Kickapoo

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Northeast

• LANGUAGE GROUP: Algonquian
• PRIMARY LOCATION: Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico
• POPULATION SIZE: 4,742 in the United States (2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates American Indian and Alaska Native Detailed Tables: Kickapoo Tribal Grouping Alone); estimated 400–500 in Mexico

Kickapoo comes from the Indigenous American word Kiwegapaw, meaning "He stands about," or "He moves about, standing now here, now there."

The Kickapoo lived originally in eastern Michigan with the Sauk and Fox, with whom they were most closely related culturally, ethnically, and linguistically, out of the twenty-some Algonquian groups living in this geographic area. The Kickapoo first appear in historical accounts in the late 1660s, at which time their population was about 3,000.

The Kickapoo lived in fixed villages during the spring and summer when their economy was primarily agricultural. They grew crops of corn, beans, and squash and gathered roots and berries. During the autumn and winter, they were nomadic, hunting animals, especially buffalo, across the Mississippi River. The Kickapoo lived in oval-shaped houses with frameworks made from green saplings and covered with bark or cattail mats. The houses were built with a smoke hole in the roof, and the door always faced east. The Kickapoo's principal crafts were woodworking and pottery. They were known for their wood cradleboards, ladles, and bowls.

The Kickapoo were organized into clans, or gens. Marriage was always outside one’s gen, and children belonged to the gen of their father. The Kickapoo developed a rich mythology, centering on their belief in a cosmic substance that pervaded nature and was given special reverence. Their supreme being was Kicihiata, who lived in the sky and created earth and everything on it. Other spirits existed in earthly objects, as well as throughout the universe. Dogs were given particular significance and were sacrificed to the spirits. Their cultural hero was Wisaka, and their great cosmic myth focused on the death of Wisaka’s younger brother. To him were credited all of life’s good things and the hope of life in the spirit world after death, which was presided over by the younger brother. The dead were buried in village graveyards with their feet pointed west toward the land of the dead. Priests conducted the religious life of the Kickapoo. The most important ceremony and feast was a week-long event in spring that centered on opening and restoring sacred bundles.

Although originating in eastern Michigan, the Kickapoo had been driven by the Iroquois and Sioux west into Wisconsin by the mid-1600s, where they had their first contacts with White settlers: the French. Unlike many other Indigenous groups in the Algonquian language family, the Kickapoo were extremely conservative and independent in their attitudes toward the French, and later toward the British and Americans. Their history is one of resistance to any attempts by White settlers to acculturate them politically, economically, or religiously.

After being driven out of their Indigenous home by the Iroquois and Sioux, the Kickapoo formed a powerful confederacy with the Fox and Mascouten and waged effective warfare against the French, Iroquois, and Sioux. Around 1716, the Kickapoo turned on the Illinois Confederacy to their south, and by 1765, they occupied Illinois lands. Through the late 1700s and early 1800s, their history was characterized by a series of shifting alliances with the French, British, Spanish, Americans, and other Indigenous Americans.

The inexorable European American movement westward resulted in government pressure on the Kickapoo to leave their lands and move farther west, to Kansas and Missouri, which they did by 1834. Over the next thirty years, difficulties with squatters and questionable appropriation of their land by government treaties resulted in a small band of disaffected Kickapoo migrating to Mexico in 1838, where they were joined by another band in 1863, becoming known as the Mexican Kickapoo. Because of their depredations against Texans in cross-border raids, however, the U.S. government attempted to persuade these Kickapoo through warfare and negotiation to return to the United States. A number did, settling in Kansas and Oklahoma. The Kickapoo in Missouri eventually settled in Kansas. In contemporary times, the Kickapoo reside on reservations in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Mexico. In the twenty-first century, four bands of Kickapoo continued to exist: the Kickapoo Tribe of Indians of the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas, the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas were the three federally-recognized Indigenous American nations, and the Mexican Kickapoo were the fourth active band.

The Kickapoo gave up warfare and became successful farmers. All along, however, the chiefs and headmen continued to work hard to resist the cultural, social, and religious influences of the White culture. The pride and spirit of being a Kickapoo was instilled in members. A course of conciliation with non-Indigenous people only when it was necessary to do so in order to survive was adopted. The Kickapoo have been remarkably successful in adhering to their old ways. As a result, the Kickapoo have retained their proud and fierce independence. Among contemporary Indigenous American, the Kickapoo culture has perhaps most fully retained their traditions in a pure form.

Bibliography

Confer, Clarissa W., et al. Transnational Indians in the North American West. Texas A&M University Press, 2015.

“History of the Mexican Kickapoo.” Milwaukee Public Museum, www.mpm.edu/research-collections/anthropology/online-collections-research/mexican-kickapoo/history. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

“Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas.” Southern Plains Tribal Health Board, spthb.org/about-us/who-we-serve/kickapoo-tribe-of-kansas. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Nunley, M. Christopher. "Kickapoo Indians." Texas State Historical Association, 11 Nov. 2020, www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/kickapoo-indians. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Treuer, Anton. Atlas of Indian Nations. National Geographic, 2013.

“2021: ACS 5-Year Estimates American Indian and Alaska Native Detailed Tables: Kickapoo Tribal Grouping Alone.” US Census Bureau, data.census.gov/table?q=kickapoo. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

"Welcome to the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas." Kansas Kickapoo Tribe, www.ktik-nsn.gov. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.