Quapaw Nation and O-Gah-Pah Coffee host event to honor Native American Heritage Month

The Quapaw Nation and O-Gah-Pah Coffee hosted a reception to honor the start of Native American Heritage Month on Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Joplin Public Library.

The special event featured an exhibit honoring the Quapaw Nation, representing 200 years of retention of a Quapaw sovereign government, language, cultural practices and land base.

“Because we were initially the ones that existed,” Barbara Kyser-Collier, a Quapaw Tribal Elder, said when asked why she felt it was important to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. “Because our heritage has been maintained all these years, and we want it to continue to be maintained and we want people to be more aware of it.”

OF NOTE: November 15 commemorates the 200th anniversary of the treaty between the United States and Quapaw Nation in which the tribe ceded 3.5 million acres of land, signifying and representing survival, resilience and fortitude.