Some further information in regard to the Ioway is gathered from a chart of the northwestern part of Louisiana, by “WILLIAM DE L’ISLE, _de l’Academy Royale des Sciences, et Premier Geographe du Roy: a Paris_: 1703” in the preparation of which Le Sueur probably assisted by his notes and observations.[78] A section of this map, (lithographed for Neill’s History of Minnesota), shows a traders trail marked “_Chemin des Voyageurs_,” across the State of Iowa, commencing at the Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin, and following west by a little north until in the vicinity of Spirit Lake, it struck just below the lowest of the lakes which are at the head of the Little Sioux river, upon which lower lake is marked “Village des Aiaoues _ou_ Paoutez” (Pähutch’æ); then continuing due westward towards the Big Sioux this _Chemin du Voyageurs_ bends a little southward towards the mouth of that river; on which river, near the Missouri, three or four villages of “_Maha_” (Omahaw), are marked. Besides these a couple of minor “_Aianouez_” villages are likewise set down at the west end of the _Chemin des Voyageurs_ where it strikes the Big Sioux, which is apparently about the junction of “Fish Creek” with it: [See Waw-non-que-skoon-a’s map of Ioway migrations in Vol. III, Schoolcraft, page 256],[79] and again further westward, considerably beyond the western termination of the “_Chemin_” on the James River, four minor villages of “_Aiaouez_” are also noted: while far south by a little east of the first mentioned main “Village des Aiaoues _ou Paoutez_,” upon the north or “left” bank of the Missouri river at a point nearly due west from the mouth of the “_Des Moines ou le Moingona_,” we find located the “Yoways,” and a few miles above them on the same side, the “Les Octotata”: which locations were not a great distance from the spot where the Ioway and Otoe now live upon one common “Reservation,” on the opposite side of the Missouri just within Nebraska. ANTE-WHITE HISTORY OF THE IOWAY [Illustration: MAP of the COUNTRY _formerly occupied by the_ IOWAY TRIBE of INDIANS from a map made by WAW-NON-QUE-SKOON-A AN IOWAY BRAVE Drawn by Capt. S. Eastman. U.S. Army Engraved by W. Williams.] For the history of the Ioway before the whites knew them, there is no data, beyond language and ancestral beliefs and customs, except their own vague traditions or those equally vague and uncertain of other tribes. The Reverends William Hamilton, and S. M. Irvin, their missionaries, communicated to Schoolcraft[80] in 1848, this statement of “an old Ioway Indian [aged] about sixty years or more.”