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Omaha

The Omaha are an American Indian tribe. Their reservation is located in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, with a total land area of just over 307 square miles. At one time, the tribe's population had declined to only 300 because of sickness and warfare with other tribes. The contemporary tribe's population is approximately 6,000. Though the Omaha faced near cultural annihilation in the late 1800s, they have enjoyed a cultural renaissance since the late 1980s.

Religion and Culture

Central to Omaha religious and cultural practices is a sacred pole made of cottonwood. It is known as Umohoti, or “the Real Omaha.” The pole is considered to be a person and is believed to date back to a time before the migration of the Missouri. Umohoti is not the only sacred item crucial to the Omaha. The Cedar Pole and Sacred Shell are the oldest documented central artifacts of the Omaha. Together, they represent the regenerative properties of the universe. These are but a few of the sacred items of the Omaha, and surely many more were lost over the various migrations and hardships of the Omaha.

The pre-colonization Omaha had an intricately developed social structure that was tied to the concept of Earth being tied to sky. This relationship between Earth and sky was viewed as critical to perpetuating all living things, and this was reflected in the tribe's social structure. Sky People were responsible for the spiritual needs of the tribe, while Earth People were responsible for physical welfare. Each half-tribe was divided into five clans, for a total of 10 clans that made up the Omaha. Clans were patrilineal, and each clan had a hereditary male chief. This hereditary chief structure remained at the time of treaty negotiations with the U.S. government in the mid-1800s but had dissolved by the end of the 1800s.

Unlike other nations, the establishment of a new Omaha settlement did not typically signify expansion but the movement of people from a no-longer-habitable location. Prior to European colonization, the Omaha were a large woodland tribe that lived near the Ohio and Wabash Rivers. By 1700, the tribe had moved to the Big Sioux River area and established a village of approximately 400 dwellings and a population of about 4,000 people. In 1734, the Omaha established their first village west of the Missouri River. In 1775, the tribe founded the village of Ton-wa-tonga near Homer, Nebraska.

Decline and Near-Assimilation of the Omaha

Around 1800, smallpox swept the tribe and killed about one-third of its population. This tragedy started a century that would prove nearly fatal to the Omaha Nation. In 1815, the Omaha made their first treaty with the United States. The treaty was one of “friendship and peace,” and no land was relinquished by the tribe.

The relationship established with the United States would nearly destroy the tribe through a cascade of increasingly unfair treaties. As part of the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1831, the Omaha ceded their lands in Iowa east of the Missouri River, with the understanding that they would maintain hunting rights. In an 1836 treaty, the federal government took remaining hunting lands in northwestern Missouri. In the 1840s, the Omaha suffered dangerous threats to their already diminished territory through continued Sioux aggression and settler incursion.

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