Every year, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma hosts tribal members ages 6 and older for a summer experience designed to teach them about Myaamia culture and language. There are six rotating themes for this summer experience, with the idea that participants who go through the program will eventually be exposed to each. Not a typical…
Author: Haley Shea
Myaamia Metaphoric Expression: Wellness Edition
The use of metaphors can be incredibly powerful to aid in the communication and understanding of complex concepts or ideas. For Myaamiaki, metaphoric expressions in the language are common and can serve as a way to communicate in a less direct fashion. A good historical example of a Myaamia metaphor is keešiikikoleehwaki which has a…
Benefits of Community Building for Mental Health
I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that spending time with folks from the Myaamia community has so many benefits for my mental health. I frequently feel rejuvenated both emotionally and mentally when I get to interact with my relatives. This benefit of community-building was one observation made by tribal leadership in the…
Update: Office of Assessment and Evaluation (OAE)
In this prior blog post, I introduced the work of the Nipwaayoni Acquisition and Assessment Team (I will refer to it as the NAATeam), including our history, goals, and future plans. I want to first assure you that nothing has changed with those regards. However, there has been some reorganization within the Myaamia Center to…
Benefits of Storytelling: Take-Aways from my Dissertation
As some of you know, I completed my doctoral degree at Iowa State University in 2019. As part of the process, I had to write a dissertation, a long and arduous manuscript summarizing findings from an independent research study. I wrote mine about the impact of Myaamia storytelling on living well for Myaamiaki. I interviewed…
Historical Trauma (Part 2): Myaamia Perspective on Healing
As we approach the 175th commemoration of Myaamia Removal and community members reflect on our shared history, it is likely that many community members will experience significant emotional responses. In Historical Trauma (part 1) I discussed at length the Historical Trauma (HT) response; if you have not yet read that article, I recommend you go…
Strengths v. Deficit Approaches to Community Health
When conducting research on promoting positive outcomes at the community-level, there are generally two approaches: deficit-based and strengths-based. I alluded to this at the beginning of the Historical Trauma: Part 1 post last week. Deficit-based research examines the existing issues within a community and attempts to overcome them. Strengths-based research identifies and promotes the strengths…
Historical Trauma (Part 1)
With the recent news about Native American deaths and burials at former Indian schools (read Dr. Cam Shriver’s blog post about Boarding Schools here), this is an appropriate time for a discussion of the impacts of Historical Trauma (HT) on Native communities. First and foremost, from the perspective of the Nipwaayoni Acquisition and Assessment Team…
Myaamia Women from the Strass Family
Many narratives about Native communities broadly, and the Myaamia community specifically, are often told through the lens of the male perspective. There are many reasons for this; for example, many of these stories are told first by the French Jesuit missionaries and later linguists and anthropologists who recorded our histories. As a result, the values…
Evidence and Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Myaamia Leadership
Setting the Scene Sitting at our Annual Meetings and Winter Gatherings over the years has been an interesting experience as a Psychologist, Myaamia Community Member, and researcher for the Myaamia Center all at the same time. Each year, we gather as an entire myaamia community on only a few occasions. As a community member, I…
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