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myaamionki : the places of the Miami

A Myaamia story | part 2

By Miami University

November 14^th, 2022

This is the second installment in a three part series about Myaamia people. Read the first chapter here.

Myaamia people often say time is like a pond, and events are like stones dropped in water. These ripples, from the emotionally powerful to the seemingly ordinary, can combine in unpredictable ways.

For Myaamia people, a landscape is more than physical features — it’s a multidimensional connection to all the layers above and below the earth and its inhabitants through time.

In this sense, a landscape is an interwoven network of geography, beings, and stories. Rivers are not boundaries between people, but sources of connection. Land is not owned or controlled, but shared, sustained, and respected.

This relationship is a cornerstone of the Myaamia culture and way of life, and informs how Myaamia people recount their histories. The places below are not a complete map of the Myaamia pond, but a selection of stories that are inseparably linked with the land and the people who have called it home.

Cattail reeds under a golden sun. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

waapaahšiki siipiiwi

Wabash River Valley

The Myaamia people have called the Wabash River Valley home as long as they can remember. It stretches through most of Indiana and parts of Illinois and Ohio.

As villages grew, the landscape could no longer sustainably support its inhabitants. When this happened, a group of Myaamia chose to establish a new village further downstream.

kiihkayonki

kiihkayonki (Fort Wayne, Indiana) was the largest and most prominent Myaamia town. The three rivers next to the village made it an ideal location for farming and trade. kiihkayonki was later renamed Fort Wayne in an act of settler colonialism. Now, it’s a place for knowledge sharing — Myaamia language and culture programs for children and adults are hosted here in the summer.

Ingrid Spenn sands a lacrosse stick. (photo credit: Jonathan Fox)

Myaamia people of all ages enjoying a game of lacrosse at a summer youth program. (photo credit: Karen L. Baldwin)

Dani Tippman holds cattail reeds used for crafting. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

Jean Baptiste Richardville (1761-1841) was principal chief of the Miami Tribe from 1812 to 1841. He signed six treaties with the U.S. ceding Miami land in Indiana. This house was built for him under one of the treaties. (photo credit: Joshua Sutterfield)

wiipicahkionki

wiipicahkionki (the ‘Flint Place’) near present-day Huntington, Indiana, takes its name from the abundance of flint in the area that was used to make tools for hunting and fishing. The rich river bottomlands made wiipicahkionki an ideal place to grow corn and board canoes.

The confluence of the Maumee River, with St. Mary’s to the left and St. Joseph’s to the right. (photo credit: Karen L. Baldwin)

Later, it would become the site of important treaties in the 1830s that pushed the Myaamia from their homelands.

Approx 1950’s (Photo Credit: Myaamia Center Archive)

iihkipisinonki

iihkipisinonki (the ‘Straight Place’) is named for a section of the Wabash River that straightens its course near present-day Peru, Indiana. In 1846, it became the tragic starting point of the Miami Tribe’s forced removal from their homelands. Today, iihkipisinonki is home to the Miami Nation of Indians of Indiana tribal headquarters. Myaamia people continue to hunt, fish, and boat this stretch of river as means of strengthening their kinship ties.

The Seven Pillars are a breathtaking formation that was created over centuries as wind and water eroded the limestone along the bluffs of the Mississinewa River. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

A tombstone reads: Chief Meshingomesia (1781-1897) In remembrance of our ancestors -- a compilation of all individuals known to have been interred in the Miami Indian Cemetery -- Erected 2009, Mississinewa Battlefield Society (Karen L. Baldwin)

Myaamia people beat a drum and sing together at a Seven Pillars language program. (photo credit: Karen L. Baldwin)

Myaamia students walk along the bluffs of the Mississinewa River at the Seven Pillars. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

Myaamia people live in a far flung diaspora, but hundreds still reside in the Wabash River Valley and maintain deep connections with the places that were dear to their ancestors.

ahseni siipiiwi

The Great Miami River

The Great Miami River was a significant route by which one could reach the Myaamia heartlands in the Wabash River Valley. Riverways allowed for the constant flow of goods and people, and provided natural resources that communities needed to thrive.

Greenville, Ohio

The multinational Treaty of Greenville paused a costly war. Between 1790 and 1794, the U.S. military attempted to coerce Native owners to relinquish their lands, often by scorching Native farms the length of the taawaawa siipiiwi (Maumee River). Starving and without recourse in 1795, Myaamia leaders signed a treaty of peace and land dispossession that transferred much of the future state of Ohio, including the land Miami University sits on, from Indigenous to U.S. domain.

Myaamia moccasins featuring traditional ribbonwork rest on the land their ancestors once walked. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

Marais des Cygnes River Valley

Named for the multitudes of waterbirds who flocked there seasonally, this river valley became a new home for Myaamia people after their forced removal in the fall of 1846. The landscape was starkly different from the familiar forests of the Wabash River Valley, but over time they adjusted and rebuilt their nation on a new reservation in what would soon become the state of Kansas.

“Dear to us was that home of our children, still dearer to us were the ashes of our forefathers, and how could we expect to find anywhere else aught that would compensate for such a loss. ”

noošonke siipionki

Neosho River Valley

At the end of the U.S. Civil War, pressure mounted again to remove the Miami Tribe south to Indian Territory. After only one generation on their lands in Kansas, the Tribe was forced to uproot, moving 150 miles to what is now Miami, Oklahoma.

Round bales of grass dot a field in Oklahoma. (photo credit: Karen L. Baldwin)

Chief Lankford takes a shot at the lacrosse goal post. (photo credit: Karen L. Baldwin)

The headquarters of the Miami Nation in Miami, Oklahoma. (photo credit: Doug Peconge)

The government of the sovereign Miami Nation is still based there today, though there are concentrations of Myaamia people living in Kansas and Indiana — a reminder of the devastating journeys that fragmented their people.

All of these places are considered myaamionki, ‘the Place of the Miami’.

This is the second installment of a three part series about Myaamia people. To learn more:

Visit the Wiikiaami room on the second level of the Armstrong Student Center.
Connect with the Myaamia Center.
Attend events for the 50th anniversary of Miami Tribe Relations.

Footnotes

Written by Alicia Auhagen in collaboration with the Myaamia Center. Illustrations by Melissa McManis.

Button Label

FootNotes

Written by Alicia Auhagen in collaboration with the Myaamia Center. Illustrations by Melissa McManis.

Love.Honor.Care

myaamionki : the places of the Miami

A Myaamia story | part 2

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