Accounts of early exploration in the West show that the Padouca Indians, under their various similar names, occupied the central plains from the Black Hills region of South Dakota south to the Arkansas River and beyond nearly to the Spaniards of New Mexico.

The first definite and reliable information regarding the Padouca tribe was obtained from the report of M. Du Tissenet, a Canadian explorer who visited their village in Kansas, located 15 days’ march west of the Pawnee tribe, in September 1719. This was in the extreme western limit of his exploration. He spoke of the Padouca as “a brave and warlike tribe.”

They are almost without any European goods among them and have but a faint knowledge of them. They knew nothing of the firearms before the arrival of Bourgmont and were much frightened at them; on hearing the report, they quaked and bowed their heads.

They generally go to war on horseback and cover their horses with dressed leather, which hangs down relatively low, securing them from darts. When they want horses, they train great dogs to carry their baggage.

The Padouca, who live far from the Spaniards, cultivate no grain and live only on hunting. But they are not to be considered a wandering nation, though employed in hunting winter and summer, seeing they have large villages, consisting of many cabins which contain very numerous families. These are their permanent abodes, from which a hundred hunters set out at a time with their horses, their bows, and a good stock of arrows. They go on a two or three-day journey from home, where they find herds of buffalo, the least of which consists of a hundred head. They load their horses with their baggage, tents, and children, conducted by a man on horseback. When they arrive at the hunting spot, they encamp near a brook where there is always wood; the horses are tied by one of their forefeet with a string to a stake or bush.

The following day, they each mount a horse and proceed to the first herd with the wind to their back. The buffalo may scent them and take flight, which they never fail to do, thanks to their very keen sense of smell. Then the hunters pursue them close, at an easy gallop, and in a crescent, or half ring, till they hang out the tongue through fatigue and can do no more than walk. The hunters then dismount, point a dart at the shoulder extremity, and kill each of them one cow, sometimes more; for they never kill the males. They then flay them, remove the entrails, and cut the carcass in half; the head, feet, and entrails are left for the wolves and other predatory animals. The skin they lay on the horse, and on that the flesh, which they carry home. Two days later, they go out again, and then they bring home the meat stripped from the bones. The women and young people dress in the Indian fashion, while the men return for a few days longer to hunt in the same manner. They carry home their dry provisions and let their horses rest for three or four days, at the end of which those who remained in the village set out with the others to hunt in the same manner, which has made ignorant travelers affirm this people were a wandering nation.”

The Padouca were of an “unknown race and language,” with habits in many respects dissimilar to those of any other nation. Instead of being indiscriminately thrown together in a confused mass of lodges, their villages were laid out regularly with streets, which formed squares, much like those found in modern cities. The houses were neatly built, and the Indians, in intelligence and living habits, ranked higher than the more eastern tribes, who were almost continually at war. Little is known of their history after the French visits during the first quarter of the 18th century.

Whether the tribes toward the east united with the Pawnee for their destruction or whether disease did its fatal work among them is only a matter of conjecture. As a nation, they long ago disappeared, and the roving bands of Kiowa and Kaskaia, whose language bears no similarity to the Dakota and who, from their haunts in the Black Hills, long came down to hunt in the region where the Padouca formerly lived, are supposed to be the last remnants of the great nation of the Padouca.