120 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. SECTION IV. INDIANS BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. The Indians under this head are divided into two great sections by the Rocky Mountains. Those east of the mountains are the Sioux; the Pawnees ; the Fall, Rapid, or Paunch Indians ; the Black Feet, and some other erratic tribes, not so well known, and which may be embraced under the general though obsolete denomination of Padoucas. Some bands of Snake Indians or Shoshonees, living on the waters of the river Columbia, and of Hietans or Camanches, whose principal residence is south of Red River and of the southern boundary of the United States, are also occasionally found, either towards the sources of the tributary streams of the Missouri, or north of Red River. As the Winnebagoes, whose seats are near Lake Michigan, speak a dialect of the Sioux language, we have also included them under this head. The nations which speak the Sioux language may be con- sidered, in reference both to their respective dialects and to their geographical position, as consisting of four subdivisions, viz. the Winnebagoes ; the Sioux proper and the Assiniboins ; the Minetare group ; and the Osages and other southern kin- dred tribes. The Winnebagoes, so called by the Algonkins, but called Puans and also Otchagras by the French, and Horoje ("Fish- eaters") by the Omahaws and other southern tribes, call them- selves Hochungohrah, or the " Trout " nation. The Green Bay of Lake Michigan derives its French name from theirs. (Baye des Puans). It is not known at what time they separated from the Sioux people; but it must have been prior to the settlements of the French in Canada. Champlain, in the map annexed to his Travels, has given an erroneous position to Lake Michi- gan, which he knew only from Indian information ; but he calls it " Lac des Puans." They are first mentioned by Father Allouez in the Relation of the year 1669, at which time they occupied nearly the same territory as at present. He says, that they had been nearly destroyed thirty years before by the
