Shawnee Indians

The Shawnee Indians is the name for a tribe of Native Americans who were known to have lived in what would become Ohio. They had not always lived there, however; their history has become muddled over time but it is believed that the Iroquois Wars during the 1640's lead to a great migration that included the Shawnee moving into new lands. The Shawnee were noted for their habit of traveling great distances and visiting other tribes, making their language one of the most well known amongst Native Americans of those times.

The Shawnee used storytelling as a primary method of passing down their history and myths from one generation to the next. Both men and women would share in these duties, though they split up the others: men would hunt and go to war or on the defense when necessary, while the women would focus on caring for children and cooking ample food. Shawnee women would traditionally wear skirts over leggings while the men wore leggings and clouts made of breech cloth. Both would wear moccasins, as well as ponchos, depending on the weather. Their homes were called wigwams, or wikkums in the Shawnee tongue, which were made from cattails, bark, thick grass, saplings, and other natural materials to form dome-like shelters.

The Shawnee were never actually given their own reservation land, but were given a trust land, which means that the United States federal government still owns the land but is holding it "in trust," or for the benefit of, the inhabitants. The Shawnee trust lands happen to be in Oklahoma. The pre-contact population of the Shawnee is estimated at approximately 10,000 though it has grown to around 14,000 in modern times.