About Quapaw Symbols
Quapaw sybols and society are based around hunting, agriculture and farming. They grew crops, tended fields and added to their food supplies by hunting or fishing. Mothers wore cradleboards to carry their infants on their backs if they were traveling, working or gathering. If a journey required carrying their belongings over a large distance, they used dogs to pull travois. When horses were introduced by European settlers, the Quapaw were quick to integrate them with their society.
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Features
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Traditionally, the Quapaw lived in villages with small, square type houses. They used river cane and plaster to thatch their roofs. The women dressed in deerskin dresses while the men wore leather leggings and breechcloths. In the winter time, they would add a buffalo-hide robe to keep warm. Quapaw traditional dress reflects many of the stereotypes of Indian clothing, including decorations with tribal designs, beadwork and porcupine quills. Fringe on a man's buckskin shirt or a woman's doeskin dress was also popular.
While only men could become tribal leaders, both men and women served as storytellers, medicine workers and artists. The tribe is well known for their pipe carving, pottery and basket weaving. Storytelling is vital to the Quapaw tribe; their culture shares many fairy tales and traditional tales such as those told by other Plains tribes, including the Omaha.
Significance
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Due to the sophistication of their society, a man's shirt symbolized his status as a warrior or not. The Quapaw, like other plains tribes, espoused complicated and elaborate rules. To earn a war shirt meant the man would need to uphold a strict code of conduct or risk the tribe taking his war shirt away. He earned his war shirt through a series of deeds such as counting coup (touching his enemy in battle) or capturing horses from an enemy territory. The war shirts would record their battles, their acts of bravery and their exploits. From the modern perspective, the war shirts were works of art that provided not only a detailed personal history of a warrior, but tribal history as well. The Quapaw males typically shaved their heads, leaving only a long lock of hair free in the back. The women of the tribe let their hair grow long and wore it hanging free or braided. The tribe favored tattoos and face painting for special occasions ranging from religious ceremonies to war.
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History
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The Quapaw (quaw-paw) Indian tribe of Oklahoma are also known as the Arkansas Indians, from which the state of Arkansas took its name. While the modern day Quapaw live on a reservation in Oklahoma, they originally lived in the Ohio Valley before spreading out to Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas. The tribe's migration allowed for villages along the eastern and western sides of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Quapaw actually means "downstream people," which differentiated them from other Indian tribes that lived upstream. The name Arkansas means "Southern" and was reflected in the name of one of their towns: Acansa. The tribe moved to Oklahoma in the 1800s when many tribes were forced to relocate for white settlers.
Types
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The buffalo are a central symbol in Quapaw culture. From the buffalo, the tribe took food, buffalo robes and tools from their horns. The eagle is another critical symbol in their mythology, for the eagle flies high and carries their messages to the gods. The Quapaw flag remains one of the more enduring symbols of the modern Quapaw tribe, with a buffalo on the shield, eagle feathers fanning out in four directions and a red and blue background (red and blue represents the Native American Church).
Function
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The Quapaw use of mixed symbols, colors, pictograms and animals reflects the Quapaw beliefs that favored all of nature. They believed in one powerful spiritual entity, but felt that all of nature must be honored from the plants they grew and animals they killed. Their religious nature is similar to that of Western monotheistic beliefs with their spiritual leaders providing guidance and wisdom.
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