The following illustrations are drawn from tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism. When discovered, the eight Missouri tribes occupied the banks of the Missouri river for more than a thousand miles; together with the banks of its tributaries, the Kansas and the Platte; and also the smaller rivers of Iowa. They also occupied the west bank of the Mississippi down to the Arkansas. Their dialects show that the people were in three tribes before the last subdivisions; namely, first, the Punkas and Omahas, second, the Iowas, Otoes and Missouris, and third, the Kaws, Osages and Quappas. These three were undoubtedly subdivisions of a single original tribe, because their several dialects are still much nearer to each other than to any other dialect of the Dakotian stock language to which they belong. There is, therefore, a linguistic necessity for their derivation from an original tribe. A gradual spread from a central point on this river along its banks, both above and below, would lead to a separation in interests with the increase of distance between their settlements, followed by divergence of speech, and finally by independence. A people thus extending themselves along a river in a prairie country might separate, first into three tribes, and afterwards into eight, and the organization of each subdivision remain complete. Division was neither a shock, nor an appreciated calamity; but a separation into parts by natural expansion over a larger area, followed by a complete segmentation. The uppermost tribe on the Missouri were the Punkas at the mouth of the Niobrara river, and the lowermost the Quappas at the mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi, with an interval of near fifteen hundred miles between them. The intermediate region, confined to the narrow belt of forest upon the Missouri, was held by the remaining six tribes. They were strictly River Tribes.
Another illustration may be found in the tribes of Lake Superior. The Ojibwas, Otawas[76] and Potawattamies are subdivisions of an original tribe; the Ojibwas representing the stem, because they remained at the original seat at the great fisheries upon the outlet of the lake. Moreover, they are styled "Elder Brother" by the remaining two; while the Otawas were styled "Next Older Brother," and the Potawattamies "Younger Brother." The last tribe separated first, and the Otawas last, as is shown by the relative amount of dialectical variation, that of the former being greatest. At the time of their discovery, A. D. 1641, the Ojibwas were seated at the Rapids on the outlet of Lake Superior, from which point they had spread along the southern shore of the lake to the site of Ontonagon, along its northeastern shore, and down the St. Mary River well toward Lake Huron. Their position possessed remarkable advantages for a fish and game subsistence, which, as they did not cultivate maize and plants, was their main reliance.[77] It was second to none in North America, with the single exception of the Valley of the Columbia. With such advantages they were certain to develop a large Indian population, and to send out successive bands of emigrants to become independent tribes. The Potawattamies occupied a region on the confines of Upper Michigan and Wisconsin, from which the Dakotas in 1641, were in the act of expelling them. At the same time the Otawas, whose earlier residence is supposed to have been on the Otawa river of Canada, had drawn westward and were then seated upon the Georgian Bay, the Manitouline Islands and at Mackinaw, from which points they were spreading southward over Lower Michigan. Originally one people, and possessing the same gentes, they had succeeded in appropriating a large area. Separation in place, and distance between their settlements, had long before their discovery resulted in the formation of dialects, and in tribal independence. The three tribes, whose territories were contiguous, had formed an alliance for mutual protection, known among Americans as "the Otawa Confederacy." It was a league, offensive and defensive, and not, probably, a close confederacy like that of the Iroquois.