page_title: Dhegihan History and Separation
section_title: Before separation
hierarchical_section_title: Dhegihan History and Separation / Before separation
caption_attribution_description: English: Route of the Ponca Indians and other Dhegiha Siouan peoples (Quapaw, Osage, Kansa and Omaha) from the South to Nebraska according to oral traditions.
context_page_description: The Dhegihan migration history and separation is the narrative of the long journey on foot by the North American Indians in the ancient Hoga tribe. During the migration from present-day Illinois/Kentucky and as far as Nebraska, they gradually split up in five groups. Each became an independent and historic tribe. They are the Omaha, Ponca, Kaw or Kansa, Osage and Quapaw.
  The term "Dhegiha" refers to all five Indian tribes, since they speak a Dhegiha Siouan language. Besides having related languages, they share an oral tradition about a common origin from an ancestral tribe. The timing of the separation for these tribes and history prior to their existence as separate groups is the subject of some debate.
context_section_description: The Quapaw, the Ponca, the Omaha, the Osage and the Kaw share a tradition, that back in time they were one people.     The claim is supported by similar tribal organization with kinship groups (clans) and closely related languages, although some of the tribes were widely scattered in historic time. (The Ponca and Omaha settled in Nebraska, the Kaw in Kansas, the Osage in Missouri, while Arkansas became the homeland of the Quapaw.)
  The people in the initial tribe called themselves the Hoga. It translates "leaders", meaning the preceding generations or "ancestors". They lived in villages of bark houses, made pottery, hunted and gathered and raised a small amount of corn.  According to tribal oral history collected by James Owen Dorsey, Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Omaha Indian Francis La Flesche and other interested people, the early Dhegiha people resided in the valley of the lower Ohio River. 
  This shared tradition is "generally rejected by professional archeologists". According to one theory, the tribes were longtime residents in the areas west of Mississippi River, where the whites encountered them.
caption: The migration story of the Quapaw, Omaha, Osage, Kansa (Kaw) and Ponca according to oral traditions
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