"Grand Village des Canzes" -- Lewis & Clark Independence Creek Historic Site - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

The Kanza Indians were known to have been settled along Independence Creek since the 1670s.

The Atchison County Historical Society and the National Park Service recreated a typical Kanza Indian Lodge from historical drawings and writing as part of the development of this historic site in 2002.

The sign near the lodge reads as follows:

"Atchison County Historic Site

"GRAND VILLAGE DES CANZES"

Independence Creek was noted as the main settlement of the Kanza tribe as far back as 1673. By the time French Explorer Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont arrived in 1724, this was considered an old village and the capital of the Kanza nation.

This large village covered the areas all along Independence Creek valley. From this and other villages the Kanza controlled much of what is today's State of Kansas.

The Kanza dwelling was eclectic, using the most available building materials. Their early migration from the areas near the Great Lakes, in the Ohio River Valley, saw change from primarily bark-covered lodges to using sod as the primary covering for the log frame dwellings, since timber was less abundant.

The Kanza also used buffalo and deer skins for constructing tipis used during periodic hunting expeditions to the high plains.

[drawing of Lifeways of the Kanza]

Above: Man of Good Sense, young Kanza warrior, and Wife of Bear Catcher, both as portraited by George Caitlin, 1831

Right: The earliest known image of the interior of a Kanza lodge , a war dance as seen by Samuel Seymour, 1819.

The Kanza lived in semi-permanent villages, cultivating crops and also practicing the nomadic lifestyle of other Great Plains tribes to hunt buffalo. Buffalo was the Kanza’s primary source of meat, so important was buffalo that the entire tribe made two hunting trips to the hunting grounds each year. The principal crops grown by the Kanza were beans, pumpkins, prairie potatoes, melons, and corn. Corn was often roasted on the cob or cooked in a soup with strips of buffalo meat. Fish, fowl, and dog meat were also important food sources for the Kanza.

[right side]

The Creation story of the Kanza

Man and Woman were created by the Great Spirit and the whole of the world was a small island surrounded by leagues and leagues of water.
As time went by, children came and the island became so crowded some of the People were forced into the water. Woman prayed to the Great Spirit to have compassion so no more of her children would be lost in the water.
The great spirit sent down a great number of beavers, muskrats, and turtles whose job it was to gather material from the bottom of the water and enlarge the island.

The industrious animals worked until the present earth was formed. To complete the formation of the Earth the Great Spirit used the colorful dying leaves of fall from the trees along the new rivers to create exotic birds, deer, and the buffalo to eat the grass alongside of Indian Man and the "entire circle of the Earth was filled with life and beauty."

Funded by the National Park Service
Sponsored by" Atchison Sertoma Club & the Atchison County Historical Society

Group that erected the marker: The Atchison County Historical Society and the National Park Service URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: easternmost end of 314th Rd Atchison, KS

Visit Instructions:
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Date Logged Log   03/13/2013 Benchmark Blasterz visited it