des Cygnes, in what is now Linn County, Kansas. The place was later known as Trading Post, a name it still bears. About 1842 this post was sold to one of the Chouteaus, probably Gabriel Chouteau, and it was then called Chouteau’s Trading Post. It bore a part in the Territorial history of Kansas.
All that is said in this article, as well as much in the article on the Kansa, when not otherwise indicated, is taken from the writings of J. Owen Dorsey, in the Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology. He is the best authority, and often the only authority. ↩