Almost 200 years after being driven from their native homeland in Iowa, descendants of the Ioway tribe congregated last weekend at Iowa State’s Living History Farms to celebrate their own living history.

The Living History Farms hosted a small reenactment of how life was for the Ioway Indians. The Ioway American Indians, along with the Missouria, Otoe and Winnebago American Indians, originally possessed the territory now called Iowa, as well as southern Minnesota and northern Missouri. By the 1700s, the American Indian nation had split up and members of the Otoe tribe moved to Nebraska, followed by the Missouria tribe a few decades later, according to the Ioway Cultural Institute Web site.

This event, organized and planned by Melinda Carriker, site supervisor of the 1700 Ioway Farm, is the first of its kind. Her goal is that it will become an annual event for Living History Farms.

Over the past six years, Carriker has met and kept in touch with members of the Ioway tribe and, for the past year, has been putting together this occasion to commemorate Ioway Heritage Month. Carriker said he hopes this weekend will create a great deal of learning and appreciation among visitors and “open a lot of people’s eyes.”

“[I hope that it will] allow people of Iowa to realize where they got their names from, and members will want to learn the history,” Carriker said.

According to the Web site, many of these tribes were forced to move from their homeland because of the constant fighting that had ensued after settlers claimed the land for themselves for its agricultural potential. Their plan was to establish a legal relationship with the tribes, which placed the tribes at a disadvantage because they were unaware of the settlers’ method of agreement. Over time, the settlers set up boundaries between the tribes and began occupying the best fertile areas. As a result, conflicts over land began, not only between the settlers and the tribes, but among tribes themselves, causing many deaths.

Jimm Goodtracks, a linguist who studies the Ioway language, described the process as “troops coming into your house, telling you to pack everything and get out.”

“Except in this case, you know you are not coming back,” he said.

Military power was established in these areas and the remaining tribes of Ioway and members of other tribes were evicted and relocated to Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Those who attended the event had the chance to experience how the people lived during their time. There was a table set up that presented hand-woven baskets as well as blankets and simple artifacts, such as a buffalo horn, which have been collected over the years.

Carriker felt this would be good for everyone involved.

“This event is going to create a lot of learning,” Carriker said.

Goodtracks described the Ioway tribe culture as “incredible,” and holds no ill feelings toward the people of Iowa today. He feels one of the most important things to focus on right now is keeping the culture and language of the Ioway tribe alive.

“Language is a view to the world,” Goodtracks said.

Goodtracks grew up in Pawnee, Okla., and remembers as a child some of the cultural occasions his family celebrated together. After he graduated from college, he began to ask his elders about the Ioway language. Through the knowledge they provided him with, he composed a dictionary of the language. He speaks the language to his son and grandson.

“This is where we came from. Language and culture is what makes a person something – it’s the glue that holds a person together,” Goodtracks said.