Ioway

Iowa
Báxoje

White Cloud, Chief of the Iowa, by George Catlin (1845), National Gallery of Art
Total population
(estimated 2,567)
Regions with significant populations
United States ( Kansas,  Nebraska, and  Oklahoma)
Languages
Chiwere language, English
Religion
traditional tribal religion, Native American Church, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Otoe, Missouria, Ho-Chunk, and other Siouan peoples

The Iowa or Ioway, known as the Báxoǰe in their own language, are a Native American Siouan people. Today, they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

The Iowa, Missouria, and Otoe tribes were all once part of the Ho-Chunk people. They are all Chiwere language-speaking peoples. They left their ancestral homelands in Southern Wisconsin for Eastern Iowa, a state that bears their name.

In 1837, the Iowa were moved from Iowa to reservations in Brown County, Kansas, and Richardson County, Nebraska. Bands of Iowa moved to Indian Territory in the late 19th century and settled south of Perkins, Oklahoma to become the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.

Their name has been said to come from ayuhwa ("sleepy ones."). Early European explorers often adopted the names of tribes from the ethnonyms which other tribes gave them, not understanding that these differed from what the peoples called themselves. Thus, ayuhwa is not an Ioway word. The word Ioway comes from Dakotan ayuxbe via French aiouez. Their autonym (their name for themselves) is Báxoje, pronounced [b̥aꜜxodʒɛ] (alternate spellings: pahotcha, pahucha,), which translates to "grey snow". Báxoje has been incorrectly translated as "dusted faces" or "dusty nose", since the Ioway words use different consonants.