Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

124 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY
Hill River. However, there are indications that in
the 1680s some Wichita were still in that most
northern region of old Quivira. Robert Cavelier
de La Salle owned two Indian slaves in 1683, a
boy called a Pana who was probably a Wichita
(M. Wedel, 1973:212-213), and a Paneassa
woman presumably of another Wichita band.
The boy's people were said to live in two villages,
which, from the paraphrased description, could
refer to a location on the Smoky Hill. The 1684
Carte de la Louisiane, drawn by Jean-Baptiste Louis
Franquelin (in Thwaites, 1896-1901 (63): frontispiece),
using data provided by La Salle, records
"10 Villages" oi Paneassa, but in such a generalized
way that it is unclear if these hamlets were
near the Smoky Hill or farther south. After 1699,
maps based on secondary information were still
portraying Wichita as living in scattered hamlets
just northeast of the Great Bend, but also in
villages farther south along the Arkansas, usually
on its left hand side, occasionally on the right.
A good case can be made for Benard de La
Harpe finding the 1719 village of the touacaro (the
1541 teucarea) on a terrace today called Wealaka
Ridge (1718-1720, folio 19), near Leonard, Oklahoma.
It is on the south side of the Arkansas
River below present-day Tulsa. This results from
an on-the-ground tracing of the route taken by
La Harpe when he went northwest from his Red
River post (M. Wedel, 1978:14-15) to meet at the
Tawakoni village with Wichita and other Caddoan
groups. The retracing of his course was
made in 1972 (M. Wedel, in prep.) by myself,
Waldo R. Wedel, Larry Banks of the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Dallas, and for a short distance
by Quintus Herron of the Museum of the
Red River.
Dutisne, in his turn, went to one of two villages
about 2.5 to 3 miles (1.5 to 1.9 km) apart. Following
his route description, one is led from an Osage
village on Osage River to a location near the
Verdigris River (W. Wedel, 1959:533; M. Wedel,
1972-1973:155-156) in the vicinity of today's
Neodesha, Kansas. I have elsewhere proposed
(1981:31-32) that the inhabitants of these villages
may have been Taovayas, i.e., Tawehash Wichita.
Dutisne used for them only the imprecise terms
panis, pants, and paniouassa, thus signifying Wichita
but no more.
Benard de La Harpe named the Toayas (the
1541 to^a.y),orTawehash, in his 1118-1720Journal
(folio 19) but provided no settlement location for
them. In the Journal Historique written a few years
later (in Boimare, 1831:208), he stated that they
lived forty leagues north of the touacaro, which
could refer to the Neodesha locality.
He was told (1718-1720, folio 20) that the
Wichita proper (first noted in 1718 on a Guillaume
Delisle map) and Yscanis were living "60
leagues north-northwest" of the touacaro. This may
refer to the Deer Creek tributary region, Kay
County, Oklahoma, where archeological remains
similar to those of the Quiviran Great Bend Aspect
occur, or to a locality farther upstream,
nearer Walnut River, for instance. No home locality
is given in the same Journal (folio 19) for
the adeco or honecha, who apparently comprised
other Wichita bands. The daily journal, the 1720
La Harpe-Gavengeau map (M. Wedel 1981, fig.
10), and the Journal Historique produced in the
1720s considered together reflect understandable
confusion on La Harpe's part as to exactly where
the unvisited Wichita settlements were to be
found.
Reasons for the southward move out of Quivira
are unexplained. Perhaps an answer is to be found
in an examination of Wichita relationships with
their neighbors. For instance, some of the Pawnee
to the north were now looked upon as enemies by
the Wichita. It was the Skiri who in the 1670s
had first captured La Salle's Pana slave (M.
Wedel, 1973:204). A friendly alliance still existed
with others, possibly those later known as South
Bands. The Missouri were termed enemies.
"Seven important villages" of the Arikara were
remarked upon by the Wichita, but the basis for
this knowledge was unrecorded. Relations with
the Osage were described in Benard de La
Harpe's 1718-1720 journal as hostile, but in the
Journal Historique (Boimare, 1831:208) as cautiously
friendly. The accuracy of the latter view
is born out by the Osage who dared to enter a
Wichita village at night to warn of Dutisne's
approach and by the presence of a Mento (Wich-