GRINNELL] WHO WERE THE PADOUCA? 249
junction of Kansas river with Missouri river and on the 4Oth degree of north latitude. This would be on the Republican river.
The old Spanish map brought back by Lewis and Clark, and printed in the Atlas Volume vii of Original Journals shows little circles indicating fixed villages on the north bank of the Platte, and marked "Padouca Inds." This map was probably made late in the eighteenth century, perhaps 1790 to 1800. I know of no record of whites visiting the Padouca on the Platte, but the traders from St. Louis were among the Pawnees from about 1750 onward at irregular intervals.
Mallet, in 1739, applied to one of the forks of the Platte the name Padocas river and on the Spanish map just referred to, the south fork of the Platte is marked Padouca Fork, and James in Long follows this.
The locations given for the Padouca on the French maps after 1720 seem to show that they were in the heart of the plains country, reaching from south of the Canadian north across the head of that stream, across the Arkansas, the Kansas river, to and well beyond the Platte. The French maps sometimes divide these people into white and black Padouca just as they divided the Pawnees into white and black.
Omaha and Ponka traditions speak of a Padouca village in the sand hills near the Niobrara river or the head of the Elkhorn. It was by a lake and is so shown on the du Lac map, but the village' was abandoned long before his day.
There was a Padouca village on the Dismal river north of the Platte river, which was visited by Ponkas during their wanderings on the plains at an early date. This village is mentioned in Fletcher and La Flesche. 1 It is possible, but not likley, that this may be the same Padouca village shown on du Lac's map. The country near the head of the Dismal river formerly had many lakes, some dry and some with water. There are many lakes in that part of Nebraska.
The Omaha call the Dismal river "Where the Padouca built breastworks."
��1 Twenty-seventh Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1911, "The Omaha," p. 88.
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