Eteeyan proud to have designed Prairie Band logo

Warren Eteeyan of Mayetta has long had an interest in art.

“I like drawing and painting,” Eteeyan said. “I just started doing it when I was a kid. I copied out of comic books… I learned from the best, I guess.”

But there’s one piece of art designed by Eteeyan that he’s most proud of — an emblem he designed more than 30 years ago that went on to be adopted as the official logo of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, of which he is a member.

“It represents the tribe,” he said. “That’s what I’m most proud of — it represents our people.”

Eteeyan, who was born in Claremore, Okla., and raised on the Potawatomi reservation, has worked for the tribe’s road and bridge department, as well as various construction companies and the street department in Yates Center after going to school for welding, but “landed in heavy equipment, and I’ve been there for pretty close to 50 years.”

But he said his fascination with art, which stemmed from copying DC comics and learning their artists’ techniques, never left him. It’s what prompted him, in 1989 or 1990, to design a logo that represented his tribal heritage.

“That logo has to do with our belief system,” Eteeyan said.

One of the foremost features of the logo is the fire, which he said represents the “Wab-sai fireplace,” in reference to a Potawatomi tribal leader of the 1800s and the splintering of the original Potawatomi tribe into different bands.

“Long ago, we were all one tribe, and there was a faction that wanted to split off,” he said, noting that faction would eventually become the Citizen Band Potawatomi tribe of Oklahoma. “Chief Wab-sai met with a man named Mianko, who was leading the faction that wanted to split off, and Wab-sai wanted to keep everybody together, so that we would have land for our grandchildren.”

Mianko was “insistent” about taking his own “fire” somewhere else, Eteeyan said, and Wab-sai instructed him to do so. However, the chief had a challenge for the departing Mianko.

“Wab-sai used a flint, and Mianko used a match,” he said. “Wab-sai told him, I could put my fire maker in the lake, pull it out and still make fire. Can you do that with your match?”

Mianko, Eteeyan said, failed that challenge, but Wab-sai’s fire continues to burn everywhere within the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.

“That match went out long ago,” he said. “We’re the people of the fire. That fire takes care of us.”

Also within the circle is a single feather, which Eteeyan said represents “all the warriors who went overseas and fought for our way of life.” Four more feathers hang from the bottom of the circle, representing the four winds — north, south, east and west.

“Each of those winds has a name and represents something,” he said.

An employee at the tribe’s bingo facility took notice of the logo.

“She saw it and started putting it on jackets and hats,” Eteeyan said. “After that, it just kind of took off.”

The Prairie Band Tribal Council later adopted the design as the tribe’s official logo.

“They bought the rights to it, they paid me for it and it’s everywhere now,” Eteeyan said.

The logo isn’t Eteeyan’s only work of art, however. He’s also designed the logo for We-Ta-Se American Legion Post 410 in Mayetta, and in 1994, he was commissioned by the Kansas National Guard’s 190th Air Refueling Wing to paint the Kansas seal on one of its planes.

Eteeyan also designed a logo for the Soldier Creek Shooters Club, which he and friends started in 1990 to teach young people about shooting safety and how to handle firearms.

“It’s the only art I’m really into anymore,” he says of long-range shooting, mainly for food. “Every once in a while, we’ll call each other and want to go out and shoot… It’s just like art: You do it when you’re in the mood to do it.”

But it’s the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation logo that his descendants — including four children and 10 grandchildren — will recognize as his legacy.

“My kids can see it and know I did it,” Eteeyan said. “That makes me feel good.”