About Peewaalia
A Peoria Language And Cultural Education Portal — Built by the Peoria Tribe, for Our People
Introduction — Who We Are
We are the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma — a living, sovereign people whose government is seated on our Peoria Reservation in Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Our community today is made up of citizens whose roots reach back through four distinct and sovereign Tribes: the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea. In 1854, our four Tribes formally united as the Confederated Peoria, and under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936, we became formally known as the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Our four Tribes came from different homelands and carried their own sovereign histories — and we honor every one of those histories. But today, we walk together as one Tribe. We share a common ancestry rooted in the Illinois Country, a common language, and a common future as Peoria citizens.
Peewaalia.com is our Peoria Language and Cultural Education (PLACE) Portal — a Peoria Tribe sovereign digital space built by our community, for our Peoria community. This portal and its companion site, Leepwaaminta.peewaalia.com, exist because our language and culture belong to us. The work of carrying them forward belongs to all of us — every citizen, every family, every generation.
Our People and Our Homelands
The homelands our four Tribes and our related Illinois relatives carry in their history stretch across the river valleys, prairies, and woodlands of the mid-continent — a vast region of rivers, forests, and rich bottomlands threaded together by the Illinois, Wabash, Mississippi, and Kaskaskia rivers and all the smaller waters that connect them. These lands sustained our Tribes for countless generations, and our relatives planted, harvested, hunted, traded, raised families, and built their homes and villages along these waters and across these lands.
We are the Illinois people, Inohkaki — a name that is ours, in our language. The forms that appear in historical records — ‘Illini,’ ‘Illiniwek,’ ‘Illinois’ — are French renderings filtered through French ears and French ways of writing. The true etymology of Inohkaki remains unknown, but the identity it carries is not: we are the Illinois people, and we have always known who we are. That identity is older than any map any European or American government ever drew.
Our home today is here: our Peoria Reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, in Ottawa County. This homeland was built and held by those who came before us — relatives who survived removal, termination, and every effort to scatter our community. It has real roots now, deep ones, and it is where we are building our Peoria future.
We hold all of these homelands together in our hearts and in our language. We call our older territories in the Illinois and Great Lakes region Inohkinki — Illinois homelands, the Place of the Illinois — and we call our Peoria Reservation in Oklahoma Peewaalionki — the Place of the Peoria. Because we are one Peoria Tribe, we carry both names for both places. The places where our Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Illinois Confederation relatives lived along the Illinois River country, and the Wabash River lands our Piankeshaw and Wea relatives called home, are all part of our shared homeland story — Peoria homelands and Illinois homelands, all of it ours. Our Reservation here in Oklahoma is equally Inohkinki and Peewaalionki — Illinois homeland and Peoria homeland — because we are one people, and our story is one story.
The Illinois Confederation and Those Who Came Before Us
We filled the heartland of North America for centuries — long before any European or American set foot here. We are the Inohka, the Illinois Confederation, and our roots, our trade networks, our governance, and our way of life stretched across the mid-continent in every direction. For centuries we traded widely, cultivated crops, carried our own governance, our own laws, and our own ways of making decisions together, and maintained kinship ties across a vast territory. We recognize twelve Tribes as members of our Confederation:
Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, Tamaroa, Michigamea, Moingwena, Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara.
Our language — Inohkaataweenki — is a Central Algonquian language, part of one of the largest language families in North America.
Our Confederation faced what few peoples survive — and we survived it. Epidemic disease came first and came hard. Then came the years of war when Iroquois nations pushed into our lands. Then came French, British, and American pressure from every direction. By the time of the American Revolution, our Illinois Tribes had been reduced to a fraction of our former strength. But we did not disappear. The Peoria and Kaskaskia became the two principal surviving Illinois Confederation Tribes, as the remaining Tribes consolidated with them. We adapted. We held together. We brought the remaining Tribes of the Confederation forward under shared names. That tradition of coming together — of distinct Tribes choosing to move forward as one — is still who we are today.
The Four Tribes: Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea
The Kaskaskia — Kaahkaahkiaki, katydids — were one of our oldest and most prominent Illinois Confederation Tribes, and one of the two principal Tribes who carried our Confederation through the hardest centuries. Our Kaskaskia relatives navigated close contact with French missionaries and traders — contact that shaped much of the written record that exists about our Confederation era. Our Kaskaskia relatives were among the first to formally negotiate with the United States government, ceding our remaining Illinois homelands through the Treaty with the Kaskaskia on August 13, 1803 (7 Stat. 78). When our Kaskaskia relatives signed that treaty, they spoke not only for themselves but also for the remaining Michigamia, Cahokia, and Tamaroa Tribes who had consolidated with them.
The Peoria — Peewaaliaki — stood alongside the Kaskaskia as one of the two principal surviving Illinois Confederation Tribes. Peewaaliaki — a name we carry in our own language. Forms that appear in outside records have been rendered and reinterpreted in ways we know do not reflect our language or our meaning. The true etymology of Peewaaliaki remains something our community continues to work toward recovering — but the identity it carries is not in question. We are Peewaaliaki — the Peoria people. Our Tribe is Peewaalia, and one person among us is Peewaalia. Throughout this site you will see these words — they are our own language speaking our own identity. The grandparents of our grandparents’ grandparents — and all our Peoria relatives going back further than any written record — called the Illinois River valley home. After severe losses from disease and war, we consolidated with other remnant Illinois Tribes and we were removed — first to Missouri, then to Kansas, and finally, by treaty, to Oklahoma.
The Piankeshaw — Peeyankihšiaki, torn ears people — carried our own identity, our own territory, and our own treaty history as a sovereign Tribe of the Wabash River region in present-day Indiana and Illinois. We ceded our Indiana lands in 1805 and later were removed to Kansas, where the Treaty of October 29, 1832 (7 Stat. 410) placed us alongside our Peoria and Kaskaskia relatives — bringing all of us together as neighbors for the first time and setting the stage for confederation.
The Wea — Waayaahtanooki, whirlpool people — held our own lands along the Wabash River in present-day Indiana, with a major community at Ouiatenon near present-day Lafayette. We carried our own history, our own lands, and our own treaty record as a sovereign Tribe. After ceding our lands through treaties in 1818 and 1820, we were removed to Missouri, then to Kansas, where we reunited with our Piankeshaw, Peoria, and Kaskaskia relatives. Our Wea descendants stand with us today as Peoria citizens.
Treaties, Removal, and Survival
The history of our four Tribes is, in part, a history of treaties — legal agreements that reshaped land, movement, and community in ways that still define where we are today. To understand that history honestly means seeing both what was taken and what survived. Our leaders signed these treaties in circumstances that left little room for choice, trying to protect our lives and find a path forward for our communities. We still live with those decisions, and we honor the strength it took to make them and to survive what followed. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all treaties and acts affecting our four Tribes — Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea.
1803 — Treaty with the Kaskaskia (August 13, 1803; 7 Stat. 78)
Our Kaskaskia relatives ceded our remaining Illinois homelands to the United States, receiving promises of protection and annuity payments. The Peoria were not parties to this treaty — our separate land rights were not addressed until 1818.
1818 — Treaty of Edwardsville (September 25, 1818; 7 Stat. 181)
The Peoria, Kaskaskia, Mitchigamia, Cahokia, and Tamarois came together to cede our remaining homelands in the Illinois Country in exchange for a small reserve in Missouri Territory. This was the first treaty we, the Peoria people, signed directly with the United States, and it ended our formal land tenure in the place we had always called home.
1832 — Kansas Treaties (October 27–29, 1832)
By the 1830s, we were already being pushed west. Our Kaskaskia and Peoria relatives (7 Stat. 403) received 150 sections in Kansas, and our Wea and Piankeshaw relatives (7 Stat. 410) received 250 adjacent sections. For the first time, all four Tribes held neighboring lands — communities who would become one Tribe within a generation.
1854 — Treaty of Confederation (May 30, 1854; 10 Stat. 1082)
Growing pressure from settlers in Kansas pushed our four Tribes to stand together to protect what remained of our lands. By the Treaty of May 30, 1854, the United States recognized our union as the Confederated Peoria — Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea acting as one. Four distinct sovereign Tribes became one recognized nation in U.S. law, but for us our union was relatives choosing to stand together as one Peewaalia — the Peoria Tribe.
1867 — Omnibus Treaty (February 23, 1867; 15 Stat. 513)
Under the Omnibus Treaty of February 23, 1867, we agreed to be removed again — this time to Indian Territory. Through that treaty, we purchased approximately 72,000 acres from the Quapaw and Seneca Nations in what is now Ottawa County, Oklahoma, and began building the homeland we now call Peewaalionki — the Place of the Peoria.
1887–1915 — Allotment and Land Loss (General Allotment Act; 24 Stat. 388)
Under the General Allotment Act, our approximately 72,000‑acre Peoria reservation in Indian Territory was divided into individual allotments. By 1915, we held no tribal lands — a homeland we had purchased with treaty funds was gone, broken into pieces and transferred out of Peoria hands.
1939 — Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act Constitution
Under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 (49 Stat. 1967), we ratified a new constitution in 1939 and became formally known as the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, rebuilding our governance even without a land base. Our government continued, even when federal policy had stripped away nearly everything else.
1956 — Western Oklahoma Termination Act (August 2, 1956; effective August 2, 1959; 70 Stat. 937)
The Western Oklahoma Termination Act ended the federal trust relationship with our Tribe. Federal recognition, services, and protections were stripped away. The Act took effect on August 2, 1959, and we remained without federal recognition for nearly twenty years. Even so, we never stopped being Peoria. Our families kept gathering, kept remembering, and kept holding on to our name, our language, our culture, our identity as Peoria people.
1978 — Restoration of Federal Recognition
On May 15, 1978, President Carter signed Public Law 95‑281 (92 Stat. 246), restoring full federal recognition to the Peoria Tribe. All rights lost under termination were reinstated. Federal recognition finally caught up with what was always true: we were here the whole time.
Through every removal, every allotment, every policy of dispossession, our people remained. Our community endured. Our families held together. Our language was still spoken and our culture continued in our homes. The Peoria Tribe survived because we, our people, chose, over and over again, to stay together.
Our Language: Peewaaliaataweenki
Our language is called Peewaaliaataweenki — the Peoria language, spoken by the Peewaaliaki, the Peoria people. It belongs to the Central Algonquian branch of the Algonquian language family, one of the largest language families in North America. This is the language at the heart of Peewaalia.com and of our Peoria language instruction. Peewaaliaataweenki and Inohkaataweenki — the Illinois language — are used together to refer to the Illinois languages and dialects shared among our Tribes, past and present, each Tribe carrying its own dialect.
Inohkaataweenki (Peewaaliaataweenki) has been documented for nearly three hundred years, beginning with Jesuit missionaries and French traders who recorded the Illinois language from the late 1600s through the colonial era. Like many Indigenous languages, Peewaaliaataweenki was pushed hard by assimilation policies — through forced removal, the suppression of Native languages in schools, and broader disruptions forced on our community. The language contracted severely over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Today, the Peoria Tribe’s Cultural Preservation Department and Peoria Language Program are actively working to reverse that loss — through structured language classes, written materials, digital learning resources, and the daily work of reclaiming and revitalizing Peoria language and culture in our lives. Peoria language and Peoria culture are inseparably intertwined, and both are protected together as part of the living heritage of our Tribe.
This is a living language. It is being reclaimed. All content on Peewaalia.com is written in modern Peoria writing, making the language learnable, teachable, and usable for generations to come.
Culture, Continuity, and Daily Life
Peoria culture has never stopped. Through removal, termination, allotment, and every other disruption of the past three centuries, our community continued — families raising children, elders carrying knowledge, and our people keeping connection to one another and to the practices that define who we are.
Women in our Illinois Tribes painted hide robes — minohsayaki — reflecting their important roles in our cultural traditions. Some of these minohsayaki traveled with Chief Šikaakwa in 1725 to the court of King Louis XV at the Palace of Versailles as part of formal French–Native diplomatic exchanges. Today, they sit in a museum in Paris as enduring evidence of Peoria artistic and diplomatic presence on the world stage.
Today, our cultural and community life is centered in Peewaalionki — the Peoria Reservation — in northeastern Oklahoma. We hold community gatherings that bring our citizens together. Our cultural practices and traditions continue — some publicly visible, others belonging to our community and not for outside description. Both are real. Both matter. Our practices and traditions are how we keep our history and culture alive, and how we live as Peoria citizens in our daily lives today.
About Peewaalia.com — The Main Portal
Peewaalia.com is our Peoria language and cultural education portal. It is a place for learning Peewaaliaataweenki and engaging with the teachings and knowledge that live within our culture.
When building language learning tools, careful thought is given to how it feels to be a new learner: to open a page and not know where to start, to feel overwhelmed before you have even tried. The overriding goal is to make Peewaaliaataweenki welcoming, accessible, and possible for every learner, wherever they are starting.
This site sits alongside the Peoria Tribe’s official language class offerings and other learning tools, not replacing them but extending them. Peewaalia.com gives our citizens and their families additional ways to engage with our language and culture in their own time, at their own pace, from wherever they are. Whether a learner lives on our Reservation or far from Peewaalionki, Peewaalia.com gives them a way to connect with and learn our language and culture.
Built by our community, for our Peoria community.
Leepwaaminta.peewaalia.com — The Peewaalia Course Site
Leepwaaminta means “student” — a Peewaalia student — and it names exactly who this site is for.
Leepwaaminta.peewaalia.com is a dedicated part of the Peewaalia portal focused on Peewaalia courses, classrooms, and workshops for learning pronunciation, listening, and speaking in Peewaaliaataweenki. These skills grow strongest in a community setting with other Peoria people and family members, and Leepwaaminta is built to support that kind of learning together. It is a place to gain experience and confidence in speaking Peewaaliaataweenki with others.
Lessons are tailored for multigenerational classes and immersive learning, shaped by the feedback and needs of students. Speaking practice and resources help learners move from the written language to actually speaking Peewaaliaataweenki with others.
Leepwaaminta.peewaalia.com is open to learners at all levels, including those who are entirely new to Peewaaliaataweenki.
Cultural Preservation Department and Peoria Language Program
The Peoria Tribe’s Cultural Preservation Department and Peoria Language Program are at the heart of our work in protecting, teaching, and carrying forward Peoria history, language, culture, heritage, and traditions. The Language Program offers structured Peoria language courses available both in-person and online.
Peewaalia.com is one part of this work. It is not a replacement for in-person learning or community gatherings — it is a tool, a resource, and an invitation to Peoria citizens and their families. The portal exists alongside language classes, community events, and the personal relationships through which language and culture live, grow, and thrive daily.
This is not a completed archive. It is a living, growing body of work — added to and refined, rooted in the Peoria citizen community it serves. We are building toward a future where Peewaaliaataweenki and our Peoria culture are heard, spoken, and lived daily — growing in every generation — is what this work is for.
Purpose, Vision, and Mission
Purpose
Peewaalia.com exists to make the Peoria language and culture accessible, welcoming, and alive for Peoria citizens and their families. It is a tool built for our people — putting our language and culture in the hands of all generations where it belongs. This portal serves those who are coming to the language for the first time and those who are returning to it, those who are nearby and those who are far from Peewaalionki, those who are learning on their own and those who are learning alongside family.
Vision
We look ahead to a future where Peoria culture and language are used, spoken, and heard again — in homes, at community gatherings, in the voices of children growing up who know their language and culture as a natural part of daily life. We envision a Peoria community where language and cultural knowledge are held not only by specialists or in documents, but lived and spoken across generations. We honor our four Tribes — Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea — each in their own history, and together as one Peoria Nation. The work being done today on Peewaalia.com and in Peoria language classrooms and cultural workshops is part of that path — and every learner, every word spoken, every lesson completed is part of making that future real.
Mission Statement
Peewaalia.com is built for Peoria citizens first. Every lesson, every word, every resource here exists to serve our Peoria community — this is the work and mission of the Peoria Tribe’s Cultural Preservation Department.
The Peewaalia.com portal is committed to:
- Serving Peoria citizens first — our citizens and future generations are the primary audience for everything this department does and everything built here
- Reclaiming and restoring Peewaaliaataweenki and our Peoria culture as living, daily parts of our lives — drawing on nearly three centuries of documentation, Peoria community knowledge, and the dedication of Peoria citizens
- Serving Peoria sovereignty by placing language and cultural education in the hands of the Peoria people themselves — made by us, for us, on our terms
- Honoring the shared history of the people of our four confederated Tribes — Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea — while respecting each nation’s distinct historical identity and sovereignty carried through their own histories
- Making language and culture welcoming and accessible, not intimidating: building resources that invite every learner in, wherever they are starting
- Carrying the language and culture forward together, recognizing that revitalization is the shared responsibility of all Peoria citizens — not the work of one person, one office, or one website alone
- Serving both present and future generations — preserving and teaching today so that the children and grandchildren of Peoria citizens inherit a language and culture that are alive
Our four Tribes began as distinct sovereign Tribes, but today we walk together as one Peoria Tribe. This work belongs to all of us.
Looking Ahead
Peewaalia.com is a work in progress — and that is a good thing. A living language and culture need living resources, and this portal will grow as the language and culture work grows. New themed lesson pages, new cultural lessons, new listening and speaking resources, and deeper connections between the written language and community life are all part of where this work is headed.
The Peoria language and cultural revitalization effort is not close to finished. There is much more to learn, more to document, and more to teach. What matters most right now is that the work is happening — that our language and culture are being spoken, practiced, and passed on, that new learners are finding their way in, and that the Peoria citizen community is building something that will outlast any single person’s contribution.
Every Peoria citizen, every learner, every family member who picks up a word or a cultural practice and passes it on — you are part of this work. Come learn with us. The language and culture are here. Both are yours.
Peewaalia.com — Built by the Peoria Tribe, for our people.