Osage, original name Ni-u-kon-ska (“People of the Middle Waters”), North American Indian tribe of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan linguistic stock. The name Osage is an English rendering of the French phonetic version of the name the French understood to be that of the entire tribe. It was thereafter applied to all members of the tribe. The name Wa-zha-zhe (“Water People”), however, refers to only a subdivision of the Hunka (Hunkah; “Earth People”), one of the two ancient kin groups the other was the Tzi-zho (Tzi-sho; “Sky People”) from which the tribe descended. Like other members of the Dhegiha the Omaha, Ponca,
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