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Descendant Voices
—Wynema Morris connection. While this does not relate to every Plains Iowa side, this would place them in and around the
Independent Scholar tribe, it does lend credence to those claiming certain Loess Hills. Chiwere-Siouan-speaking Ioway, Oto,
Omaha Tribal Member areas of the state of Iowa as their ancestral home and Missouri; a number of Dakota-Siouan bands;
lands. and the Pawnee who spoke a Caddoan language
Thanks to archaeology, Plains Indian tribes can represent other peoples living in this same region.
look to the distant past and feel a strong sense of Among these is the Umonhon*—Omaha Tribe—a Land was claimed by one tribe or another based on
kinship and identity with those people of long ago. Dhegiha-Siouan-speaking people now located on a continuous usage—occupation and hunting— and by
The recent Loess Hills study of Glenwood and Mill small reservation in northeastern Nebraska and west- warfare.
Creek sites shows continuity between these earlier ern Iowa. Tribal memory claims that the Umonhon
residents and various Plains tribes today. It is the People migrated westward following buffalo herds to We cannot confirm that the builders and occupiers of
earth lodge dwelling in particular that makes that their present-day Iowa and Nebraska region. On the the Mill Creek and Glenwood earth lodge dwellings
were the direct ancestors of the Umonhon People or
any other Plains tribe. The best one can do is to find
the common connections with the past—the tradition
of earth lodge building being one of them. We will
look at a year in the life of the Umonhon circa A.D.
1500 as a good example of earth lodge builders and
dwellers.
For the Umonhon, earth lodge dwellings were built
as a part of the life way of a hunting and somewhat
agrarian tribe. Being somewhat agrarian meant the
Tribe planted primarily maize along with other foods
such as squash and beans. These were harvested after
the great summer buffalo hunt, and the harvesting
was left to the women. Women were responsible for
bringing in the produce from their own small garden
plots. While the great hunt was the main tribal en-
terprise, nothing precluded individual families from
1718 map, Guillaume Delisle, depicts location of the
Maha—Omaha—and other resident people including
the Aiaouez (Ioway) near the confluence of the Mis-
souri River and Big Sioux (here R. du Rocher).
32 University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist