ted beaver pelts in their trading as well.
Miami population estimates up to the late eighteenth century are complicated due to the existence of six Miami-speaking groups--the Wea, the Piankashaw, the Atchatchakangouen, the Kilatika, the Pepicokia and the Mengakonkia. Early population counts are as high as eight thousand (Rafert, 8). In 1695 French authorities estimated that the villages held 3,800 to 4,200 people. This estimate was made a few years after a massacre of the Miami by the Iroquois, and an attack by the Lakota in 1687. They may have also lost two-thirds of their population to diseases introduced by the Europeans, in addition to warfare during the seventeenth century. Figuring back from villages, an estimate of eleven to twelve thousand in
1600 can be made. In 1500, before the great smallpox epidemic of 1519-24, the population was probably larger (Rafert, 8).
By 1880 their numbers had dwindled to 330, but by 1969 their population was restored to 3,066 (Rafert, 255).
Political alliances were complicated and changed with time.
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