Aacimotaatiiyankwi

wiiyaakiteeheelo weehki-kihkatwe ‘Happy (Gregorian) New Year!’

In the next few days, we’ll be celebrating the Gregorian New Year! While this is the most commonly celebrated calendar new year around the world, it is also not the only one. For Myaamiaki, our year is based on the lunar calendar which reflects the cycles of the moon. This puts our lunar new year…

Ciinkwia Minohsaya ‘Painted Thunderbird Robe’ Series

We have partnered with a team of scholars to bring you a new series of interpretations of this Ciinkwia Minohsaya ‘Painted Thunderbird Robe.’ In this short discussion, our team explores a series of key questions as they seek to contextualize this beautiful work of art in time and place, as well as within the culture…

Wilaalaansantaawi! Neepinwiki & Peepoonki ‘Let’s Color It! Summer & Winter’

This year, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma developed our first Wilaalaansantaawi! ‘Let’s Color It!’ coloring book. This week, we’ve got a sneak peek of the Neepinwiki & Peepoonki ‘Summer & Winter’ book, which is due to be mailed out this fall. For this first coloring book, our team decided to focus on seasons. From a…

Animacy In Action

For this second blog post on animacy we will talk more about how it works when actually using the language. It’s important to recognize that animacy is very complicated to describe and understand as a concept. As a matter of fact, linguists have struggled for a long time to explain it so don’t feel bad…

Why did the Miami National Council agree to Removal?

This audio file is a reading of the post that follows. In previous blog posts, we have seen that the Miami National Council, led by Pinšiwa ‘J.B. Richardville,’ was adamantly opposed to Removal, even as they saw other tribes being forced west of the Mihsi-Siipiiwi ‘Mississippi River.’ Their stance on the inevitability of Removal began…

What is the National Breath of Life Institute for Indigenous Languages?

Many are familiar with the Myaamia Center’s work in archive-based language revitalization on behalf of the Miami Tribe. Due to our history of forced removal, land loss, and assimilation policies that resulted in the loss of our language, the Miami Tribe has utilized archival documents to reconstruct and aid in our revitalization efforts. Archive-based language…

šimaakanehsia aniimaakanemi ‘Soldier’s Flag’

In 1887, Myaamia elder Kiilhsoohkwa sat in a courtroom in Tahkinkamionki ‘Wabash, Indiana’ holding a blue, white, and red striped flag in her lap. In the flag’s upper left corner sat a small white field inscribed with the words “A. Wayne Commander in Chief.” As Kiilhsoohkwa held the flag, she reportedly exclaimed in the Myaamia…

Naming as a Source of Resiliency

By Kiišikohkwa ‘Haley Shea’ and Meemeehšhkia ‘George Ironstrack’ My (Kiišikohkwa – Haley) journey toward receiving a Myaamia name reflects the growth and change that I have experienced within my own Myaamia identity. Before I began attending tribal educational programming, I knew my father had a “Native name” that we were told was not Myaamia but…