None of the numerous Algonkin tribes lived in the immediate
neighborhood of the Maskoki family of Indians, but of the Dakotan
stock the Arkansas (originally Ákansā--the Akansea of Father
Gravier), dwelt in close proximity, and had frequent intercourse with
this Southern nation.
Pénicaut relates[20] that the French commander, Lemoyne d'Iberville,
sailed up the Mississippi river, and sixty leagues above the mouth of
the Yazoo found the mouth of the Arkansas river; eight leagues above,
on the same western shore, was the nation of the Arkansas, and in
their town were two other "nations," called Torimas and Kappas. By
these warlike and hunting tribes he was received in a friendly manner.
The men are described as stout and thick-set (gros et trapus), the
women as pretty and light-complexioned. Imahao, another Arkansas
village, is mentioned in Margry IV, 179. The affluent of the
Mississippi on which the Arkansas were settled was, according to D.
Coxe, Carolana, p. 11, the Ousoutowy river: another name for Arkansas
river.[21]
[Footnote 20: Margry, P., Découvertes et Etablissements des
Français dans l'ouest et dans le Sud de l'Amérique
Septentrionale, Paris, 1876, etc., V, 402.]
[Footnote 21: cf. D. Coxe, Carolana, pp. 11. 13.]
From Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, who makes a special study of all the Dakota
tribes, I obtained the following oral information, founded on his
personal intercourse with individuals of the Káppa tribe:
"Ákansa is the Algonkin name by which the Kápa, Quápa were called by
the eastern Indians, as Illinois, etc. They call themselves Ugáχpa
and once lived in four villages, two of which were on Mississippi, two
on Arkansas river, near its mouth: Their towns, though now transferred
to the Indian Territory, northeastern angle, have preserved the same
names:
"1. Ugaχpáχti or 'real Kápa.' Ugáχpa means 'down stream,' just
as O′maha means 'up stream.'
"2. Tiwadímaⁿ, called Toriman by French authors.
"3. Uzutiúhe, corrupted into O′sotchoue, O′sochi, Southois by
the French authors. Probably means: 'village upon low-land
level.'
"4. Taⁿwaⁿzhika or 'small village;' corrupted into Topinga,
Tonginga, Donginga by the French.
"The Pacaha 'province' of de Soto's historians is a name inverted from
Capaha, which is Ugáχpa. The form Quápa is incorrect, for Kápa (or
Kápaha of La Salle), which is abbreviated from Ugáχpa."
In 1721 LaHarpe saw three of their villages on the Mississippi river,
and noticed snake worship among these Indians.