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These ancestral games help the Miami Tribe build relationships today for a 'shared identity'

people sit and stand around a rectangular blanket playing a game
Tana Weingartner
/
WVXU
Playing mahkisina meehkintiinki, the "moccasin game."

More than a hundred Miami University students and staff are back in Oxford after traveling to Oklahoma for the Miami Tribe's annual Winter Gathering. While there, they learned about the partnershipbetween the two Miamis, especially how it has lead to language and culture revitalization.

Joshua Sutterfield is the tribe's cultural educator coordinator. He helped teach the visitors how to play these games that had been lost over time.

"They probably only really started a heavy revitalization about 20 years ago in the late '90s," he says. "Smaller groups of families and such like that probably maintained them, but at the national level, I'm going to give it about two decades."

people stand around a table talking
Tana Weingartner
/
WVXU
Joshua Sutterfield (right, in red shirt) instructs visitors from Miami University on how to play mahkisina meehkintiinki, the moccasin game.

Two of the games are mahkisina meehkintiinki, the "moccasin game," and seenseewinki, the "bowl game."

Sutterfield describes the latter as "Myaamia Yahtzee." Players pass a bowl with marked game pieces — originally plum stones and now Kentucky coffee beans — and toss the pieces. Like counting pips on the dice in Yahtzee, players earn points for the combinations.

"Long ago, it would have been a women's game, and they would have sat around and they would have healed the community. They would have aired any issues; they would have fixed any relationships (that) needed mended," Sutterfield explains. "It would also most likely have been a gambling game as well. Today, both sexes or genders play the game."

four people sit in a circle playing a game
Tana Weingartner
/
WVXU
Playing seenseewinki, the bowl game.

The second game involves hiding colored stones under mats — historically the game would have been played using moccasins — and having opposing teams find them.

Once played for entertainment, Sutterfield says the games now serve multiple purposes.

"It's definitely a teaching tool now because we learn words like 'mihkanto' and 'kyaatoolo' — 'you find it' and 'we hide it.' It teaches mechanics, (it) teaches competition in a good way. It teaches team building because it is also a team game."

Sutterfield enjoys playing the games at non-tribal events, he says, like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but adds, playing the games during the annual Winter Gathering brings a sense of community.

"It brings a shared identity — a shared Myaamia identity — because we are actively engaging in a cultural activity that, for as long as we know, our ancestors did. We continue that line of cultural activity to build relationships and to keep relationships. It creates our Myaamia family.

WVXU's Tana Weingartner was invited to attend and report on the Myaamia Winter Gathering in Miami, Okla. She's filing a series of stories for WVXU and WMUB.

Senior Editor and reporter at WVXU with more than 20 years experience in public radio; formerly news and public affairs producer with WMUB. Would really like to meet your dog.