The Iowa, also known as Ioway, and the Bah-Kho-Je or Báxoje (English: grey snow;

Chiwere Chiwere (also called Iowa-Otoe-Missouria or Báxoje-Jíwere-Ñút'achi) 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. ...

: Báxoje ich'é) are a Native American

Siouan Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who call the ent ...

people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two

federally recognized tribes This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. The Iowa,

Missouria The Missouria or Missouri (in their own language, Niúachi, also spelled Niutachi) are a Native American tribe that originated in the Great Lakes region of what is now the United States before European contact.May, John D"Otoe-Missouria"''Oklaho ...

, and

Otoe tribe The Otoe (Chiwere: Jiwére) 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. Historically, t ...

s were all once part of the Ho-Chunk people; and they are all

Chiwere language Chiwere (also called Iowa-Otoe-Missouria or Báxoje-Jíwere-Ñút'achi) 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 ...

-speaking peoples. They left their ancestral homelands in Southern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

for Eastern

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

, a state that bears their name. In 1837, the Iowa were moved from Iowa to reservations in Brown County,

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

, and Richardson County,

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

. Bands of Iowa moved to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

in the late 19th century and settled south of Perkins, Oklahoma to become the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.

Name

The Ioway tribe is also known as the Báxoje tribe. Their name has been said to come from the Sioux ''ayuhwa'' ("sleepy ones."). Early European explorers often adopted the names of tribes from the

ethnonyms An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and ...

which other tribes gave them, not understanding that these differed from what the peoples called themselves. Thus, ''ayuhwa'' is not an Ioway word. The word Ioway comes from Dakotan ''ayuxbe'' via French ''aiouez''. Their

autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...

(their name for themselves) is Bah-Kho-Je, pronounced (alternate spellings: ''pahotcha'', ''pahucha'', ''báxoje'',), which translates to "grey snow". ''Báxoje'' has been incorrectly translated as "dusted faces" or "dusty nose". The state of

, where they once lived, was named after this tribe. Their name has been applied to other locations, such as Iowa County,

Iowa City Iowa City, offically the City of Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the home of the University of Iowa and county seat of Johnson County, at the center of the Iowa City Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time ...

and the

Iowa River The Iowa River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa in the United States. It is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 and ...

Population

Their estimated 1760 population of 1,100 dropped to 800 and by 1804, a decrease caused mainly by

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

, to which they had no natural

immunity Immunity may refer to: Medicine * Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease * ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press Biology * Immune system Engineering * Radiofrequence immunity de ...

. Their numbers were reduced to 500 by 1900. In 1960, 100 Iowa lived in Kansas and 100 in Oklahoma. By 1980 their population had recovered to 1,000 (of which only 20 spoke Iowa). In 1990 there were 1,700 people. According to the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

, in 1995 there were 533 individuals living in the Iowa reservations of Kansas and 44 in Nebraska (Horton Agency), while 857 people lived in the Oklahoma Iowa Tribe (Shawnee Agency), amounting to a total of 2,934 people. According to the 2000 census, 1,451 people identified as full-blood Iowa, 76 were of mixed-Indian descent, 688 of mixed-race descent, and 43 of mixed-race and tribe descent, amounting to 2,258 people.

Culture

Photograph of Mary Louise White Cloud Rhodd - NARA - 557157

The Iowa have had customs similar to those of the other Siouan-speaking tribes of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...

, such as the Omaha, Ponca and Osage. They were a semi-

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

ic people who had adopted horses for hunting, but they also had an agricultural lifestyle similar to the tribes inhabiting the

Eastern woodlands The Eastern Woodlands is a cultural area of the indigenous people of North America. The Eastern Woodlands extended roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Great Plains, and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, which is now p ...

. They planted

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...

and manufactured

alum An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula , where is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium. By itself, "alum" often refers to potassium alum, with the ...

pipes, which they traded along with furs with the

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

colonizers. Historically, their houses included bark lodges (chakiruthan),

tipi A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟó ...

s, and at times,

earth lodge An earth lodge is a semi-subterranean building covered partially or completely with earth, best known from the Native American cultures of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands. Most earth lodges are circular in construction with a dome-like ...

s—oven-shaped buildings covered with earth for protection from extremes of temperature and oriented to a cardinal direction. A smoke hole enabled ventilation from a central hearth. During the hunting season or in warfare, they used the portable tipi. Like the Osage or Kansa, Iowa men traditionally shaved their heads and decorated them with deer hide. Like Great Plains tribes, they valued three feats during a battle.

History

In prehistoric times, the Iowa emigrated from the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

region to present-day Iowa. In the 16th century, they moved from the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

to the Great Plains, and possibly then separated from the Ho-Chunk tribe. From the 15th to 18th centuries, they lived in the Red Pipestone Quarry region (

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

). In the early 19th century, the Iowa had reached the banks of the

Platte River The Platte River () is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over . The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itsel ...

, where in 1804

Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

visited their settlements. There they engaged in trading with the French and local tribes, thanks to their advantageous situation regarding the alum deposits. Between 1820 and 1840, the Iowa ceded their Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri lands to the U.S. government. By 1837 most were relocated to a reservation along the Kansas-Nebraska border, led by their chief

Chief Mahaska Mahaska (archaic Ioway ''Maxúshga'' pronounced ; contemporary ''Maxúhga''), or White Cloud, (1784–1834) was a chief of the Native American Iowa tribe. His son, also named Mahaska, was better known as Francis White Cloud. Early life and ...

(''Mew-hew-she-kaw'', "White Cloud"; archaic Ioway ''Maxúshga'' pronounced ; contemporary ''Maxúhga''). They surrendered the Little Platte territory in Missouri in 1836. Other Missouri lands had been ceded in 1824. In 1837 they settled in a strip of land in Kansas, south of the Big Nemaha River, along with the Sauk and the Fox, tribes with which they had long had friendly relations, though speaking unrelated

Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...

). Some 45 Iowa fought in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

in the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

, among them Chief James White Cloud, grandson of ''Mahaska''. In 1883 a number of Iowa moved to Indian Territory preferring to live in the older community village way of life. The new reservation was located in Lincoln, Payne and

Logan Logan may refer to: Places * Mount Logan (disambiguation) Australia * Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly * Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud * Logan City, local gov ...

counties in the

. However, despite their efforts to block allotment, their lands were divided anyway. Today the Iowa Reservation in Nebraska and Kansas is approximately in size, and has more than 150 residents.

Modern history

In 2007, a documentary film ''Lost Nation: The Ioway'' (2007; written and directed by Kelly Rundle and Tammy Rundle) was made, and followed by sequels 2 and 3. In 2013, Tim Rhodd was chosen as chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. Bobby Walkup is the current tribal chairperson of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma. The Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska operates the Casino White Cloud at

White Cloud, Kansas White Cloud (Ioway: ''Chína Maxúthga'' pronounced or ''Chína Maxúhga'' pronounced , meaning "Village Cloud-White") is a city in Doniphan County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 115. It was nam ...

on the Ioway Reservation. The Ioway Tribe of Oklahoma operates the Cimarron Casino in Perkins, Oklahoma, and the Ioway Casino in Chandler, Oklahoma.

Notable people

* Big Neck * Marie Aioe Dorion *

References

External links

Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska
official website
Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
official website
Ioway Cultural Institute
* /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Bice%27waan_Song.ogg Download recordingof a

courtship Courtship is the period wherein some couples get to know each other prior to a possible marriage. Courtship traditionally may begin after a betrothal and may conclude with the celebration of marriage. A courtship may be an informal and private m ...

song from the Library of Congress' ''Omaha Indian Music Collection''; performed by George Miller in 1897, collected by Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La Flesche
"Lost Nation: The Ioway" – a historical documentary film about the Ioway Tribe

"Maps, Material Culture, and Memory: On the Trail of the Ioway"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iowa People Native American tribes in Kansas Native American tribes in Nebraska Native American tribes in Oklahoma Siouan peoples Plains tribes Native American tribes in Iowa Native American tribes in Minnesota Native American tribes in Missouri