The Good Path: Part I

aapooši peehkihkanaweeyankwi
Again we Travel a Good Path – Part I (1700-1747)

In our last post, we took a look at the tumultuous years that followed the arrival of various groups of Europeans in North America.  Disruptions from disease and war eventually escalated into a series of conflicts called the Beaver Wars (1640-1701).  These conflicts forced Myaamia people to flee the Wabash River Valley and take refuge primarily near what is today Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Following the end of the Beaver Wars, Myaamia people returned home to the Wabash River Valley.  The formal end of this period of disruption and war came at the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701.  At this negotiation, our ancestors recognized the Meehtikoošia (French) as the head of a new “family” alliance.  The Meehtikoošia took on the responsibility of providing for their “children” and peacefully mediating disputes.  In return, the many tribes of the Great Lakes Region promised to heed the advice of the French and to avoid conflict within the group as much as possible.[1]

This map shows the major village sites that Myaamia people reoccupied after the Beaver Wars. The three starred locations mark the locations of early French trading posts. The black star, Detroit, did not have a Myaamia village but was visited regularly by Myaamia people throughout the fur trade era.

The Great Peace of Montreal opened of one of the longest periods of stability in our recorded history (1700-1780).  In this period, Myaamia villages were largely left to govern themselves as they had prior to the Beaver Wars.  Important decisions took into account the need to compromise with various groups, but at the heart of the decision-making process lay Myaamia knowledge, values, and beliefs.  No group, European or indigenous, had the power to force their beliefs or ways onto Myaamia people in this period.[2]  No group had the power to force Myaamia people to leave their villages, and for the most part, Myaamia people could travel unimpeded throughout Myaamionki.  As before the Beaver Wars, travelers had to respect their neighbors’ homes and resources and they still had to fear attacks from enemy groups.  However, in this period of stability, none of these concerns could completely stop Myaamia people’s movements.

In approximately 1700, Myaamia people began to live a “normal” life again.  This period was certainly not free of violence, disease, hunger, or other disruptions, but the level of disruption was less dramatic than what was experienced during the Beaver Wars.  Generations before the Beaver Wars, our ancestors settled the Wabash River Valley.  Over many generations their lives became shaped by the rhythms of Myaamionki (Myaamia places).  Following the return to the Wabash, Myaamia people were able to realign their lives with the ebbs and flows of the ecological cycles of their homelands.  Once again they could utilize generations of experience and knowledge and change their practices, habits, and actions to be in tune with subtle shifts in an environment that they knew intimately.

Myaamia women could plant their fields with the certainty that as long as they worked hard and the weather was stable, they would be able to harvest and store the fruits of their labors.  They did not have to constantly worry about warfare driving them away from their villages, fields, or stored produce.  Myaamia women and children were able return to gathering tubers in the wetlands, collecting greens and berries in disturbed areas, and drawing on the many sources of sustenance produced by the trees of the forests of Myaamionki.  While there were minor risks to traveling outside of the village on gathering journeys, these risks were familiar and smaller in scope in this period.

Myaamia men could travel widely within Myaamionki and hunt in relative safety.  Conflicts still occurred on the hunting grounds, as they did prior to the Beaver Wars, but these conflicts were culturally familiar to our ancestors.  Conflict on the hunting grounds was usually avoided through the practice of humble generosity.  In 1824, Pinšiwa (J.B. Richardville) and Meehcikilita (Le Gros) described how Myaamia hunters avoided conflict on the hunting grounds.  “It often happens,” they said, “that when one has shot a deer he will see at the same moment some other hunter coming towards him, and will immediately abandon his prize, pointing to it as to the property of the person approaching, and will march off to seek some other game.”[3]  This cultural tradition limited some but not all conflicts on the hunting grounds.

Seasonal raiding returned to a smaller scale with groups of 30 or so Myaamia men engaging in guerilla style attacks, which sought captives and or the deaths of a few enemy villagers.  In return, Myaamia people suffered the same kinds of raids on their villages.  But these raids did not cause the kind of upheaval experienced in the Beaver Wars or later in our wars with the Americans (1780-1815).  In short, these conflicts were of a size and scope that did not disrupt their lives to the degree that the entire community was unstable.

This takaakani (hatchet) is a presentation piece from the 1800s, but it represents the style of hatchet or tomahawk traded for from Europeans and used by Myaamia people as both as a tool and a weapon.

The Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River) formed the heart of Myaamia homelands, and its fertile valleys were ideal for hunting, gathering, and agriculture.  In addition, the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi was a vital means of travel for many groups.  The river was a critical link in a chain of travel, trade, and exchange that connected communities throughout North America.  This system ran in many directions, but the main path nearest our ancestors’ homelands ran from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, into the Maumee River, overland to the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi, to the Mihšisiipi (the Myaamia believed that the Wabash ran all the way to the Mississippi), finally reaching the Gulf of Mexico.  Our villages of Kiihkayonki (Ft. Wayne) and Wiipicahkionki (Huntington, Indiana) occupied opposing ends of the only significant portage on this route.  A portage is a system of trails that links one navigable river to another, along which canoes and baggage must be carried.  This was an advantageous location for Myaamia people, and it allowed them to participate in and benefit from the continental trade networks in a unique way.  Prior to the arrival of Europeans, people exchanged objects, material resources, and ideas that were unique to their homelands for objects, material resources, and ideas of other peoples.  For example, Myaamia people grew a unique corn that other tribal communities desired and we often traded it with them for goods that were rare within Myaamionki.

Following the end of the Beaver Wars, these trade networks resumed and valuable resources, objects, and ideas once again moved across the continent.  But these old networks were infused with a new people and new objects, material resources, and ideas.  The new “father” figure, the Meehtikoošia (French), brought massive change to these old networks.  In return for the furs and hides of animals like amehkwa (Beaver), nalaaohki-alenaswa (Bison), moohswa (White Tailed Deer), and mihšiiwia (Eastern Elk), the French provided metal tools and weapons, firearms, and new types of cloth.

This šaaponaakani (mat needle) is a fine example of a smaller metal tool that made the production of traditional materials easier. This needle was used to weave together the leaves of the cattail plant in order to make the exterior mats that covered a Myaamia wiikiaami (home or wigwam).

Early on, the character of this trade was much the same as prior to the Beaver Wars.  But by the 1720s, Myaamia people began to develop a dependence on French goods.  Metal tools made it possible for more work to be completed in shorter periods.  Metal kettles made it possible to cook at hotter temperatures and process more food, as with Maple sugar, for example.  Firearms and metal tools increased the volume of animals that could be hunted and butchered, and these same tools soon became vital to the practice of warfare.  As everyone acquired firearms and metal knives and hatchets, bows and wooden war clubs became less and less effective.  Myaamia ways adapted to these new resources very rapidly in this period of stability, and within one generation people were hard pressed to maintain their standard of living without these trade goods.

As the fur trade progressed, more and more Meehtikoošia (French) visited Myaamia villages and stayed for longer periods of time.  The Meehtikoošia also began to build trading forts in and around Myaamionki (Place of the Myaamia).  After the Beaver Wars the nearest trading post was at Detroit, but in the years that followed they built a fort near Saakiiweeyonki (Coming Out Place) and by 1722 they completed a fort at Kiihkayonki (Ft. Wayne, Indiana).  The increased presence of the Meehtikoošia made it easier to acquire their trade goods and helped to strengthen the bonds established between the groups during the Beaver Wars.[4]

This šiipaakani (awl) is a great example of the hybrid use of European trade goods. The pointed tip came from European trade and greatly aided Myaamia women in the making of clothing, but the bone handle was likely carved by a Myaamia person according to their own preferences.

It was in this period, that Myaamia people began to bring individual Meehtikoošia traders into their immediate families.  At the Great Peace of Montreal, our ancestors recognized the Meehtikoošia as the “father” of a large family that included many different tribal groups.  Within individual villages, many Myaamia families made this bond even more personal as they facilitated the marriage of Myaamia women with Meehtikoošia men.  Intermarriage was a long established cultural norm often used to create alliances between families, different Myaamia villages, or between Myaamia people and other tribal groups.  As Meehtikoošia men spent increasing amounts of time in our villages, this same cultural norm was applied to them.

Some of these marriages produced children and lasted for the lifetimes of the married couple.  Other marriages were much shorter and ended when the trader left the region.  In either event, the marriages helped renew and reinforce the sense of alliance and relatedness that took root at the Great Peace.  Through intermarriage Myaamia people became familiar with the language and culture of the Meehtikoošia and the traders became a part of a Myaamia family network, which they could turn to when challenges arose in their work.  The children of these marriages became living symbols of the alliances between the groups, and as they matured they often served as interpreters at negotiations.  Europeans were often puzzled and confused by these individuals, labeling them “mixed-bloods” in English or “métis” in French.  However, their Myaamia relatives did not share this confusion.  If these individuals lived in the community and dedicated their lives to the community, then they were usually viewed as full members of that Myaamia community.  This was the only means of determining whether someone belonged or not.  There were no “half-members” or “quarter-members,” one either was or was not Myaamia.

Like all parental figures, the Meehtikoošia struggled to be good “fathers” according to the Myaamia understanding of the role.[5]  Our ancestors expected “koohsina” (our father) to provide for his children’s needs and to work to help mediate disputes as they arose within the family of tribes.  Koohsina was not supposed to demand obedience; instead he was to offer advice.  Koohsina was not supposed to punish his children; instead he was to offer forgiveness and the means to heal hurt feelings.  At times the Meehtikoošia succeeded in living up to these expectations, and at other times they failed miserably.  In 1747, these failures produced enough ill feelings that hundreds of Myaamia people left the Wabash River Valley to rebuild a village at Pinkwaawilenionki (Piqua, OH) and thereby distance themselves from what they perceived as a negligent and abusive “father.”  The story of the village of Pinkwaawilenionki was the largest disruptive event during this period of stability.  This story highlights the interesting ways that Myaamia people perceived their relationships within the family created during the Beaver Wars.  In our next post we will pick up the story by looking at the village of Pinkwaawilenionki, the Place of the Ash People.

If you would like to comment on this post, ask historical questions, or request a future post on a different topic, then please use the comments feature at the ending of this post or email me at ironstgm@muohio.edu.  This blog is a place for our community to gather together to read, learn, and discuss our history.  Our history belongs to all of us and I hope we can use this blog as one place to further our knowledge and or strengthen connections to our shared past.

šaaye,

George

 

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[1] Many historians and archaeologists believe it is impossible to determine specifically where Myaamia people lived prior to the Beaver Wars.  However, it is the perspective of many Myaamia researchers and educators that the layers of place names and stories connected to the upper Wabash River Valley are indicators of Myaamia habitation for an unknown period of time prior to the Beaver Wars.  For more on the location of villages after 1701, see Helen Hornbeck Tanner and Miklos Pinther, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (Civilization of the American Indian series; v. 174. 1st ed. Norman: Published for the Newberry Library by the University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 32-33, 40-41.

[2] For a full analysis of the issue of power as it relates to compromise among indigenous peoples and Europeans see Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge Studies in North American Indian History. (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 52.

[3] C. C. Trowbridge, W. Vernon Kinietz, and Burton Historical Collection. Meearmeear Traditions (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938), 66.

[4] Charles Poinsatte. Outpost in the Wilderness: Fort Wayne, 1706-1828 (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Allen County Historical Society, 1976), 4-6.

[5] One clear example of French failure were the “Fox Wars” in which the French attempted to convince their “family” to exterminate the Meskwaki (Fox).  See White, Middle Ground, 149-75.

The Myaamia-French Encounter

Myaamiaki neehi Meehtikoošia Meehkohkaatiiwaaci
The Myaamia and French Encounter Each Other

In our last post we took a look at the two foundational elements that bound together the independent Myaamia (Miami) villages of the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River Valley). We found that a common language and a shared landscape helped to maintain a shared identity amongst these villages. We also summarized the extended “family” with whom we peacefully shared our homelands: our close siblings the Inoka (Illinois) and our elder brothers the Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Wyandot. Outside of our homelands, we found groups that we often made war on: the Osage, Quapaw, Lakota, Dakota, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois).

In this article we are going to examine the Myaamia experiences in the early years of contact with Europeans and the massive disruptions of our ancestors’ lifeways that accompanied these new arrivals. During this period, our ancestors were forced to flee from their homelands in order to survive. Together with our near neighbors and relatives we formed an alliance with one group of newcomers, the Meehtikoošia (French). The formation of this alliance required substantial change in our ancestors’ lives, but this new “family” also allowed them to return and rebuild their villages within their beloved homelands.

If you look in most books that address Miami Indian history, you are likely to find a story that begins with a series of French names: Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Nicolas Perrot, Jean Nicolet, or Robert de LaSalle. These men were French explorers or coureurs des bois (runners of the forest) involved in the early years of the North American fur trade, and we know of their exploits from their own diaries or from the writings of Jesuit Priests.

In contrast to the European record of the early period of contact, very few sources produced by our ancestors have survived to the current day. This makes it very difficult to balance the “outsider” perspective of the French with the “insider” point of view of our ancestors. We must also keep in mind that many of the earliest French visitors did not have a deep familiarity with our ancestors’ language or culture. Many of their observations were made solely from the perspective of French culture. Eventually, French Jesuits did become fully fluent in the Miami-Illinois language and had substantial knowledge of Myaamia and Inoka cultures, but in this early period of disruption and warfare (1640s-1680s) it was the French fur traders who were on the front lines making contact with our ancestors, and it is their notes, their stories, and their point of view that has survived.

One Myaamia story that does survive from this period, describes how and where the Myaamia believe they first met the Meehtikoošia (French). The Myaamia word Meehtikoošia is most likely a reference to the wooden boats that the French used to traverse the Great Lakes, and these boats show up in our very first story of the Meehtikoošia. Pinšiwa (J.B. Richardville) and Meehcikilita (Le Gros) recounted the event in 1824. According to this story, the Myaamia first encountered the Meehtikoošia (French) on Lake Huron.[1] The Myaamia and their neighbors the Potawatomi learned of the arrival of a “strange people” on the lake from their elder brothers, the Wyandot. When the Myaamia and Potawatomi “arrived they found four vessels loaded with French.” The Wyandot, Myaamia, and Potawatomi waited patiently and ambushed the French when they came ashore. According to this story, the attack was so successful that the French were forced to flee by setting sail across the lake. The French, however, have no record of this event. It may be that the ambush merely scared the French away and no one was harmed. Perhaps this event was viewed as insignificant by the French and therefore not widely reported or recorded.[2] It is extremely difficult to fix an exact date to this story, but it likely occurred sometime before 1640.

This direct contact with the French was not the first time our ancestors felt the effects of European arrival in North America. European contact in the Caribbean Islands and mainland North America began in 1492 and surged in the first decades of the 1500s. As they made contact on the coasts, Europeans set off powerful waves of change deep within the continent among peoples they never met face-to-face. This indirect contact came in the most lethal of forms: disease. Like a monstrous tsunami, European diseases spread inland in powerful waves that overwhelmed populations with no natural immunities.

Between 1519 and 1524, the Myaamia suffered two outbreaks of small pox. The Spanish carried this virulent disease onto islands in the Caribbean Ocean and to mainland North America, what is today Mexico. From these locations other indigenous peoples carried the disease with them throughout North America. As communities were afflicted, people tried to flee to protect themselves and unknowingly carried the sickness with them.[3]

Small pox, which the Myaamia called meemhkilookinki (a reference to the wart-like sores which cover the afflicted), spreads from human to human by breathing in the virus, which can travel in minute particles of mucus and blood. The disease begins with a fever and eventually progresses to a rash of sores, which can cover the body and even erupt in the mouth and throat. The pain of the disease can be immense and the appearance of afflicted individuals can be extremely shocking. Most shocking of all, death rates from small pox range from 30%-50% and in some extreme cases rates of 90% occurred in a single outbreak.[4] Europeans had been exposed to small pox for thousands of years at home and had some immunity to the disease, but North America was “virgin soil” for small pox and the rates of death were astronomical.

In 1633-34, the Myaamia suffered an outbreak of measles, which they called niihpikilookinki (red skin). This illness has lower mortality rates than small pox, but it can still cause death among those who lack immunity. Five years later, in 1639, these same communities were hit with another wave of small pox.[5] Together, these four outbreaks decimated Myaamia villages in the Wabash River Valley. Whole communities may have even ceased to exist. Today, we cannot fully comprehend the horrors that these communities experienced. Our people survived, but stories of these outbreaks were not passed on. We only know of them from the European historical record.

The horrors of this period only worsened as these waves of disease were quickly followed by waves of war. Beginning in the 1640s, the five nations of the Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk) pushed into our ancestors’ homelands with hundreds and eventually thousands of warriors. They came seeking furs – to trade for European firearms and metal tools – and captives to adopt into their home villages in order to replace their own losses from disease and war. These invasions set in motion a sixty-year period of war and disruption. Our ancestors, still greatly weakened from the impacts of disease, were forced to make a difficult choice: remain in their homelands and risk further destruction or flee to the north in order to survive and hopefully recover. Sometime in the late 1640s or early 1650s our ancestors chose to flee.

The map shows the Haudenosaunee invasion and the Myaamia exodus from our homelands.

They left their beloved Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River) and eventually relocated along the Fox River near what is today Berlin, Wisconsin. This was originally the homelands of the Ho Chunk, who are also known as the Winnebago. In this location the Myaamia built an unusually large village with a population of around 20,000. A typical Myaamia village before this time period may have had a population of 2,000 to 3,000. This village was also multi-ethic and multi-lingual. It contained Myaamia, Inoka (Illinois), Mascouten, and Kickapoo peoples.  Some Myaamia people relocated to other smaller villages in the same region, but it seems that this supersized village was the main center of Myaamia organization during this period of exodus from our homelands.[6]

This new location presented many challenges. First, the size of the village made it very difficult to feed the population, and the tight living conditions only furthered the easy spread of disease. Second, the village was hundreds of miles north of the Wabash River Valley and as a result the climate was significantly different. Average winter temperatures were 10 degrees lower. Winter also came earlier in the north and the growing season for agricultural plants like corn, beans, and squash was 20 to 30 days shorter. Third, there were hundreds of subtle regional differences in the plants, trees, and animals that our ancestors relied on for additional sources of food. These challenges must have made life in this large village quite a struggle.

At this strange moment in our history, we met up again with the Meehtikoošia (French). Unlike our first meeting on the shores of Lake Huron, this meeting was peaceful. The first Meehtikoošia to have sustained contact with the Myaamia was Nicolas Perrot. Perrot was a fur trader and an ambassador of sorts who sought to help unify refugee indigenous groups into a military alliance. His hope was that this alliance could push the Haudenosaunee back to their homelands in the east and allow groups like our ancestors to return to their homes. In exchange, the French would gain access to the fur trade in the region and be better able to protect tribal peoples who had converted to Catholicism and lived nearby the major French settlements.

In 1665, Perrot arrived at the village our ancestors shared with the Inoka, Kickapoo, and Mascouten. His original journal has been lost, but the writings of a French historian, Claude-Charles Bacqueville de la Potherie have survived. La Potherie read Perrot’s journals and spoke with him extensively. According to La Potherie, Perrot and his entourage arrived at the Myaamia section of the village, and “the great chief of the Miamis came to meet them, at the head of more than three thousand men, accompanied by the chiefs of other tribes who formed part of the village. Each of these chiefs had a calumet [a decorated pipe]… they were entirely naked, wearing only shoes, which were artistically embroidered… they sang, as they approached, the calumet song, which they uttered in cadence.”[7] After completion of the formal greetings, Perrot was then escorted to the Mascoutens who had the honor of housing him for the night.

After a week of visiting and gift giving, the akimaahkwiaki (female village leaders)
organized a feast in order to give thanks for Perrot’s visit. Perrot told La Potherie that “[i]n the cabin of the great chief of the Miamis an altar had been erected, on which he had caused to be placed a… warrior’s pouch, filled with medicinal herbs wrapped in the skins of animals, the rarest that they can find; it usually contains all that inspires their dreams.” Perrot told the Myaamia leader that he “did not approve this altar.” He “told the great chief that he adored a God who forbade him to eat things sacrificed to evil spirits or to the skins of animals. They were greatly surprised at this, and asked if he would eat provided they” put away the warrior’s pouch. Perrot agreed and the feast continued.[8]

This brief conversation around the “warrior’s pouch” highlights the significant misunderstandings that occur when two or more new groups come into contact with each other. The Myaamia seem to have understood that Perrot desired a military alliance and as such he was probably meeting with a prominent Myaamia neenawihtoowa (war leader). The “warrior’s pouch” that Perrot found objectionable was a symbolic means by which individual Myaamia men demonstrated their willingness to go on the war trail. The “warrior’s pouch” was not a religious object. It was a symbol of commitment. Each man who wished to join the war party would add a token or symbol of his strength to the bag. The bag would then be carried by the war party as it made its attack. Upon returning to the village the contents of the bag would be returned to each man who participated. This act symbolized the end of that particular military effort. The neenawihtoowa (war leader) may have been expecting Perrot to symbolically add his “medicine” to the collective war effort. It must have struck them as odd, when Perrot, who had been calling for war, seemingly declined to participate.

In fact, Perrot seems to have misunderstood the situation entirely. He mistook an influential war leader for the akima (village civil leader). Perrot told La Potherie that this Myaamia leader had the ability to command people like a king and from this he concluded that Myaamia akimaki (civil leaders) were more powerful than the civil leaders of other tribes. During times of war, a neenawihtoowa (war leader) often gave direct commands to men who had agreed to fight with him. If they respected his leadership, they would often do as told without hesitation. War and warfare defined the entire period of time that Perrot interacted with the Myaamia (1665-1701) and as such his observations tell us far more about the Myaamia practice of warfare than about the nature of civil leadership.[9]

Despite these initial misunderstandings, Perrot continued to interact with the Myaamia and other refugee groups, and he continued to learn. He became much more fluent in all of the languages of the region. By 1701, he was capable of serving as a translator for a negotiation that involved numerous languages. We can reasonably guess that he eventually came to better understand the cultures of these groups, but without his writings we will never know for sure. Throughout the 1670s and 1680s, Perrot and other Frenchmen continued to trade firearms and metal weapons for furs and continued to work to unify the refugee groups in order to push back the Haudenosaunee. Eventually this new alliance was successful and by the 1690s the Haudenosaunee were suing for peace. Perrot then helped to bring this violent conflict to a close by helping to arrange a massive treaty negotiation in Montreal in the year 1701.

In the summer of 1701, ambassadors representing 38 tribal nations arrived in Montreal to bring 60 years of warfare to an end. As many as 3,000 representatives arrived over a span of weeks. The negotiations were quite lengthy as each nation’s representative delivered speeches on their community’s behalf. After a month of speeches, negotiation, and the ritual exchange of gifts the leaders shared a pipe filled with ahseema – tobacco – to symbolize their commitment to peace and their recognition of the French as a new “father” figure among an extended family of elder and younger siblings. This new “father” would be responsible for mediating disputes within the family and providing for the material needs of his “children.” In return, our ancestors promised to heed the advice of their father and avoid conflict amongst siblings as much as possible. The negotiations closed as the French had each of the leaders affix a mark to a treaty parchment – the European symbol of peace (see below).

The part of the Great Peace of Montreal that contains Myaamia, Inoka, and Tawaawa signatures. The rest of the document can be viewed at http://cacouna.net/paixmtl1701_e.htm

To my knowledge this is the oldest surviving document that our ancestors had a hand in creating. The mark of the Myaamia leader Chichicatalo (#18 circled in blue) probably represents a Sandhill Crane. Ceecaahkwa – the Sandhill Crane – has long been a symbol of our people and today it occupies the center of the national symbol of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Sadly, Chichicatalo contracted an unknown illness during the negotiations, and he died on his journey back to his people. His efforts, and the efforts of many others, did allow our ancestors to return to their beloved homelands along the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi – the Wabash River Valley. We can only imagine the honors they must have paid to the memories of those, like Chichicatalo, who sacrificed to make that return possible.

The signatures of other near relatives can also be seen on this document: the mark of the Peeyankihšia (Piankashaw) leader is a scalp pole (#17); the mark of the Waayaahtanwa (Wea) leader is possibly a rock quarry (#27); the mark of the Peewaalia (Peoria) leader is a long tailed turtle (#21); the mark of the Kaahkaahkia (Kaskaskia) leader is possibly a notched feather (#26); and the marks of three other Inoka leaders can also be seen circled in blue (#’s 20, 22, and 23). The two signatures circled in red are the marks of two Tawaawa (Ottawa) leaders.

Stomp Dance 2009 in the Ottawa-Peoria Cultural Center

Today all three of these groups – the Myaamia, Inoka, and Tawaawa – are represented in Miami, Oklahoma. The picture from 2009 Stomp Dance is a great symbol of the constancy of our interactions with each other. The gathering occurred in the Ottawa-Peoria Cultural Center and Kevin Dawes, an elected leader of the Ottawa Tribe, led this particular dance. In the crowd you can find many folks related to those who signed the Great Peace. For over three hundred years our peoples have worked together, and hopefully that is another tradition will continue on for at least another three hundred years.

If you would like to comment on this post, ask historical questions, or request a future post on a different topic, then please use the comments feature at the ending of this post. This blog is a place for our community to gather together to read, learn, and discuss our history. Our history belongs to all of us and I hope we can use this blog as one place to further our knowledge and or strengthen connections to our shared past.  You can also email me at ironstgm@muohio.edu.

Šaaye,

George

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[1] Likely the location of this encounter was on the southern most tip of Lake Huron, where groups have long traveled from the lake into the St. Clair River which takes one to Lake St. Clair and south from that lake to the Detroit River and thereby into Lake Erie. From Lake Erie travels often entered the Tawaawa Siipiiwi (Maumee River) and eventually portaged overland at the site of Kiihkayonki (Ft. Wayne) into the Wabash River Valley.

[2] C. C. Trowbridge, W. Vernon Kinietz, and Burton Historical Collection. Meearmeear Traditions (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938), 7.

[3] Stewart Rafert, The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People, 1654-1994 (Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana Historical Society, 1996), 3

[4] The same death rates are described in the east among the Haudenosaunee in this same period. Additionally, small pox most commonly kills adults leaving the elderly and young in a position to survive, if they have someone to provide them with care: bandages, fluids, and food. But the loss of adults made it difficult for those who might have survived to get the care they needed. See Richter The Ordeal of the Longhouse, 58-59. For more on small pox and its early history in North American see Fenn, Pox Americana, 13-43.

[5] Rafert, The Miami Indians of Indiana, 3.

[6] Helen Hornbeck Tanner and Miklos Pinther, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History(Civilization of the American Indian series; v. 174. 1st ed. Norman: Published for the Newberry Library by the University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 32-33. Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 6-7.  Rafert, The Miami Indians of Indiana, 4-5.  Bert Anson, The Miami Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 4-6.

[7] Claude-Charles Le Roy de La Potherie, “The Adventures of Nicolas Perrot, 1665-1670,” in Louise P. Kellog ed., Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), 86; online facsimile edition at www.americanjourneys.org/aj-046/. Accessed July 11, 2007.

[8] La Potherie, “The Adventures of Nicolas Perrot,” 87.

[9] See white for a discussion of the rise of the influence of war chiefs in this period. Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 169-71.

How did the Miami people govern themselves? (FAQ)

Individual independence was highly valued in Myaamia village communities and examples abound of leaders informing Europeans that they could “order” nothing and that in fact the more they gave orders the more they diminished their status.  In 1721, Father Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix stated: “These chiefs generally have no great marks of outward respect paid them, and if they are never disobeyed, it is because they know how to set bounds to their authority.  It is true that they request or propose, rather than command; and never exceed the boundaries of that small share of authority with which they are invested.”

The daily stuff of life, the boring humdrum that fed, clothed, housed, and educated the community didn’t require governance.  Individuals and family groups worked this stuff out for themselves. In short, leaders had no control over the lives of their people. Instead, leaders were perceived as servants, and it might be more aptly stated that their people controlled them. Additionally, no village could dictate to other villages.  A particular village might be more influential than others, but there was no control exerted. Below, is a list of Myaamia leadership positions that would have existed in a typical village in the 1700s.

akima (male civil leader) – Within each politically autonomous village there was typically one akima, although at times some villages were known to have civil leaders working in pairs or triads.  The akima served his community as an ambassador and as a mediator in disputes or discussions that the community desired to create consensus around.

akimaahkwia (female civil leader) – Each village also had one akimaahkwia, though just like their male counterparts there could be more than one.  There was usually a family relationship between the akima and akimaahkwia. The akimaahkwia served her community as a mediator in disputes or discussions that the community desired to create consensus around.  She worked with female heads of families in this endeavor.

kaapia (the chief’s assistant) – The kaapia was responsible for advising the akima and for equitably dividing things that the village had gained collectively.

neenawihtoowa (war party leader) – they served their villages primarily as the leaders of war parties, which were small groups of 30 men who sought to attack an enemy villages to take captives for adoption or for killing in reprisal for a death within their home village.  War leaders also served as village police, who enforced restrictions regarding disruptions of group hunts and abuse of resources important to the group.

maawikima (council chief) – the maawikima was selected when multiple villages came together for negotiations and needed to send a representative to speak for the whole group.  This role became increasingly important during the decades that followed the Treaty of Greenville (1795).

maamiikaahkia akima (large scale war leader) – this war leader worked to coordinate the efforts of many war party leaders from many villages.  Sometimes this leader coordinated war efforts between Myaamia villages and near neighbors like the Wyandot, Shawnee, Delaware, etc. The maamiikaahkia akima is a newer position that evolved during the heightened conflicts of the 1780s and 1790s.

Is there a word, in Myaamia, for the the Mound Builders and or the mounds themselves? (FAQ)

We have never found any language relative to the mound complexes or mound building in general.  It is also interesting to note that in the vast historical record there is no mention of the Myaamia having any association with the mounds other than they knew they were there and did not disturb them.  There are, however, extensive mound vocabularies in other non-Algonquian languages like Muskogean languages.

How did the Miami punish crime? (FAQ)

There were very few behaviors that were considered “criminal.”  Murder is the most discussed crime in the historical record and in most cases the treatment of the murderer was decided by the victim’s family.  They could avenge their relative’s death by executing the murderer or they could accept gifts to “cover their dead” (symbolically burying the diseased through expressions of genuine sorrow).  In some cases the murderer was even adopted into his victim’s family to take the place of the dead relative.

Disputes and disagreements of less a serious nature were also handled by family groups unless they appealed to a civil leader to intervene and mediate.  Most disputes were solved through gift giving, but sometimes other measures were taken.  The most severe punishment a community could use was banishment from the community (for many this was worse than death).

The neenawihtoowa (war leader) served as a kind of village police, but this role was extremely limited as there were very few criminal behaviors.  The best example of the work that a neenawihtoowa might do is stopping individuals or small groups from leaving a village and heading in a direction that might disrupt a herd of bison or some other large game for which the community was staging a large hunt.  They often used fire to hunt bison (pre-gun), and for simple issues of safety and coordination community members needed to be reminded not to disrupt the group effort.