Since 1985, the tribe has held an annual powwow. It takes place in mid-June four miles (6km) south of Perkins, Oklahoma, on Highway 177.[3]
Government
The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is headquartered in Perkins, Oklahoma, and their tribal jurisdictional area is in Lincoln, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties, Oklahoma. Of the 800 enrolled tribal members, over 490 live within the state of Oklahoma.[1] Edgar Kent is the current tribal chairperson.[4][5]
Programs and economic development
The tribe issues its own vehicle tags and operates the Bah-kho-je Housing Authority. They own a truck stop, a gas station, a smoke shop, a bingo hall, an off-track wagering facility, and a casino. The estimated annual economic impact of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma was $10,343,000 in 2011.[1] The tribe operates the Cimarron Casino in Perkins, the Iowa Tribe Smokeshop in Coyle, and the Ioway Casino Resort in Chandler.[6]
The Bah-Kho-Je Journal is a newspaper published by the tribe for enrolled members.[7] The tribe also owns BKH Solutions, a SBA 8(A) certified company providing trucking, construction, environmental, archaeological, and energy services and consulting.[8] They have their own tribal police department and Tah-Je Do-Weh Che Child Development and Head Start program.[9]
The tribe owns its own Bah-Kho-Je Gallery that represents Iowa artists, such as Jean Bales (Iowa), David Kaskaske (Iowa-Otoe-Missouri), and Daniel Murray (Iowa/Otoe), as well as artists from related tribes, such as Mars Biggoose (Ponca), Gina Gray (Osage Nation), and others. The gallery was based in Guthrie, Oklahoma, but is now located in the Iowa tribal complex in Perkins.[10]
Language
An estimated thirty tribal members still speak the Iowa or Chiwere language,[11] a Siouan language. The tribe has offered language classes in the past and is currently providing elders with recording devices to archive language material they feel important to share with the younger generations.[12]
History
The Iowa, or Ioway, originated in the Great Lakes region. They are thought, along with the Ho-Chunk, Otoe, and Missouria tribes, to have once been a single tribe. In the 16th century, the Iowa, Otoe, and Missouria broke away from that tribe and moved to the south and west.[13] The first recorded contact between the Iowa and Europeans was in 1676, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where they lived among the Ho-Chunk people.[2]
Traditionally, Iowa society was divided into two moieties, the Buffalo and the Bear clans, who would govern the tribe on an alternating, semiannual basis.[2]
In face of European-American encroachment, the Iowa moved east in what is now Iowa and Missouri, but in 1839 the tribe ceded their lands and moved to the Ioway Reservation on the Kansas-Nebraska border. There factionalism broke out between the mixed blood and full blood Iowas. The mixed bloods advocated assimilation, while the full bloods wanted to follow their traditional way of life.[2]
In the attempt to preserve their traditions, the full blood faction of the Iowa Tribe began moving into Indian Territory in 1878. They were given lands within the Sac and Fox Reservation in 1883. Their collective tribal landholdings were broken up by the Dawes Act and, in 1890, individual land was allotted by the Cherokee Commission to 109 tribal members.[14][2]
The Curtis Act of 1898 dismantled tribal government, but the tribe was able to reorganize under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936, as the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma. They ratified a constitution and by-laws in 1937.[2]
Bah Kho-Je Xla Chi: Eagle Rehabilitation Program
Golden eagle, Aquila chrysaetos
A unique tribal service is the Bah Kho-Je Xla Chi or Grey Snow Eagle House. This eagle aviary was built in January 2006, within the tribe's buffalo preserve. Bah Kho-Je Xla Chi serves both to rehabilitate injured eagles and to house eagles that cannot be released back in the wild.[15] The program works with golden eagles and bald eagles. Located in Perkins, this is the first facility that can house injured eagles in the state of Oklahoma and meets US Fish and Wildlife Service standards.[16]
The aviary is one of the few in the country is open to the public, and visitors have come from all over the world, including tribal elders from many different Oklahoman Indian tribes. Naturally molted eagle feathers are gathered by the tribe for legally permitted religious use. Victor Roubidoux, an Iowa tribal member, serves as the aviary manager. The tribe is currently raising funds to expand the aviary, since spaces for eagles filled up almost immediately with birds from throughout the United States.[15] The tribe recently added a new flight cage. Says Roubidoux, "We believe that the eagle is the only animal that has seen the face of the creator and so we honor him with respect and dignity."[17]
1 2 3 Oklahoma State Department of Education. Retrieved 23. 9. 2014.
1 2 3 4 5 6 May, John D. Iowa.Archived 2011-08-05 at the Wayback MachineOklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. 2009 (24 Feb 2009)
↑ May, John D. Otoe-Missouria.Archived 2010-07-20 at the Wayback MachineOklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. 2009 (24 Feb 2009)
↑ Deloria Jr., Vine J; DeMaille, Raymond J (1999). Documents of American Indian Diplomacy Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979. University of Oklahoma Press. pp.319–322. ISBN978-0-8061-3118-4.
The Missouria or Missouri are a Native American tribe that originated in the Great Lakes region of what is now the United States before European contact. The tribe belongs to the Chiwere division of the Siouan language family, together with the Ho-Chunk, Winnebago, Iowa, and Otoe.
The Hocągara (Ho-Chungara) or Hocąks (Ho-Chunks) are a Siouan-speaking Native American Nation originally from Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Due to forced emigration in the 19th century, they now constitute two individual tribes; the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. They are most closely related to the Chiwere peoples, and more distantly to the Dhegiha.
Tryon is a town in Lincoln County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 491 at the 2010 census. The community is named after early land owner Fred S. Tryon.
Pawnee is a city and county seat of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, United States. The town is northeast of Stillwater at the junction of U.S. Route 64 and State Highway 18.
Perkins is a city in southern Payne County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 2,831 at the 2010 census, an increase of 24.6 percent from the figure of 2,272 in 2000. The name is derived from Walden Perkins, a congressman who helped establish the local post office. The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is headquartered here.
The Iowa, also known as Ioway, and the Bah-Kho-Je or Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.
The Sac and Fox Nation is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indian peoples. Originally from the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan area, they were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in the 1870s and are predominantly Sauk. The Sac and Fox Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area (OTSA) is the land base in Oklahoma governed by the tribe.
The Otoe are a Native American people of the Midwestern United States. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa, Missouria, and Ho-Chunk tribes.
The Delaware Nation, based in Anadarko, Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized tribes of Delaware Indians in the United States, along with the Delaware Indians based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and the Stockbridge–Munsee Community of Wisconsin. Two Lenape First Nations are in Ontario, Canada.
The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska is one of two federally recognized tribes of Iowa people. The other is the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
Chief Shaumonekusse was a leader of the Otoe Native American tribe in the early 19th century. The Otoe are a Central Plains tribe, closely related to the Ioway, Missouria, Ho-Chunk, and Winnebago.
The Otoe–Missouria Tribe of Indians is a federally recognized tribe, located in Oklahoma. The tribe is made up of Otoe and Missouria peoples. Their language, the Chiwere language, is part of the Siouan language family.
Chiwere is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the Midwest and plains. The language is closely related to Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago.
Truman Washington Dailey, also known as Mashi Manyi and Sunge Hka, was the last native speaker of the Otoe-Missouria dialect of Chiwere (Baxoje-Jiwere-Nyut'achi), a Native American language. He was a member of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians.
Native American tribes in the U.S. state of Nebraska have been Plains Indians, descendants of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples who have occupied the area for thousands of years. More than 15 historic tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries.
The Iowa Reservation of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska straddles the borders of southeast Richardson County in southeastern Nebraska and Brown and Doniphan counties in northeastern Kansas. Tribal headquarters are west of White Cloud, Kansas. The reservation was defined in a treaty from March 1861. As of 2023, the tribe operates Casino White Cloud on the reservation.
Ocooch Mountains are a place name for the Western Upland area of Wisconsin also known as the Driftless Region, meaning un-glaciated, lacking glacial drift or the Paleozoic Plateau, referring to a geologic era, Greek for "ancient life". The lack of glaciated terrain accounts for high hills, bluffs, and ridges. The Chippewa, Black, La Crosse, Kickapoo, Baraboo, Lemonweir, Pine, Wisconsin, Grant, Platte and Pecatonia rivers and their tributaries create deeply eroded valleys that contrast the nearby peaks. One dramatic example is Wildcat Mountain State Park. The Baraboo Range anchors the eastern edge where the Wisconsin River turns and runs through the area to the Mississippi River. The Baraboo Range is a monadnock in Sauk and Columbia Counties and a National Natural Landmark formed 1.6 billion years ago featuring Devil's Lake, an endorheic lake.
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. They are located in Oklahoma and Missouri.
Clyde Merton Warrior (1939–1968) was a Native American activist and leader, orator and one of the founders of the National Indian Youth Council. He participated in the March on Washington and the War on Poverty in the 1960s and was a charismatic speaker on Indian self-determination.
Several Native American tribes hold or have held territory within the lands that are now the state of Iowa.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States (
Oklahoma)
