Notable American Indians

                  Kiilhsoohkwa

[Kilsoquah, "Sun Woman," "The Setting Sun," "The Sun;" Angelique Revarre]

                   Miami

           b. 1810?-d. 1915

"Marvelous are the changes I have seen; great are the improvements of the years, I have noted. My people are gone; those I knew are dead, but the changes about me have been too great and too marvelous to be of the hand of man alone. I see in the progress of things about me, the hand of the Great Maker himself, for man alone could never accomplish so much, only the maker of the bronze man and the white man could give us the old canal, then the railroad, then the interurban and now the automobile, Yes, the Great Spirit of my forefathers has wrought and wrought well."

Kiilhsoohkwa , from her speech given during her 100th birthday celebration, Roanoke, Indiana, 1910; interpreted by her son, Wahpimongwah [Little White Loon], or Anthony Revarre.

"My father said our people had occupied this country for ages, and Eel River and the Maumee and its tributaries were the heart of our possessions. The Potawatomi and some other came among us, but the country was ours."

Kiihsoohkwa, from an interview with the Columbia City Post, date 1906.

     Kiilhsoohkwa, or "Sun Woman," was born during Cecaahkwa Kiihswa, or the Sandhill Crane Moon [May] of 1810, near Paawikami Siipiwii [the Forks of the Wabash River] at present-day Huntington, Indiana, two years before the death of her grandfather, Me-she-kin-no-quah, [Little Turtle].

     Her Miami father was Mak-e-sen-e-quah [also Wakshingay, or Wakshingwah, meaning Crescent Moon], a son of Little Turtle. Her Miami mother was Wah-wa-ka-mo-quah [Snow Woman], a daughter of Chief Shimaakanehsia, or Shemockenish.

     While still a young girl, her father, through treaty negotiations, was granted an entire section of land in Ohio. However, reluctant to move so far from his boyhood home, Mak-e-shen-e-quah traded his Ohio section to another man for a half-section, three hundred twenty acres of forestland, near present-day Roanoke, Indiana. He cleared an area large enough to build a log cabin and moved his family there. Kiilhsoohkwa lived on this reserve most of her long life.

     Around 1826, when she was sixteen years of age, Kiilhsoohkwa married John Owl, a mixed metis Miami. The couple moved to Seek's Village, along the Kineepikomeekwa Siipiiwi, or Eel River, east of modern-day Columbia City, Indiana. After only two years of marriage, John Owl died, and Kiilhsoohkwa moved back to her father's home.

     In 1832 she married Shawpenomquah [Thunderstorm[, also know as Antoine Revarre. Like her first husband, Revarre was a metis of French and Miami heritage.

     Six children were born to Kiilsoohkwa and Revarre; four of the six died in infancy. One daughter, Wan-nog-quan-quah [Snow Mist, or Fog], also known as Mary Revarre, and a son, her youngest child, Wahpimongway or Shap-pe-ne-maw [Little White Loon, or Anthony Revarre, Junior], also known as Tony Loon, survived.

     After attending Roanoke Acadey, Wan-nog-quan-quah married and moved to Oklahoma, where she became a schoolteacher. Wahpimongwah also attended the academy, but stayed on in Indiana.

     Kiilhsoohkwa's father died in 1846, and her mother died shortly thereafter. Both parents were buried on the family's forested Roanoke reserve. Her husband, Revarre, died in 1850 and was buried near her parents at the family farm. By special decree of the United States government, when most of the Miami were forced into selling their reserves and moving across the Mississippi River, Kiihsoohkwa and her family were not required to remove from Indiana.

     For many years, Kiilhsoohkwa cared for a flag, which had been given to her by her grandfather, Shimaakanehsia.