Dhegiha

Dhegiha is the western Siouan branch comprising Kansa-Osage, Omaha-Ponca and Quapaw; its name means those who dwell here. Around 1600 its speakers still formed one Woodland group in the lower Ohio River valley.

Haudenosaunee pressure in the Beaver Wars drove them west of the Mississippi, where they split into tribes. The Quapaw, or downstream people, settled the mouth of the Arkansas River, where Jacques Marquette met them in 1673; the French rendered their Illini name as Arkansas. Other groups included the Osage on the Missouri and the Omaha.

The Omaha became the first Northern Plains horse people about 1770, and their Big Village, Ton-wa-tonga, dominated the upper Missouri fur trade until smallpox killed about a third of them around 1800, including Chief Blackbird. By then the Osage dominated the country between the Missouri and Red rivers, while the Quapaw were forced out of Arkansas Territory in 1834.