Research and Development
The Myaamia Project is interested in research that benefits the Miami Tribe community in tangible ways. Below are a variety of research projects currently underway through the Myaamia Project. We have included research documents we believe to be relevant to the topic but it should be understood that the research conducted does not necessarily reflect the views of the Myaamia Project or the Miami Tribe community. We have included selected research documents here to encourage discussion and spur further inquiry into the topics. If anyone is interested in contributing please feel free to contact any member of the Myaamia Project team. |
Children's Multimedia
Participants
Dr. Bob Vogel - Professor, Mass Communication
Dr. Glenn Platt - Director, IMS Department
Daryl Baldwin - Director, Myaamia Project
Andrew Strack - Media Specialist, Myaamia Project
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The driving force behind this project is the desire and need to develop children’s multimedia interactive language learning programs and experiences. In spring of 2009, Dr. Bob Vogel and Dr. Glenn Platt will be leading a interdepartmental class to develop an interactive multimedia experience for children that reinforce language use in their most familiar environment (the home). Students will have the opportunity to visit Oklahoma and meet community members to better understand the community context for their project. This project is understood to be a pilot project. Six to ten Miami households will be selected to participate and assessment measures will be incorporated to track beneficial outcomes. Students interested in participating in this project should contact Dr. Bob Vogel or Dr. Glenn Platt to learn more. |
Miami Language Research
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Language reclamation requires an understanding of the sociolinguistic changes that have taken place, which causes a language to stop being taught and used. The Myaamia Project is interested in the study of Miami language shift and how understanding the process of language shift can aid in the reversion language loss. Reclaiming a language also requires a great deal of language reconstruction and this can only take place with the aid of linguistics. Of the available language documentation we have available, we are only a fraction of the way through the transcription and translation process. There is still a tremendous amount to learn about the Miami language and many thousands more vocabulary items to learn and introduce into the reclamation process Related Documents are listed below. Miami Language Reclamation in the Home: A Case Study. 2007. Wesley Y. Leonard. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Miami Indian Language Shift and Recovery. 2006. Melissa A. Rinehart. Dissertation, Michigan State University. For more language research, please visit David Costa's list of published materials. |
Ethno-Botany
Participants
Mike Gonella - Miami University (Dissertation Filed 2007)
Brian King - Miami University (Summer Scholars Project/ summer 2002)
Daryl Baldwin - Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (project coordinator)
David Costa – Miami-Illinois Linguist (language consultant)
Status: Ongoing
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This initiative came about after several years of collecting plant information and plant terminology gleaned primarily from extant records and Miami elder interviews. The purpose of this project is to stimulate research around the topic of traditional Miami ethnobotany, both historic and contemporary. Several Miami elders have contributed information to this project, as have several other researchers who have provided information from their own research. As result of some of the earlier research initiatives an extensive ethnobotanical database has been created full of information on Miami plant use. This database is serving as an information storehouse and being utilized by the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and other Miami individuals in the following ways:
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Related Documents are listed below.
Myaamia Ethnobotany. 2007. Michael P. Gonella. Dissertation, Miami University.
Historical Landscapes of the Miami
Participants
Dr. Adolph Greenberg - Institute of Environmental Sciences, MU
Dr. Thomas Klak - Professor of Geography, MU
Dr. George Esber - Anthropology, MU
Brett Governanti - GIS Tech and MA student, Institute of Environmental Sciences, MU
Billy Terry - Project assistant and MA student in geography, 2002-4
Daryl Baldwin - Myaamia Project Director
Dr. David Costa - Miami Language consultant
Dr. Joseph Leonard - Professor of Management, MU
Michael McCafferty - Miami-Illinois place name consultant, Indiana University
Pete Wilhelm - Northwest State Community College
Joshua Sutterfield - GIS Tech and MA student, Department of Geography at MU
Status: Ongoing
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In 2003, members of Miami University's geography department and the Miami Nation began collaborating on a research topic of mutual interest. The project is called “The Historical Landscapes of the Miami” and is aimed at mapping the physical and cultural landscapes and land uses of the Miami from around 1650 to 1850. We have generated the accompanying map as a first attempt to demarcate the areal extent of Miami-Illinois ancestral land use. We are using the label Miami-Illinois to identify several groups, villages, or bands that were culturally and linguistically affiliated with each other, but politically autonomous. The map depicts only major rivers and lakes within the ancestral lands, and some of the Miami names for these features. |
Because we wanted to create a map of the area as the Miami knew it, we have purposefully excluded English names for rivers, the state boundaries, and cities. In the future we will add further details to this base map, which will include village locations and movement patterns. We will include more of the Miami names for rivers, other physical features including the pre-European vegetation patterns, and settlements.
How did we decide what areas to include on the map of the ancestral homelands? We consulted a range of sources, from Little Turtle's speech at the Treaty of Greenville and historical monographs on the Miami, to current Tribal members and scholars of Native American history. By combining information from multiple sources, we created a map of the north, south, east and west extent of the principal settlements, land uses, and transportation movements of the Miami-Illinois speaking tribes during the two centuries in question. Below we briefly describe why we set the edges of the map as we did, using the Miami names for rivers whenever possible to describe the map's areal extent. Please follow along on the map during this textual description.
On the western side of the map, the lands of the Miami-Illinois people extended to at least the mihsisiipiiwi (Mississippi River). To the south, the kaanseeseepiiwi and waapaah$iiki siipiiwi (Ohio River) mark the furthest extent of Miami-Illinois lands. Note that the Miami distinguished two rivers (kaanseenseepiiwi and waapaah$iiki siipiiwi) whereas today both parts are called the Ohio River. The waapaah$iiki siipiiwi extends northeast into Indiana to become what is now known as the Wabash River. Such differences in river names suggest how the Miami had different geographical relationships with the physical landscape. The waapaah$iiki siipiiwi was a central transportation artery for the Miami, flowing from what is now west-central Ohio all the way to the mihsisiipiiwi.
The description becomes more detailed to the east. The Scioto River (we have no Miami name for this river), from the kaanseenseepiiwi (Ohio River) northward through what is now Columbus and beyond, was identified in Little Turtle's 1795 speech as the eastern extent of Miami lands. Northwest of Columbus, the ancestral lands continued northward, through the western portion of Lake Erie (we have no Miami name), and then on to Detroit. The Miami settled in Detroit in 1703, drawn there by French missionaries and trade opportunities. From Detroit, the lands extend to the northeast across Lake St. Clair (we have no Miami name) to include one of the islands in the northeastern corner of the lake near what is now the city of Algonac, Michigan. It is known today as Walpole Island and is located within Canadian Territory. On this island has lived for many decades a family of Miami who fled Indiana prior to the 1846 removal. Tribal advisors asked that Walpole Island be included in the map due to the historical significance of removal and its effects on family movements near the homeland.
The northern extent of ancestral lands also contains a number of details. From the north end of Lake St. Clair, the Miami-Illinois lands extended southwest to the headwaters of the saakiiweesiipi (St. Joseph River) near what is now Hillsdale, in south central Michigan. The Miami-Illinois lands followed the saakiiweesiipi as it winds southwest and into northern Indiana, and then back into southwestern Michigan and into kihcikami (Lake Michigan) at what is now the city of St. Joseph. From the mouth of the saakiiweesiipi, the lands continued westward across the southern portion of kihcikami and reached what is now the state of Illinois just north of Chicago. The lands continued northward along the shore of kihcikami to what is now Green Bay. The Great Lakes were important transportation routes, just as the rivers were, and so all of Lake Michigan is included within the Miami home range. The Green Bay region was the center of Miami refugees in the second half of the 17th century as a result of pressures from the Iroquois. By the beginning of the 18th century the Miami moved southward to the Chicago region and back it into Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. From Green Bay, the Miami-Illinois lands followed the Fox River (we've uncovered no Miami name for it) upstream in a southwesterly direction across what is now south central Wisconsin. The boundary to the west of the Fox River is the meehko(o)hsinki siipiiwi (Wisconsin River), which flows into the mihsisiipiiwi (Mississippi River) at what is now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
We would like to thank Avram Primack for help with Geographical Information Systems, Michael McCafferty for his assistance in Miami-Illinois place names, and Pete Wilhelm for his input on historical resources. Project such as these require the efforts of many and we give a sincere thanks to everyone.
Lunar Calendar
Participants:
Daryl Baldwin - Miami University, Myaamia Project Director
Dr. David Costa - Miami-Illinois Linguist (Language Consultant)
Dr. Adolph Greenberg - Institute of Environmental Sciences, MU
Laura Wigren - Miami University Graduate Student, Environmental Science/Recycling Department (Spring 2006 to 2007)
Craig Voros - Miami University Graduate Student, Environmental Science/Recycling Department (Spring 2006 to 2007)
Dr. James Ausfahl
Status: Ongoing
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The goal of this project is to reconstruct the traditional Miami lunar calendar as a means of tracking time for cultural purposes. The traditional calendar observes the lunar cycle that follows the biological and seasonal cycles of any given year. These biological cycles are reflected in the month names. There are may challenges in reconstructing a lunar calendar system. One of the principal issues is that a lunar calendar year does not sync with a solar calendar year. There is approximately 11 days difference between the lunar and solar years. The lunar year being short by approximately 11 days compared to the solar year. These 11 days, over time, cause the ecological connections reflected in the lunar calendar names to shift. In historical times, the Miami would observe this shift and during the winter months decide to insert a thirteenth moon to bring the months back in line with the biological processes for which they were named. |
Our goal is to create a lunar calendar that:
- Continues to integrate biological and ecological cycles.
- Overlay or combine the current Gregorian calendar so tribal members can still keep appointments.
- Further develop the calendar to reflect contemporary cultural events and activities.
- Reinforce our connections to the land and sky through the observation reflected in the lunar calendar.
Cookbook
Participants
Daryl Baldwin - Miami University, Myaamia Project Director
Dr. David Costa - Miami-Illinois Linguist (Language Consultant)
Kelsey Young - Miami University (Anthropology Department)
Dani Tippmann – Miami Tribe
Karen Baldwin – cookbook design and layout, plant photography
Mike Gonella – Miami plant specialist , Miami Universitiy (Botany Department).
Loretta Oden – Native American Chef, native food historian
Status: Ongoing
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The goal of the Miami Cookbook project, entitled myaamiaki iiši-aalimiihtookiki, is to provide Miami tribal members with a resource for identifying, harvesting, and preparing native foods for traditional and contemporary dishes. The cookbook will be an easy to use reference with a host of information including seasonal usage, canning and storage techniques, recipes, and nutritional facts. Project objectives are:
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Jesuit Document Translations
Participants:
David Motz - Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (Project Coordinator)
Dr. Leslie Roberts - Southern Indiana University (French Translator)
Dr. David Costa - Miami-Illinois Linguist (Miami Translator)
Daryl Baldwin - Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (Miami Translator)
Kathy Regan - Indiana University South Bend (Transcriber from July 2000 to April 2002)
Lisa Suter - Miami University (Transcriber 2002)
Mika Leonard - Miami University Graduate Student, Communication Department (Transcriber September 2006 to present)
Amy Bergseth - Miami University Student (Transcriber October 2006 to present)
Status: Ongoing
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The Illinois Project is a transcription and translation project covering the late 1600's French Jesuit manuscript, which we commonly refer to as the Gravier Dictionary. The information derived from this type of long-term project assists us in language development and increases our knowledge of the Miami-Illinois language. With at least two more unpublished manuscripts ahead of us, we wanted to develop a procedure for working with these documents based on our language needs. For information concerning the details of this project or a copy of the project plan, please contact the Myaamia Project office. A project as extensive and complex as this one takes many years to complete. The original missionary document contains 580 pages and there are basically three steps, which includes transcription from the original document, French translation, and Miami-Illinois translations. Each ten pages (what we call a ‘section’) of the original document produce about 50 pages of transcription and translation data. The document contains 59 (10 page) sections. |
The first step is to transcribe the material from the original manuscript to a computer file. Out of 59 sections we currently have 22 sections transcribed (50% complete). Carl Masthay’s previous work and recent publication has greatly helped this phase of the project. The next step is the French translation into English and currently we have 12 sections complete (22% complete). And finally and the most difficult is the Miami-Illinois translation which we currently have 2 sections complete (5% complete). We anticipate making our work available after the French translations are complete as the Miami-Illinois translations will take many more years to finish.