OKLA HOMMA Online
About this Online Exhibition
This website is an adaptation of the OKLA HOMMA exhibition at First Americans Museum, located in Oklahoma City, OK. FAM speaks to the collective arts, histories, and cultures of the 39 tribal nations in Oklahoma.
- If you live in Oklahoma, you will learn more about the history of the land you live on.
- Even if you do not reside in Oklahoma, you will encounter vital stories about our shared American history. You will also learn about the Indigenous peoples whose homelands encompass half of the United States, as well as portions of Canada.
The modules below include readings, media, and activities. Your teacher or instructor will give you guidance on which parts of the online exhibition experience to complete.
This Has Always Been Indian Country
First Americans Museum (FAM) honors the ancestors who stewarded the land now called Oklahoma for over 15 centuries.
We honor the Indigenous people who inhabited these lands before the United States was established. We honor the Wichita whose historic villages were located in the same river shed as the museum’s site. We honor the Caddo who built ceremonial mounds nearby. We also honor those tribes who have a historic relationship to this region, including the Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage, Quapaw, and Tonkawa. We acknowledge the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole who were once assigned the land upon which FAM resides through treaties with the United States.
Many of our people are not in Oklahoma by choice. During the 19th century, the U.S. Federal Government forcibly relocated 67 tribes into this place. After nearly 200 years, our histories and cultural lifeways are now interwoven into this landscape.
Today, 39 distinct tribal nations reside in Oklahoma. We are here from distant homelands, representing cultures from the Pacific to the Atlantic and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. We are as diverse culturally and linguistically as the nations on the European continent.
The Choctaw people call this land Okla Homma, which means “red people.” Oklahoma is the place we now call home.
