About Us

The Umonhon tribe was historically split into two divisions. The Earth
People and the Sky People. The organization of the tribe was arranged
to mirror the union of the cosmos to the Earth. The Earth People
included the clans in charge of the physical needs of the people. The
Sky people were responsible for the spiritual well-being of the tribe. The
Blackbird Family belonged to the Earthmaker Clan, a member of the sky
people division of the Umonhon Nation.

As Recorded in the book The Omaha Tribe by Alice Fletcher and Francis
LaFlesche

The significance of this name (mo"thi"ka, "earth" gaxe, to make") is
somewhat obscure, but the rites committed to this gens seem to have
been connected with the rock or stone and with the gray wolf. What these
rites were is not now known. They have long since fallen into disuse and
become lost. In myths that deal with the creation of the earth, with the
contention of man against strange monsters that controlled the animals,
with the interdependence of various forms of life, and with the persistent
mystery of death we find the idea of permanence, of length of days, of
wisdom acquired by age, to be symbolized by the rock or stone while
man's restlessness, his questionings of fate, his destructiveness, are
frequently symbolized by the wolf. These two, the rock or stone and the
gray wolf, are in myths represented as brothers and in the ancient rites
belonging to this gens they were symbolically united, in some way now
unknown, a fact that makes it not unlikely that the name of the gens,
"earth makers," preserves the purpose of the rites once committed to
these people rites that not only dramatized the myth of Creation, but were
believed to insure the continuance of that which had been created.