The Osage
Answered That The River Was His Own, For He Had Once Lived On Its Borders.
As They Stood
Disputing, the daughter of the beaver came, and having,
by her entreaties, reconciled her father to this young stranger,
it
Was proposed that the Osage should marry the young beaver,
and share with her family the enjoyment of the river.
The Osage readily consented, and from this happy union there
soon came the village and the nation of the Wabasha, or Osages,
who have ever since preserved a pious reverence for their ancestors,
abstaining from the chase of the beaver, because in killing that
animal they killed a brother of the Osage. Of late years, however,
since the trade with the whites has rendered beaver-skins more valuable,
the sanctity of these maternal relatives has been visibly reduced,
and the poor animals have lost all the privileges of kindred.
Game was abundant all along the river as the explorers
sailed up the stream. Their hunters killed numbers of deer,
and at the mouth of Big Good Woman Creek, which empties into
the Missouri near the present town of Franklin, Howard County,
three bears were brought into the camp. Here, too, they began
to find salt springs, or "salt licks," to which many wild
animals resorted for salt, of which they were very fond.
Saline County, Missouri, perpetuates the name given to the region
by Lewis and Clark. Traces of buffalo were also found here,
and occasional wandering traders told them that the Indians had
begun to hunt the buffalo now that the grass had become abundant
enough to attract this big game from regions lying further south.
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