Walking a Myaamia Trail
April 4, 2011
myaamiihkanawe peempaalinki – Walking a Myaamia Trail
In the post “Walking Myaamionki” we explored how Myaamia people first settled the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River). That post left off with the question: what held all these unique villages, spread over hundreds of miles, together as a group? Prior to contact with Europeans, each village had their own leaders and made most of their own decisions, and no village could command the allegiance of any other village. Yet, when the need arose, these villages could come together and work for a common purpose. Our ancestors recognized their interdependence and interrelatedness. They saw themselves as relatives of an extended family of villages physically connected by the rivers and trails that ran throughout Myaamionki. They saw this Myaamia family as unique and different from other “families” in their area like the Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Shawnee, Wyandot, and Kickapoo.[1]
This map is based on approximately where people were living in the early years of French interaction (1720-61). It shows the Illinois and Wabash River Valleys (in white) and the other tribal families that were our neighbors and relatives in our historic homelands
So what made our Myaamia family unique, and what held us together as a separate group from other neighboring families with whom we shared our homelands? In these early years, there were two foundational elements that made us unique: the language we spoke and the specific place where we lived.
Today, linguists call our language Miami-Illinois, because both the Miami and Illinois people spoke different dialects of the same language. The Myaamia people of the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River) and the Inoka people of the Inoka Siipiiwi (Illinois River) both spoke Miami-Illinois. It was the means of communication used by these people in their daily lives. Through their shared language our ancestors preserved the stories of their past experiences and made decisions about what to do in their contemporary lives.
Miami-Illinois was the language in common in these villages, but it was not the only language spoken there. The villages of both these river valleys were always multilingual. Within the village there would have been spouses, adoptees, and captives from other language groups. Each community valued the ability to communicate with groups that spoke other languages. These multilingual individuals helped their home community build and maintain the alliances that established peace and allowed for the exchange of important goods. Often, the children would be taught all of the languages spoken by their parents so that they could continue this important work. These language skills would also allow them to visit with extended family in other villages.
The presence of all of these languages within each village did not, however, create competition among languages. Miami-Illinois was always the central language of the village; it was the communications glue that bound these groups together.
Miami-Illinois also connected all of the Myaamia and Inoka villages of the Wabash and Illinois River Valleys. Through this shared language, the villages passed on information, stories, songs, speeches, and other meaning filled messages. This ease of communication and the feelings of being collectively understood bonded these villages together in a comforting closeness. This linguistic bond is one major reason why the Myaamia and the Inoka (Illinois) saw themselves as extremely close relatives. They often referred to each other as siblings.
The second foundational element that linked the Myaamia villages of the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi together as a unique group was the place where they lived. The villages of the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi had much in common as a result of living in nearly the same environment for untold numbers of generations. We call this place Myaamionki (the place of the Myaamia). Myaamionki continues to include: landscape features; the earth beneath the surface of the land; rivers and other bodies of water; the sky and celestial objects like the sun, the moon, and the stars; the plants and animals with whom we share our place; and many different groups of humans.
Within Myaamionki the soils, earth, and rocks beneath the feet of our ancestors were very similar. This led the villages to farm in the same way and to make their tools from the same materials. The river valleys of Myaamionki flooded regularly and fertilized the flood plains near their villages. The river valley also had a shared climate and nearly the same quantity of frost free growing days. In general, this environment was suited to the farming of Myaamia miincipi (Miami corn). It was something that all our ancestors’ villages participated in and as a result each village would have been heavily influenced by the agricultural cycle of their corn.[2]
The forests of the Wabash River Valley also tended to be either oak-hickory or beech-maple.[3] Within these forested environments all Myaamia people would have generally found the same plants and animals and therefore eaten the same roots, nuts, greens, berries, and animal meats. These villages would have also shared the same overlapping hunting and gathering grounds. Hunting and gathering regularly occurred as far west as the Mihšisiipi (Mississippi River), as far east as the Scioto River, and as far south as the Kaanseenseepiiwi (Ohio River). This was a landscape shared by many villages and the use of these resources required a lot of negotiation and communication.
The Wabash River Valley was also pocketed with hundreds of wetland areas where Myaamia people gathered tubers, roots, and greens for their daily diet as well as medicinal cures to typical ailments.[4]
Each village along the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi would have differed only slightly from the others in terms of available plants and animals. These variations were noted in the names of some villages. For example, Aciipihkahkionki – the place of roots – was unique for the abundance of edible tubers that could be found in the surrounding wetlands (see the post “Walking Myaamionki” on this blog). These differences would have given each village a unique flavor, but they would not have created a radical sense of difference between the related villages.
All of the Myaamia villages of the valley used nearly the same lunar calendar system. The lunar calendar was used to track the ecological changes occurring over the course of the year. It was this system that helped each village know when it was time to plant, hunt, harvest, and rest. The lunar calendar embodied our ancestors’ knowledge of the rhythms of climate, weather, plants, animals, and humans that was key to thriving in Myaamionki. The villages lived in tune to the same rhythms and as a result their collective lives – the things they did every day – ran parallel to each other. These habits contributed to the sense of sameness established by shared language and a similar historical experience.
Within Myaamionki (the place of the Miami) most of the rivers and trails linked villages together in a peaceful way. Most of our ancestors’ near neighbors were considered relatives. The Inoka (Illinois) were considered close siblings; the Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Wyandot were elder brothers; and the Delaware we called grandfathers. These alliances were reaffirmed on a regular basis by exchanging gifts, visiting each other regularly, and giving long speeches that recounted the history of the alliance and reaffirmed each community’s commitment to the relationship.
Outside of Myaamionki, most of the rivers and trails were utilized for less than peaceful purposes. At rare moments our ancestors left Myaamionki to hunt or trade, but more commonly they journeyed beyond Myaamionki to make war. Prior to contact with Europeans, war usually involved groups of twenty-five to thirty men. This group, or war-party as it is often called in English, would journey for weeks in order to attack an enemy village and take a few captives back home to their village. In cases of revenge, the war-party might make the journey with express purpose of killing a few adult males in an enemy community. Most captives were brought back to the home village in order to be adopted into the community, thereby adding new strength to the village.
This map shows the Illinois and Wabash River Valleys in white. The red arrows show the directions that Myaamia men would have typically gone when raiding an enemy village
Prior to contact, the groups our ancestors most commonly made war against were the Osage, Quapaw, Lakota, Dakota, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Haudenosaunee. These groups would often make revenge raids on the villages of our ancestors as well. These back and forth raids often led a cycle of violence, which historians have called “mourning wars.” In these kinds of conflicts, the grief and loss of power caused by the death of community members pushes the community to seek vengeance or to replace the loss with captives.
When these conflicts cycled out of control, a community could choose to send an ambassador to negotiate a peaceful settlement. This dangerous task was undertaken by an akima (civil leader) at the request of his village. He would then journey via river and trail to the village of an enemy and request a peace negotiation. This was a dangerous journey and the akima had to travel unarmed as a visible sign of his community’s peaceful intent. If he arrived safely at his destination he would then have to convince the leaders of that village that peace was desirable. If this initial meeting was successful, then the communities would come together at a later date to exchange gifts and give formal speeches that would firmly establish a new peace.[5]
In many cases, but not all, Myaamia villages would communicate with each other regarding issues of both war and peace. Enemies may have been unable to distinguish between Myaamia villages and as a result a revenge raid could hit any village. In the same vein, a sustainable peace required that other Myaamia villages were also in agreement. Without unity among Myaamia villages no peace agreement would be lasting. In this way, both war and peace served to keep Myaamia villages in communication with each other and unified to certain degree. This unity had to be constantly negotiated and required a lot of compromise, but we know that for the most part our ancestors were successful in maintaining the close ties within the Myaamia family and their extended ties to the related families who lived all around them.
The rivers and trails that crisscrossed Myaamionki were the pathways by which communities were connected to each other. Some of these connections were peaceful, filled with exchange, good words, and negotiated agreements for how to share the resources of our homelands. Other connections were violent and were used to achieve revenge, vent grief, and to steal power from an enemy community through capturing their people.
These connections combined with a shared language, a common place, and a similar historical experience created a sense of family unity among Myaamia villages. This close-knit Myaamia family was unique and separate from other groups, but it was also loose and flexible. No village could be forced to do anything. The family stayed together because they worked diligently to create compromise within the group. This Myaamia family is what Europeans encountered and gave the foreign label: tribe.
Today, Myaamionki has grown to include our place in Kansas and the sovereign center of our Nation in Oklahoma. Our population lives just about everywhere in the United States and even beyond, and as a result the trails that link us together have stretched and expanded far beyond Myaamionki. Some of these trails are highways and interstates, while others pass through the sky by airplanes or by along the rails by train. Some of these linkages are virtual, as a lot of our communication occurs on aacimwaapiikwi (the internet). Much has changed for us as a people, but these paths still link us to Myaamionki and to each other. These connections are used, just as our ancestors used the trails of their time, to maintain our big Myaamia family.
If you would like to comment on this story, ask historical questions, or request a future post on a different topic, then please enter a comment using the comments feature on this blog. This 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
[1] 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), 40-41.
[2] Tanner, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, 20-21. Harvey Lewis Carter, The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 16. Bert Anson, The Miami Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 21.
[3] Tanner, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, 14-15.
[4] Trowbridge has a list that includes roots and tubers for both food and medicine see C. C. Trowbridge, W. Vernon Kinietz, and Burton Historical Collection. Meearmeear Traditions (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938), 64-65. Tanner shows the location of the Great Black Swamp see Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, 14-15.
[5] Trowbridge, Meearmeear Traditions, 27-30. Carter, The Life and Times of Little Turtle, 14.
Myaamia Clothing Pre-Contact (FAQ)
February 17, 2011
What kinds of clothing did Myaamia people wear prior to contact with Europeans?
In the period of time prior to contact with Europeans, Myaamia people wore clothing made from hides: leggings, breechcloth, moccasins, skirts, shirts, and added large blanket robes during colder weather.[1] The bison robes held by the Musée de l’Homme in Paris are one of the finest examples of painted winter robes (see image below).[2] In addition to bison hide, Myaamia people utilized beaver, elk, mountain lion, wildcat, wolf, otter, and most commonly of all: white-tailed deer. During the summer months, Myaamia people wore as little clothing as necessary. There are many early European accounts of Myaamia men wearing only a breechcloth and moccasins during hot weather. Some early accounts describe Myaamia men as naked during warmer weather, but this was probably an exaggeration as the breechcloth left all of the upper body and most of the legs exposed. Myaamia women usually wore knee length leggings, wrap skirts, and tunic-like shirts, even in the summer.[3]
Some of these early clothing items were decorated with paint and or porcupine quill work. Decorated clothing items were usually worn during special events: feasts, celebrations, important negotiations, etc. During the pre-contact period, Myaamia decorative designs and materials probably underwent many changes. As the Myaamia encountered new people and new materials, it is quite likely that they would have adopted and altered the designs and materials of other groups.
Bison Robe depicting diamonds and hourglass shapes. Both of these designs figure prominently in clothing produced in the 1800s and continue to be produced by Myaamia people today. The diamonds occur most prominently in silk ribbonwork and the hourglass shapes in hairbows worn by Myaamia women.
Bison robe depicting a thunderbird and diamond shapes
[1] Raymond E. Hauser, An Ethnohistory of the Illinois Indian Tribe, 1673-1832 (Phd diss., Northern Illinois University, 1978), 130-32 and especially note #17 on 132. Bert Anson, The Miami Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 20. Josephine Paterek, Encyclopedia of American Indian Costume (Denver: ABC-CLIO, 1994), 60-62.
[2] George P. Horse Capture and Ann Vitart, Robes of Splendor: Native American Painted Buffalo Hides (New York: New Press, 1993) 51-52, 119, 121.
[3] Anson, Miami Indians, 20; Paterek, American Indian Costume, 60-62; Harvey Lewis Carter, The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 12. Carter suggests that the “naked” terms may be the result of the early Myaamia lack of trade cloth, with which other neighboring tribes “covered” themselves. For an image that approximates the dress of Myaamia men pre-contact see Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 157. Sabrevois states that while Myaamia men wore very little, Myaamia women “covered themselves.” See Jacques Charles Sabrevois de Bleury “Memoir on the Savages of Canada as Far as the Mississippi River, Describing Their Customs and Trade” in Rueben Gold Thwaites, ed., Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin vol. 16 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1902), 376.
tipehki kiilhswa (Moon)
June 28, 2010
tipehki kiilhswa (Moon)
Kristina Marks
What follows are recordings of student observations from kišiinkwia kiilhswa (July/August 2009) to cecaahkwa kiilhswa (April/May 2010). Each student was asked to observe one feature (plant, tree, animal, celestial body, or weather phenomena) and its connections to other features. In addition each student was asked to visually represent these connections by constructing a visual web.
niipinwi neehi teekwaaki (Summer and Fall)
I am observing the moon (tipehki kiilhswa). It was hard for me to make many connections because it is not a tangible thing, and possibly because the moon cycle is off this year.
Tipehki kiilhswa, aciika, and aciika alaankwa rotate during the year, however, I could not always find them both in order to further elaborate.
Kiilhswa and tipehki kiilhswa began by being visible opposite one another (ie. the sun was up during the day and the moon after the sun set). Recently tipehki kiilhswa has been rising and setting early, thus being visible at the same time as kiilhswa. Often tipehki kiilhswa was directly across from kiilhswa.
The activity of moohswa rose during ayaapeensa kiilhswa. After taking a closer look at my observations, I noticed I did not see any moohswa during waawiyiisita. I did some research and discovered moohswa are more comfortable in areas where they have low visibility. Waawiyiisita provides too much light for them to feel comfortable in open areas where they feed when the seasons change. I also noticed more moohswa activity at night when kiilhswa and tipehki kiilhswa began overlapping earlier in the day.
Circle representing connections Tina observed in 2009
Click here to see the complete web created by all the students as well as the translations for all of the words on the circle.
pipoonwi neehi miloohkami (Winter and Spring)
The biggest event that I have observed was the first thunderstorm of the year near the beginning of aanteekwa kiilhswa (middle of March). Also around the thunderstorm, the temperature was fluctuating which corresponded with the rise and fall of animal activity. Since this time, I’ve noticed the birds being both vocal and mobile, and the squirrels and deer have been more active. The plants and trees have started budding, making the landscape greener. Tipehki kiilhswa has been up at the same time as kiilhswa which makes locating its position in the sky difficult.
Near the beginning of aanteekwa kiilhswa, Colin noticed aciika neehi aciika alaankwa was prominent in the sky. This corresponds to the first thunderstorm (ciinkwia) that was observed and what the class determined to be the breaking of spring. In talking to Matt, Scott, and Lauren, I noticed all of their trees began budding in aanteekwa kiilhswa. Peesiaanikopa and aayoonseekaahkwi both began budding in the middle of the month, where as ahsenaamiši started to bud at the beginning of aanteekwa kiilhswa. While Matt and I were talking, we came up with the question about how tipehki kiilhswa effects the trees. We know that it has an effect on large bodies of water, but we were curious about the effects on water within objects.
teekwahkahki (Frost)
June 25, 2010
teekwahkahki (Frost)
Zach Swaidner
What follows are recordings of student observations from kišiinkwia kiilhswa (July/August 2009) to cecaahkwa kiilhswa (April/May 2010). Each student was asked to observe one feature (plant, tree, animal, celestial body, or weather phenomena) and its connections to other features. In addition each student was asked to visually represent these connections by constructing a visual web.
niipinwi neehi teekwaaki (Summer and Fall)
I noticed that my feature is responsible for a lot of the ecological changes in many of the other features. For example; the peesiaanikopa, ahsenaamisi, waawiipinkwaahkatwi, eeyoonsaaweekisa, mihsiinkiweemisi, kiinošiši, mankiišaahkwi, and the aayoonseehaahkwi are all trees. And my ecological feature is teewahkahki, which sped up the process for all of these trees to lose there leaves faster. And from what we have learned in the class this is also when all of the leaves nutrients go into their roots and I believe that teekwahkahki causes this process to speed up. I noticed that teekwahkahki also effects moohswa and aanteekwa. Teekwahkahki seems to give signals to these animals so that they can start their preparation for winter. Aanteekwa would probably start migrating and moohswa start moving around more and mating. I have learned that teekwahkahki is the first signal to everthing that winter is on its way and that the necessary preparations should start being taken. Teekwahkahki can be affected by features such as kiilhswa. When kiilhswa is out for a shorter period of time this creates the teekwahkahki, as it gets colder faster and kiilhswa is also responsible for getting rid of the teekwahkahki during the day. As the tipehki kiilhswa change we are able to tell about what month we are in and what moon it is because frost creates the start of animals moving around and this is how we get the month names, by what is going on in our surroundings. As the temperatures drop, ciinkwia become less prevalent and when the temperature decreases teekwahkahki increases so this has a parallel relationship. Before the class discussion there was a small part of me that didn’t think that we would be able to connect everything to everything, but most of me was thinking that it was possible. As we were discussing I was realizing that there were other ways in which teekwahkahki connected to the other features, other ways in which I didn’t think of. Teekwahkahki is a major indicator that winter is on its way it affects nearly anything and everything.
Circle representing the connections Zach observed in 2009
Click here to see the complete web created by all the students as well as the translations for all of the words on the circle.
pipoonwi neehi miloohkami (Winter and Spring)
So far this spring I have discovered a lot about teekwahkahki and the rest of the environment. For example, teekwahkahki symbolized the beginning of winter in the fall and the opposite of that in the spring. However, it’s not the presence of teekwahkahki that marks the beginning of spring, it’s the absence of it. As teekwahkahki began to disappear everything else began to reappear. The birds began to come back, the deer began to come out more, and one of the most obvious was that the sun came up earlier and stays out longer. One more thing that I have noticed, as spring progresses and teekwahkahki has been gone for a while everything is that comes back very rapidly. The buds on the trees start to become more noticeable; the grass becomes greener; squirrels become more numerous; and from there everything else just comes back so fast.
Teekwahkahki can be directly or indirectly related to other shifts in many of the other features in our class. It directly relates to all of the trees and so I shall count all of the trees as one feature because it affects them all in the same way: waawiipinkwaahkatwi (White Oak), eeyoonsaaweekiša (Redbud), mihšiinkweemiši (Burr Oak), aayoonseekaahkwi (Black Walnut), ahsenaamiši (Sugar Maple), kiinošiši (White Walnut), peesiaanikopa (hickory), and mankiišaahkwi (Sassafras). As the first hard frost hits in the fall, this signals to the trees that winter is coming and that is when the leaves begin to change color and they start to lose their leaves. As teekwahkahki is still present this process continues until killhswa comes out earlier and stays out longer. When this happens teekwahkahki starts to disappear and the trees start to begin their awakening process. When teekwahkahki is present life is very scarce until it begins to disappear.
Another feature that is very important to teekwahkahki is kiilhswa. As fall ends killhswa is out for a smaller period of time that it is during the summer. So when this happens it gets colder out and from this comes teekwahkahki, and starts the process in the above paragraph. And as killhswa starts to come back during the spring, teekwahkahki begins to disappear, and the grass and trees come back.
The final feature that teekwahkahki shares a relationship is aanteekwa. This is more of a parallel relationship that these two share. As teekwahkahki begins to arrive aanteekwa starts migrating south for the winter. And as teekwahkahki begins to disappear, aanteekwa starts to come back. However, they come back in a slower manner as to possibly make sure that it is ok to head back.
waawiipinkwaahkatwi (White Oak)
June 25, 2010
waawiipinkwaahkatwi (White Oak)
Taylor Pyle
What follows are recordings of student observations from kišiinkwia kiilhswa (July/August 2009) to cecaahkwa kiilhswa (April/May 2010). Each student was asked to observe one feature (plant, tree, animal, celestial body, or weather phenomena) and its connections to other features. In addition each student was asked to visually represent these connections by constructing a visual web.
niipinwi neehi teekwaaki (Summer and Fall)
My ecological feature is the White Oak. Throughout the semester, I have seen all of the leaves thin out, change color, and fall off the tree. At the beginning of the semester, the white oak was very thick and full of leaves. I noticed very little change as I took pictures over the weeks, and I also noticed that my tree was one of the last to start losing its leaves. I saw that most trees were almost done losing its leaves by the time my white oak even started to. But when it started to lose its leaves, it happened fast. I remember taking a picture of the white oak when it had first started to lose its leaves, and then the following week when i went back to take a picture almost all of the leaves were gone. The tree is bare of leaves now. The connections I have made to the other ecological features are as follows:
Burr Oak–Both are oak trees, and I remember talking about their similarities during class.
Crow–As a tree, I believe the white oak would serve as a resting place for crows that are flying.
Thunderstorms–The rain from the storm helps the white oak grow. Also, animals may take shelter under the white oak during a storm. Also, lightening from the storms can strike down and hit the white oak.
Deer–Deer may eat the leaves off of the lower branches of the white oak, and as I said before they may hide under the tree during storms. I remember seeing two of them rubbing up against the trunk of the tree one night in mid November.
Sun–The sun heats up the white oak and helps it grow, as it does for every other plant.
Frost–The frost can help determine when the leaves fall of the white oak. The frost did not have an effect on my white oak like it did on other trees. The white oak was one of the last trees to lose its leaves even through the frost. It also has an affect on the animal food supply, which may come from the white oak.
Circle representing the connections Taylor observed in 2009
Click here to see the complete web created by all the students as well as the translations for all of the words on the circle.
pipoonwi neehi miloohkami (Winter and Spring)
I have seen very little change in the white oak tree, until very recently. When I got back to school for the start of this semester, the white oak looked just as it did when I left for winter break. It had no leaves or nuts/acorns; it looked completely bare. As I took photos over the next 2-3 months, I consistently saw almost no change whatsoever. About 3 weeks ago (middle of aanteekwa kiilhswa/end of March), however, I started to see some vegetation growing on the end of the branches. When I took my most recent photo (end of aanteekwa kiilhswa/middle of April), almost all of the branches had leaves/some sort of vegetation on them. I still have not seen any nuts yet.
I would say the 3 biggest connections to the white oak are the sun, the deer, and the frost. Obviously, the sun is probably the biggest connection to the white oak, and probably to everything else. The sun is the energy that allows the white oak to grow, and allows the whole world to grow. Without the sun, the white oak would not be allowed to flourish. The deer also have a vital connection to the white oak. They use the white oak for food, eating the leaves, branches, and possibly the nuts that fall off of the tree. Also, the deer help fertilize the ground, therefore helping grow the white oak. Frost has a very big connection with the white oak. As the weather gets colder, the white oak starts to lose all of its leaves and eventually goes bare over the winter. As long as it is frosting, the white oak will take a long time to grow its leaves and nuts. This makes it hard to feed the animals that use the white oak for food.
