Over the next year, we will be remembering and commemorating our forced removal from our homelands in the Wabash River Valley. This October will mark 175 years since this momentous and tragic event began on October 6, 1846. The 1846 removal took nearly a month to complete, but the impacts of removal continue to be…
Category: Myaamionki (Miami Places)
One of the ways we think about and talk about our history is based on where an event occurred. These categories organize our community histories based on the important places in our landscape.
Maple Sugaring: Myaamia Student Perspectives
Each year at Miami University, the Myaamia Center staff and Myaamia students take part in the process of Maple Sugaring. Two years ago, we wrote about the process of maple sugaring if you want to learn more about how to collect sap and process it into syrup or sugar, but as we head into this…
A History of Eewansaapita
This past summer marked the fourteenth year of the Eewansaapita Summer Youth Educational Experience. Eewansaapita means ‘sunrise’ and is a metaphoric expression for community rebirth, renewal, and empowerment. It is the flagship youth education program of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma for tribal citizens ages ten to sixteen. The focus of the program is to…
Meehkweelintamankwi Aanchsahaaciki ‘Remembering Our Forced Removal’
By Joshua Sutterfield and Meghan Dorey aya eeweemilaankiki ‘Hello our relatives,’ 174 years ago this week, the United States government began the forced removal of Myaamia people from our historic homelands in the Wabash River Valley. On October 6, 1846, Myaamia people boarded canal boats near Iihkipihsinonki ‘the Straight Place’ (Peru, Indiana). All told, in…
waapankiaakamionki eehpyaaciki ‘They Arrived in Kansas’
On November 4, 1846, the first grouping of Myaamia people arrived on their new reservation in the Unorganized Indian Territory. They were unloaded at Kanza landing, in what is today Kansas City, Missouri, and then traveled the final 50-60 miles south via horse and wagon. By November 5, after nearly a month of travel, the…
mihšiiwia kiilhswa ‘Elk Moon’
Mihšiiwia Kiilhswa ‘Elk Moon’ is named for the Eastern American elk (Cervus canadensis canadensis). In the 1400s, it is estimated that the Eastern elk had the greatest range of any hoofed species in North America. But this dispersed and large population diminished quickly in the years following European settlement. By the 1840s, no Eastern elk subspecies…
