Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

Original Presentation April 11, 2012 Big Muddy Speaker Series in Kansas City

“The People of the River’s Mouth – In Search of the Missouria Indians” – by Mike Dickey, Author and Site Administrator of Arrow Rock State Historic Site

Mike Dickey shared the knowledge he gained researching his recently released book called “The People of the River’s Mouth – In Search of the Missouria Indians”.

The Missouria tribe is now headquartered in Red Rock, Oklahoma, but their ancestral homeland is along the Missouri River. They called themselves “Nyut-achi”, or the “People of the River’s Mouth” (probably referring to the Grand River), but history knows them as the “Missouria” (from the Algonquin name for the tribe – meaning “people of the big canoes”).

These people were intimately tied to the Missouri River, and lived both along its banks and in a scattering of villages in mid-Missouri (especially today’s Saline County). They would follow the Grand River north to hunt for bison then return to their villages along the Big Muddy. Today’s Van Meter State Park is the location of a historic Missouria (and Oneonta before them) village.