Osage Day

Happy Osage Day!

All Osage Nation Offices are Closed and will Resume Normal Business Hours 10/9/2018

"While many in America are celebrating Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day or Native American Day, about 20,000 Osages are celebrating Osage Day.
In 2006, then-Principal Chief Jim Gray proclaimed the second Monday in October as Osage Day. The parallel to Columbus Day is the Nation’s way of celebrating its own tribal sovereignty.  
“Policy Analyst Leonard Maker made the case for Osage Day to replace Columbus Day on the simple fact that it was our sovereign right to decide what our paid holidays were going to be for our tribal government,” Gray said. “I initially favored keeping that Monday as a day out of defiance to Columbus. But as it turned out, the BIA, IHS and HUD offices would be closed anyway because they were federal agencies. It might have been inconvenient for citizens to be at the Nation’s offices when they were closed while we were open. So, I just rebranded the holiday to make it Osage Day.” --Osage News