When the first French explorers came to present-day Missouri, they found two Indian tribes, the Osage and the Missouri. The Osage tribe was the largest and most powerful group in Missouri at one time. Early in their history, the Osage divided into two groups: the “Upper-Forest Sitters” and the “Down-Below People.” French missionaries later called them the Great or Big Osage and the Little Osage, respectively. The Big Osage lived along the Osage River in present-day Vernon County, and the Little Osage lived along the Missouri River in what is today Saline County. Sacred Sun was a Little Osage. [Wolferman, The Osage in Missouri, p.10, and McCandless and Foley, Missouri; Then and Now, p. 11.]