William Mehojah; Last Full-Blood Member of the Kaw Indian Tribe

William Mehojah, 82, the last full-blood member of the Kaw Indians, the tribe that gave the state of Kansas its name. Born in Washunga, Okla., Mehojah attended the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kan., and Idaho State University. He married his wife, Fredericka, a Cherokee, in 1943, then went overseas to serve in World War II. On his return, he began a 35-year career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho and Arizona, where he retired in 1976. The Kaw, formerly known as the Kansa tribe, gave their name to the Kansas River and the state of Kansas. The tribe commanded 20 million acres in the early 1800s, stretching from northern Kansas into Nebraska and Missouri. But by 1825, western expansion by settlers had reduced that land to 2 million acres. The federal government moved the tribe to a 100,000-acre reservation in northern Oklahoma in 1873. By that time epidemics of smallpox and other diseases had reduced the number of Kaw to about 700, said JoAnn Obregon, a member of the Kaw executive council. Intermarriage also became commonplace. About 600 people live on the reservation today, and 2,541 are on the tribal rolls. “The reality of being the last full-blood to me is sad and lonely,” Mehojah said in an interview with the Kaw newsletter in 1997. On Sunday at Methodist Hospital in Omaha.