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Tickets are good for either performance... Friday, September 19th OR Saturday, September 20th.

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Voices of the Wind People Logo

Signature Event

VOICES of the
WIND PEOPLE

September 19 & 20, 2025

This beautifully presented story depicts the changes affected by two vastly different cultures. As the Kaw Indians were being relocated and European American settlers were beginning to populate Council Grove on the Santa Fe Trail, the dynamics of these two cultures co-existing proved to be intense.

 

The performances take place at the Neosho Riverwalk Amphitheater near historic downtown Council Grove and adjacent to the Santa Fe Trail crossing on the Neosho River. The production incorporates historic photos, images of the prairie landscape, and video images with the live-action of a pack train, wagon train, stagecoach, riders on horseback, tepees and the campfire of a Kanza village. 

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Approximately 45-50 Kanza Indians of the Kaw Nation from Kaw City, OK, whose ancestors once lived in the Council Grove area, return to participate in this production. They provide the principal narration of Chief Allegawaho, enact village scenes, and perform dramatic roles and traditional dances.

The Voices of the Wind People pageant was conceived to provide the public with a historically accurate story of the clash of two cultures, Native American and Euro-American, in the historic setting of Council Grove on the Santa Fe Trail. The two main pageant characters, Chief Allegawaho, Kanza (Kaw) Chief, and Seth Hays, Council Grove’s first Euro-American resident, narrate this compelling story. The first production was in 1992, with performances in 1993, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, and now 2025.

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The production of Voices of the Wind People is accomplished completely by volunteer staff and performers, requiring the involvement of approximately 125 people per performance. These volunteers are willing to give their time because they believe in the importance of this story. Each year this is performed, over 4,000 volunteer hours have been recorded.

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Look for the ceremonial fire that burns through the duration of the pageant.

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Learn more about the Voices...

This dramatization represents how the commercial requirements of the Santa Fe Trail and the European American westward expansion changed the lives of the Kanza people and the history of the Kaw Nation. This road provided the backdrop for many of the events that formed Council Grove. The town was named after an agreement was made between the government and the Osage nation allowing settlers’ and traders’ wagon trains to pass safely through the area and proceed southwest to Santa Fe, (New) Mexico.

 

This westward push of the European American settlement became known as “Manifest Destiny.” This was the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Advocates of Manifest Destiny theory believed this expansion was not only right and good, but that it was obvious (“manifest”) and certain (“destiny”).

 

Since the late 1600s the Kanzas lived in eastern and northern Kansas. In the early 1800s their estimated “domain” was comprised of approximately 20 million acres. A treaty arranged by the U.S. government in 1825 assigned the Kanzas to a two-million-acre reservation in northern Kansas. That same year the Kanzas signed another treaty promising safe passage to European American traders on the Santa Fe Trail. This trail served both as an international commercial trade route and a military highway stretching over 800 miles from Missouri to Santa Fe. In 1846, a second treaty relocated the tribe onto a 256,000-acre reservation encompassing the site of Council Grove, a “rendezvous” (meeting and organizing point) on the Santa Fe Trail. It passed through the heart of the Kanza reservation and had a significant negative impact on the well-being of the tribe. In 1859, the U.S. government arranged a third treaty reducing the Kanza reservation to approximately 86,000 acres. The continuing encroachment by white squatters and legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in 1873 forced the removal of the Kanzas to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

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