Kaw

Kaw recalls the Kansa people, whose villages stood along the Missouri and Kansas rivers while hunting journeys reached the plains farther west. French explorer Étienne de Bourgmont visited a Kansa village north of the Kansas River in 1724. The Republican River, north of this area, rises from branches in the High Plains and flows east to join the Smoky Hill. The Kansa called it Panenetah, the Pawnee River.