Wea

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See the disambiguation page WEA for other instances of WEA.

"The Wea Plains", a historical marker near the extinct town of Granville in Tippecanoe County, Indiana.

The Wea are a Native American tribe of Indiana, sometimes considered a subdivision of the Miami tribe. The name 'Wea' is a shortened version of their name for themselves in their own language, waayaahtanwa, which is derived from waayaahtanonki, 'place of the whirlpool', their name for their traditional homeland. This appears in the old French records as the town name Ouiatanon, located in present-day Tippecanoe County, Indiana near the city of Lafayette. Other interpretations of this name have been given as "pale" reflecting the belief that the Miami Nation Tribes were not historically as pale as other nations were even before European contact.

Driven to the West by increased Euro-American settlement and Indian removal, they were confederated with the Kaskaskias, Peorias, and Piankeshaws to form the Confederated Peoria Tribe of first Kansas and now Oklahoma. The tribes blended their cultural traditions and freely accepted whites and blacks into their community.

The Wea lost federal recognition when the government decertified the Miami Nations in 1897 as part of an ongoing policy to eliminate indigenous cultures and identities. As the pressure for assimilation has officially eased since the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s they hope to regain a measure of recognition as distinct.

A remnant of the Wea Tribe remained in Indiana after the removal period, and a split several years ago in the remaining Indiana members resulted in two Tribal organizations that exist today in Indiana.

The Wea spoke a dialect of the Miami-Illinois language, the same language as the Miami and the Peoria.

The bloodline of the last known chief of the Wea prior to relocation continues in the state-recognized tribe of Wea in Indiana. The chief was Jacco Godfrey, who was Chief when the last Wea reservation in Indiana was taken by the government. This final treaty is still disputed by the Wea as Jacco, Chief at the time, never signed the document nor approved it.