owed the tribe annuity payments for the sale of its Kansas land
but refused to distribute them until able-bodied men like Ne-kah-
e-se-y took up farming. And even then the government insisted on
making the payments in the form of clothing and food rations. An
Osage chief complained, “We are not dogs that we should be fed
like dogs.”
Unaccustomed to the white man’s agricultural methods and
deprived of buffalo, the Osage began to go hungry; their bones
soon looked as if they might break through their skin. Many
members of the tribe died. An Osage delegation, including the
chief Wah-Ti-An-Kah, was urgently dispatched to Washington,
D.C., to petition the commissioner of Indian Affairs to abolish the
ration system. According to an account by John Joseph Mathews,
members of the delegation wore their best blankets and leggings,
while Wah-Ti-An-Kah wrapped himself in a red blanket so entirely
that you could see little more than his eyes, dark wells that burned
with an entire history.
The delegation went to the commissioner’s office and waited for
him. When the commissioner arrived, he informed an interpreter,
“Tell these gentlemen that I am sorry that I have another
appointment at this time—I am sorry I had forgotten about it until
just now.”