Independence Creek was noted as the main settlement of the Kanza Tribe as far back as 1673, and when French explorer Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont arrived in 1724 it was considered an old village and the capital of the Kanza nation. This large village extended along the Independence Creek valley, and from it and other villages the Kanza controlled much of what is now Kansas. Kanza dwellings used the most available materials, shifting after their migration from areas near the Great Lakes in the Ohio River Valley from primarily bark-covered lodges to log-frame dwellings covered mainly with sod because timber was less abundant, while buffalo and deer skins were used for tipis during periodic hunting expeditions to the high plains. In the Kanza creation story, the Kanza Man and Woman were created by the Great Spirit when the whole world was a small island surrounded by vast waters; as children came and the island grew crowded, some of the People were forced into the water, and after Woman prayed for compassion, the Great Spirit sent beavers, muskrats, and turtles to bring up material from the bottom and enlarge the island until the present Earth was formed, then used the colorful dying leaves of fall from trees along the new rivers to create birds, deer, and buffalo so that the earth was filled with life and beauty. The Kanza lived in semi-permanent villages, cultivated crops, and also followed a nomadic Great Plains hunting life in pursuit of buffalo, their primary resource, with the entire tribe making two hunting trips to the hunting grounds each year. Their principal crops were beans, pumpkins, prairie potatoes, melons, and corn, and their food also included corn roasted on the cob or cooked in soup with strips of buffalo meat, as well as fish, fowl, and dog meat.