Francis La Flesche

Table of Contents

Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Francis La Flesche

American ethnologist

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Quick Facts

Born:: Dec. 25, 1857, Omaha Reservation, Nebraska

Died:: Sept. 5, 1932, near Macy, Neb., U.S. (aged 74)

Notable Family Members:: sister Susette La Flesche

See all related content

Francis La Flesche (born Dec. 25, 1857, Omaha Reservation, Nebraska—died Sept. 5, 1932, near Macy, Neb., U.S.) was a U.S. ethnologist and champion of the rights of American Indians who wrote a book of general literary interest about his experiences as a student in a mission school in the 1860s. This memoir, The Middle Five (1900, new edition 1963), is rare in providing an account from an American Indian’s viewpoint of his education by members of the majority culture.

His father—the son of a French trader and a woman of the Omaha tribe—chose the culture of his mother and became a chief. Believing that the Indians would have to come to terms with the white world, he sent his children to an English language school operated for Indians by the Presbyterians in Thurston County, Nebraska. Two of Francis La Flesche’s sisters achieved prominence: Susette as a writer and activist for Indian causes, and Susan as a physician to the Omaha.

From 1881 to 1910 La Flesche was a clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., meanwhile obtaining a law degree. He served as an ethnologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1910 until his retirement in 1929. With Alice Cunningham Fletcher he wrote a study, The Omaha Tribe (1911). He also wrote two works, posthumously published, on the Osage: A Dictionary of the Osage Language (1932) and War Ceremony and Peace Ceremony of the Osage Indian (1938).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Omaha

Table of Contents

Introduction References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Earth lodge dwelling of the Plains tribes of North America, photograph by Edward S. Curtis, c. 1908.

Omaha

people

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Key People:: Alice Cunningham Fletcher; James Owen Dorsey

Related Topics:: Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains

See all related content

Omaha, North American Indian people of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan language stock. It is thought that Dhegiha speakers, which include the Osage, Ponca, Kansa, and Quapaw as well as the Omaha, migrated westward from the Atlantic coast at some point in prehistory and that their early settlements were in the present U.S. states of Virginia and the Carolinas. After a time they moved to the Ozark Plateau and the prairies of what is now western Missouri. There the five tribes separated, with the Omaha and the Ponca moving north to present-day Minnesota, where they lived until the late 17th century. At that time the two tribes were driven farther west by the migrating Dakota Sioux. The Omaha and Ponca separated in present-day South Dakota, with the former moving on to Bow Creek in present-day Nebraska. In 1854, under the pressure of encroaching settlers, the Omaha sold most of their land to the U.S. government. In 1882 the government allotted land in Nebraska that prevented the removal of the tribe to Oklahoma; somewhat later they received U.S. citizenship.

As with many other Plains Indian tribes, the traditional Omaha economy combined corn (maize) agriculture with hunting and gathering. In spring and autumn the people lived in permanent villages of dome-shaped earth lodges, moving into portable tepees for the hunting seasons. Omaha social organization was elaborate, with a class system of chiefs, priests, physicians, and commoners. Rank was inherited through the male line, although individuals could raise their status by distributing horses and blankets or providing feasts.

Traditional Omaha kinship was organized into 10 clans within two larger groups, representing earth and sky. Earth clans had charge of ceremonies concerning war and food supply, while the ceremonies overseen by the sky clans were designed to secure supernatural aid. When the entire tribe camped together during the summer bison hunt or on migrations, tepees were arranged in a large circle symbolizing the tribal organization. The Omaha, like many other Plains peoples, awarded special insignia for such daring war exploits as touching an enemy in battle, touching a dead enemy surrounded by his tribesmen, and removing a trained horse from the enemy’s camp. Killing the enemy was considered a lesser exploit.

Early 21st-century population estimates indicated more than 5,000 individuals of Omaha descent.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.