Wichita people

The Wichita people, or Wichita: kirikir?i:s, are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. Their ancestral homelands are in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas.

Today, Wichita tribes, which include the Kichai people, Waco, Taovaya, Tawakoni, Yscani, and the Wichita proper (or Guichita), are federally recognized as the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco and Tawakoni).

The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes are headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Their tribal jurisdictional area is in Caddo County, Oklahoma. The Wichitas are a self-governance tribe, who operate their own housing authority and issue tribal vehicle tags.

As of 2025^[update], the current administration is: The current tribal administration is as follows.

The tribe owns the Sugar Creek Casino, several restaurants, the Sugar Creek Event Center, and Hinton Travel Inn in Hinton. It owns a smoke shop, travel plaza, and historical center in Anadarko. Their annual economic impact in 2010 was $4.5 million.

The Wichita language is one of the Caddoan languages. They are related by language and culture to the Pawnee, with whom they have close relations.

The Wichita lived in settled villages with domed-shaped, grass lodges, sometimes up to 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter. The Wichita were successful hunters, farmers, traders, and negotiators. Their historical homelands stretched from San Antonio, Texas, in the south to Great Bend, Kansas, in the north. A semi-sedentary people, they occupied northern Texas in the early 18th century. They traded with other Southern Plains Indians on both sides of the Red River and south to Waco.

The Wichita made much of their own art, including ceramic pottery that greatly fascinated French and Spanish traders. To the untrained eye Wichita pottery was "virtually indistinguishable from the Osage and Pawnee", two other neighboring Indigenous groups.