Shawnee
Shawnee Prophet, Tenskwatawa.jpg
The Shawnee Prophet, Tenskwatawa (1775–1836), ca. 1820, portrait by Charles Bird King
Total population
7,584 enrolled[1]
Regions with significant populations
United States ( Oklahoma), formerly Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and surrounding
states[2][1]
Languages
Shawnee, English
Religion
Indigenous religions, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Miami, Menominee, Cheyenne[3]
The Shawnee are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language,
Shawnee is an Algonquian language.
Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio.[2] In the 17th century, they
dispersed through Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.[4] In the early 18th
century, they mostly concentrated in eastern Pennsylvania but dispersed again later that century
across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, with a small group
joining Muscogee people in Alabama.[2] By the 19th century, the U.S. federal government
forcibly removed them under the 1830 Indian Removal Act to areas west of the Mississippi
River: which became the states of Missouri, Kansas, Texas. Finally, they were removed to
Indian Territory, which became the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century.[2]
Today, Shawnee people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes, all headquartered in
Oklahoma:
Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma
Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
Shawnee Tribe.
Etymology
Shawnee has also been written as Shaawanwaki, Ša·wano·ki, Shaawanowi lenaweeki, and
Shawano.[citation needed] Algonquian languages have words similar to the archaic shawano
(now: shaawanwa) meaning "south". However, the stem šawa- does not mean "south" in
Shawnee, but "moderate, warm (of weather)": See Charles F. Voegelin, "šawa (plus -ni, -te)
MODERATE, WARM. Cp. šawani 'it is moderating...".[5] In one Shawnee tale, "Sawage"
(šaawaki) is the deity of the south wind.[6] Jeremiah Curtin translates Sawage as 'it thaws',
referring to the warm weather of the south. In an account and a song collected by C. F.
Voegelin, šaawaki is attested as the spirit of the South, or the South Wind.[7][8]
Language
In 2002, the Shawnee language, part of the Algonquian family, was in decline but still spoken by
200 people. These included more than 100 Absentee Shawnee and 12 Shawnee Tribe
speakers. The language is written in the Latin script. It has a dictionary, and portions of the Bible
have been translated into Shawnee.[9]