Otoe-Missouria News Archive

Names are a way of remembering as well as of identifying. Since Kansas City’s native American heritage is largely several generations removed from current existence, we often forget how much we developed right in the middle of “Indian Country.” However, several street, institution and place names provide us with a constant, if sometimes unconscious, reminder of the important role the various tribes played in Kansas City’s early history…

Most folks don’t even know that there was a Missouri tribe. In terms of names and variations of names, it’s possible that the “Missouri” people are the most important because variations in the spelling and pronunciation of their name has led to the unofficial state question of the Show-Me State. Do you say, “Missouree?” Or “Missourah?” To find the answer, we have to go back to native pronunciation and French spelling. On old French maps, it appears both as “Missouri” and as “Missouria.” Most non-Native Missourians probably don’t even know that their state is indeed named for a tribe in the first place. But it was!

Read the full article in the Kansas City Tribune.

As Statehood Day nears, there is a feeling of excitement in anticipation of the largest celebration of our state’s first 100 years. Leading up to this special day, numerous fun-filled Oklahoma Centennial events have occurred over the past several months, including parades with marching bands, colorful floats and dignitaries, and home-town festivals with their local entertainment and enticing food aromas that fill the air…

After the blessing ceremony, the Chata Ulla Choctaw Children’s choir will sing. Then remarks will be made by three generations that will offer different perspectives of their lives as American Indians. They are Mary Lou Davis, an elder from the Caddo tribe, Russell Tallchief, a member of the Osage Nation, and Ayla Medrano, a Kiowa-Comanche-Muscogee (Creek) youth. Tribal leaders will offer remarks, and Otoe-Missouria War Mothers will be honored, followed by a memorial song and a moment of silence.

» Read the full article on NewsOK.com.

Native American women in the communication arts will be featured in two events at Oklahoma State University in the next two weeks…

Dr. Devon Mihesuah, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and author of “American Indigenous Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism,” will be the featured speaker. The program will also include screenings of documentaries and narrative films by award-winning Native American filmmakers Lily E. Shangreaux (Oglala Lakota), Shelley Niro (Mohawk, Turtle Clan) and Annette Arkeketa (Otoe-Missouria), who will be on hand to discuss their work.

Read the full article in the Stillwater NewsPress.

When retired OSU professors Thora and Ron duBois visited the annual Otoe-Missouria powwow on the tribal campus at Red Rock this summer, the experience brought back many memories for Ron.

Referring to himself as an “Icelander by marriage” – Thora’s parents came from Iceland, and Ron and Thora have visited there several times – Ron said the powwow reminded him of traditional Icelandic encampments in which people came from all over Iceland to set up tents, socialize and settle disputes.

Read the full article in the Stillwater NewsPress.

On one of many pinnacles along the bluffs lining the Missouri River southwest of Columbia, atop the steep face of jagged rock plunging to the landing, there is an inconspicuous 10-foot lump of earth. What appears to be a natural point in the landscape — insignificant in the swath of hills and valleys — is a burial mound, formed by human hands thousands of years ago.

American Indian burial mounds abound in mid-Missouri, especially along the blufftops of the river. Many date back 2,000 years or more to what is called the Woodland Period, from about 500 B.C. to about A.D. 900… David Golden of the Otoe-Missouria tribe, now based in Oklahoma, said that without the ability to watch over the burial mounds effectively, the tribe’s efforts are now primarily focused on retrieving the remains of excavated ancestors.

Read the complete article on the Columbia Missourian website.

Area residents will have an opportunity to listen to oral histories of the migration of the Otoe-Missouria Indians on Saturday, April 21, at Van Meter State Park near Miami, according to a news release from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Sponsored by DNR, the program will begin at 10 a.m. in Missouri’s American Indian Cultural Center at the park. It is free and open to the public. Matthew “Sitting Bear” Jones, professor at the University of Nebraska, will present oral histories of the migration of Otoe-Missouria Indians to Missouri, the split and reunion of Otoe and Missouria Indians, the 1797 massacre of the Missouria people by the Sauk and Fox and other related tribal stories.

Read the complete article in the Marshall Democrat-News.

More than 600 students from 22 tribes attended the fair, hosted by the University of Oklahoma’s Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. The show-stealers were the small children using microphones to sing songs in their native languages.

Kennetha Greenwood of Edmond said she and an Otoe-Missouria tribal member taught her two children, Me-way-seh and Anavey, the conversational skit that they performed. Greenwood said her grandmother was a fluent Otoe-Missouria speaker, but she had neglected to learn her language growing up and wanted to teach it to her children.

Read the complete article in the Tulsa World.

The Oklahoma Commission on the Status of Women will honor Della Warrior, a native of Red Rock, and eight other inductees into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame at ceremonies at the State Capitol Thursday. The program will begin at 4 p.m. in the House Chamber followed by a celebratory reception in the Capitol Rotunda.

Warrior serves as the first female president of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe. As tribal chief executive she initiated the development and implementation of numerous programs including adolescent health programs and the White Eagle Divinity Program, an Upward Bound chapter for economically at-risk students.

She served as president of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe from 1998-2006. In this role she is credited with re-developing the school, transforming it from a two-year postsecondary school to a four-year baccalaureate college, incorporating cultural language and arts into the curriculum, and securing over $100 million in gifts and grants to build a permanent campus.

Among the many organizations she assists and advises, Warrior serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of the Native American Indian. In 1969, Warrior served as the Upward Bound associate director at Northern Oklahoma College, Tonkawa. She received her bachelor’s degree from Northeastern State College, Tahlequah, and was formerly a research assistant with the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, Berkeley, Calif.

She attended Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Mass., on a grant funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity and included a year of academic study leading to a degree master of education for general purposes. Most of the courses were in administration, with some courses in such fields as human development, philosophy, statistics and curriculum development.
Also a special emphasis was on issues and techniques of effecting change in Native American Schools.

Originally published in the Ponca City News.

Endangered animal and plant species regularly make the news, but another type of endangered species is often overlooked: human languages. A University of Missouri-Columbia researcher has dedicated much of her career to studying and preserving some of these languages, including indigenous languages spoken in the U.S. and Mexico.

“In the next 100 years, probably half of the world’s languages will disappear unless vigorous measures are taken now,” said N. Louanna Furbee, professor emerita of anthropology in MU’s College of Arts and Science. “This is as significant as the loss of animal and plant species. These are vastly different languages with vastly different ways of solving problems. If we lose them, we lose unique perspectives on the world, unique logics and unique ways of encoding the world for understanding.”

Furbee’s research focuses primarily on the study and preservation of Tojolab’al, a Mayan language spoken in the Chiapas region of Mexico, and Chiwere, a Siouan language spoken by the Otoe-Missouria and Iowa Tribes in the U.S. Both languages are rapidly becoming extinct as elderly speakers die without passing the language on to younger generations.

Read the full article on PhysOrg.com.

An event to preview the new “Missouri’s American Indian Cultural Center” addition to the visitor’s center at Van Meter State Park was held on Saturday, Sept. 16.

A good crowd was on hand to hear traditional songs performed by the Otoe-Missouria singers from Oklahoma. Following a few songs, Connie Grisier, the site administrator, gave an emotional address, thanking the people in attendance and the people who had helped make the center a reality. Grisier then introduced Richard Forry, of the Missouri State Parks Department, who gave an address.

Read the full article in the Marshall Democrat-News.