Tribal, Sovereign Nation of the Kaw (Kanza)

SOVEREIGN NATION OF THE KAW (KANZA) -  The Kaw Nation Seal symbolizes the relationship between the Southwind and the Kaw (Kanza) people. The Kaw’s lived long with the Southwind and the Southwind with them.  The south wind travels far and fast and knows the movements of the buffalo and other foragers. The wind conducts reconnaissance on enemies and carries messages to and from allies. The wind knows where nuts, fruits, and grains grow, and the hiding place of squirrel, rabbit, and turkey.  The tribe was of the Siouan linguistic stock; and Kansa, or Kansas, is a Siouan word which means Wind People or People of the Southwind.

Formerly known as the Kanza (or Kansa) people, the Kaws are a federally recognized Indian tribe officially known as the Kaw Nation.  In 2016 there were 3,463 enrolled members who, under a legal agreement with the United States Department of Interior, conduct tribal business from their tribal headquarters at Kaw City in northern Oklahoma.

Historians and ethno historians have determined that the Kaw, Osage, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw — technically known as the Dhegiha-Siouan division of the Hopewell cultures of the lower Ohio Valley — lived together as one people in the lower Ohio valley prior to the white invasion of North American in the late 15th century.

Sometime prior to about 1750, the search for better sources of game and pressure from the more powerful Algonquians to the east prompted a westward migration to the mouth of the Ohio River.  The Quapaws continued down the Mississippi River and took the name “downstream people” while the Kaw, Osage, Ponca, and Omaha — the “upstream people” — moved to the mouth of the Missouri near present-day St. Louis, up the Missouri to the mouth of the Osage River, where another division took place.  The Ponca and Omaha moved northwest to present-day eastern Nebraska, the Osage occupied the Ozark country to the southwest, and the Kaws assumed control of the region in and around present-day Kansas City as well as the Kansas River Valley to the west.