Who Are the Omaha?

The Omaha Tribe is organized into 10 Clans.  Five of the Clans are the Sky People, and five of the Clans are the Earth People.  When the Tribe gathered, the community met in a circle, called the 'Huthaga', with the teepees of the Tribe organized in the manner shown above.

Today, the wide hallway on the second floor of the school building is called The Hall of the 10 Clans.  Daily, high school students meet there for announcements, a daily reading (to promote personal reflection), community-building activities, and the singing of the Omaha Flag Song (the national anthem of the Omaha Tribe) or the recitation of the Pledge of Allegance.



This is a view of the Hall of the 10 Clans on the second floor of the school.  This photo shows the area being used for an intertribal high school art show. In addition to being used for daily Circle Up, it has been the display area for Native Waters, career fairs, guest speakers and school homecoming and prom dances.  (Of interest to many is that the area was never in the architectual design of the building--a glassed computer/study area was to be part of the area, but was removed in a budget-cutting decision.  The result has been an area which has been used effectively for teacher inservices, gatherings and a place students can "hang" when classwork is finished.)

In the current structure of the Omaha Tribe, only seven clans are represented.  According to tribal history, a chief from each clan represented his people until one day when three chiefs did not attend a gathering.  Those three clans lost representation, and today the seven members of the Omaha Tribal Council signify the seven clans recognized as leaders (although there is no requirement of certain clans being represented or of only one representative from a clan).

Omaha Nation Public Schools refers to ten clans in order to recognize the families who are part of the clan structure. Today's school enrollment includes names from each of the 10 clans, demonstrating the rich history and the continuation of the clan structure in the culture of the Omaha Tribe.

This Page was last update: Monday, December 18, 2006 at 12:54:44 PM
This page was originally posted: 3/16/06; 7:33:19 PM.
Copyright 2008 David Friedli

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