"Wish-kuk-ke-ash-kuk is his Potawatomi name but Ryan Dyer is the English name he uses most of the time.

He is one of the seven members of the Tribal Council – he serves as treasurer – that governs the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation that includes some 4,800 people.

In a phone interview with him from his home in Kansas, I learned a lot about this tribe that once occupied all of the lands around DeKalb County and much more of the Midwest before the influx of white settlers as the United States pushed westward.

Dyer will be coming to DeKalb County on April 14, along with the Tribal Council secretary Wabaunsee, also known as James Potter, the invited speaker at our annual dinner meeting of the DeKalb County Historical-Genealogical Society, being held at the Indian Oaks Country Club near Shabbona.

Since most everyone in our county knows the history of Chief Shabbona, who lived in southern DeKalb County back in the early 1800s, I won’t repeat the story of his life. If you would like to know more, the historical society is publishing a booklet written by the late Marilyn Rasmusen about the chief and his Prairie Band. It will be available at the annual dinner for $6 and afterward at museums around the county. Her history was originally compiled for a seven-part series currently running in The Cornsilk, quarterly magazine of the historical society.

Now getting back to my conversation with the Tribal treasurer Dyer, he told me they are soon to publish a book tracing the lineage of Chief Shab-eh-nay and his descendants. It is being written by a history professor from the University of Michigan."

Get the Story:
Barry Schrader: The Potawatomis are coming (The DeKalb Daily Chronicle 4/6)

Related Stories:
Kansas tribe buys land in ancestral reservation (2/20)