Past and Present of Winneshiek
County
CHAPTER I
INDIAN HISTORY OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY *
COMPILED BY CHARLES PHILIP HEXOM
THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE
Taki maka a_icha 'gha hena mita 'wa-ye lo- Yo, yoyo!
Taki maka a-icha'gha hena mita'wa-ye lo- Yo, yoyo!
Translation of a Sioux song.
The Winnebago tribe is the fourth group of the great Siouan, or Dakota,
family. The Winnebagoes were styled by the Sioux, Hotanke, or the "big-voiced
people;" by the Chippewas, Winipig, or "filthy water;"
by the Sauks and Foxes, Winipyagohagi, or "people of the filthy
water." Allouez spells the name Ovenibigoutz. The French frequently
called them Puans, or Puants, names often roughly translated Stinkards.
The Iowas called them Ochungaraw. They called themselves Ochung_trah,
or Hotcangara. Dr. J. O. Dorsey, the distinguished authority on the
Siouan tribes, states that the Siouan root, "changa," or "hanga,"
signifies "first, foremost, original or ancestra1."
Thus the Winnebagoes call themselves Hotcangara, "the people speaking
the original language," or "people of the parent speech."
Traditional and linguistic evidence shows that the Iowa Indians sprang
from the Winnebago stem, which appears to have been the mother stock
of some other of the southwestern Siouan tribes.
The term "Sioux" is a French corruption of Nadowe-is-iw, the name given them by the Chippewa Indians of the Algonquin family. It signifies "snake," whence is derived the further meaning "enemy." The name Dakota, or Lakota, by which the principal tribes of the Siouan stock call themselves, means "confederated," "allied."
Regarding the remote migrations that must have taken place in such a widespread stock as the Siouan, different theories are held. An eastern origin is now pretty well established for this stock; for in Virginia, North and South
_____________
*Copyright, 1913, Charles Philip Hexom. Permission is
granted E. C Bailey and the S. J. Clarke Publishing Company to use this
article as a portion of The History of Winneshiek County edited by Mr.
Bailey and published by the S. J. Clarke Publishing Company.
7
8
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
Carolina, and Mississippi were the homes of tribes now extinct, which ethnologists class as belonging to the Siouans.3 The prehistoric migration of these Indians, which undoubtedly was gradual, proceeded towards the west; while the Dakotas, Winnebagoes, and cognate tribes, it appears, took a more northerly course.
Passing to the authentic history of the Winnebagoes the first known meeting between this tribe and the whites was in 1634, when the French ambassador, Jean Nicolet, found them in Wisconsin near Green Bay. At this time they probably extended to Lake Winnebago. How long the tribe had maintained its position in that territory previous to the coming of the whites is unknown. They were then numerous and powerful. Father Pierre Claude Allouez spent the winter of 1669-70 at Green Bay preaching to the Winnebagoes and their Central Algonquian neighbors.
The Winnebagoes constituted one party in a triple alliance, to which also the Sauks and Foxes belonged, and were always present with the Foxes in their battles against the French, and their ancient enemy, the Illinois Indians. In an effort to combine all the tribes against the Foxes, the French in some way won over the Winnebagoes. After being on unfriendly terms with the Faxes for several years, the old friendship was revived; yet the Winnebagoes managed to retain the friendship of the French and continue in uninterrupted trade relations with them, for, following the missionary, came the trader.
In 1763 France ceded Canada to England. The Winnebagoes, however, were reluctant to transfer their allegiance to the English; but when they did, they remained firm in their new fealty. The English were known to the Winnebagoes as Mohintonga, meaning "Big Knife;" this term is said to have originated from the kind of swords worn by the English.4 When the thirteen colonies declared their independence in 1776, the Winnebagoes allied themselves with the British and fought with them through the Revolutionary war. They participated in the border outbreaks in Ohio and were among the savages defeated by Gen. Anthony Wayne on August 20, 1794. In the War of 1812-15 they espoused the cause of England, and in the years immediately following this war they became quite insolent.
The so-called Winnebago War of 1827 was of short duration. The energetic movements of Governor Cass, the promptness of the militia under Col. Henry Dodge, and the despatch of General Atkinson of the federal army filled the Winnebagoes with such respect for the power of the United States that the disturbance was quelled before it had fairly begun. At this time the tribe numbered nearly seven thousand. It might also be mentioned that a few of the tribe secretly joined the Sauks and Foxes in the Black Hawk War of 1832.
Smallpox visited the tribe twice before 1836, and in that year: more than one-fourth of the tribe died. Mr. George Catlin, famous painter of the Indians, made the statement, when at Prairie du Chien in 1836, that, "The only war that suggests itself to the eye of the traveler through their country is the war of sympathy and pity."
___________________________
3 "The Siouan Tribes
of the East," by James Mooney, Bulletin Bureau of Ethnology, 1894,
Washington.
4 "The Omaha Tribe." by Alice C. Fletcher and Francis
La Flesche, Eth. Ann. 27, pg. 611.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
9
REMOVAL TO IOWA
Historical evidence reveals the fact that at one time the northern part of Winneshiek county formed a small part of the vast hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians, and that the southern portion was given over to the Sauks and Foxes. In a council held at Prairie du Chien August 19, 1825, a boundary line was established between the Sioux, on the north, and the Sauks and Foxes, on the south. The principal object of this treaty was to make peace between these contending tribes as to the limits of their respective hunting grounds in Iowa.
This boundary line began at the mouth of the Upper Iowa river and followed the stream, which traverses Winneshiek county, to its source. In order to decrease still further the encounters between the Sauks and Foxes, on the one hand, and the Sioux, on the other, the United States secured, at a council held at Prairie du Chien July 15, 1830, a strip of territory twenty miles wide on each side of the boundary line already established and extending from the Mississippi to the east fork of the Des Moines. This strip, forty miles in width, was termed the "Neutral Ground." The tribes on either side were to hunt and fish on it unmolested, a privilege they ceased to enjoy when this territory was ceded to the Winnebagoes. In this way the tract of land now known as Winneshiek county became a part of the Neutral Ground.
September 15, 1832, the Winnebagoes ceded to the United States their lands south of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, east of the Mississippi. The Government, on its part, by this treaty granted to the Winnebagoes, "to be held as other Indian lands are held, that part of the tract of country on the west side of the Mississippi river known as the Neutral Ground, embraced within the following limits." The boundaries specified confined the Winnebagoes to that portion of the Neutral Ground extending forty miles west of the Mississippi. By the terms of this treaty they were to be paid $10,000 annually for twenty-seven years, beginning in September, 1833.
November 1, 1837, a treaty was concluded with the Winnebagoes at Washington, by the provisions of which they ceded to the United States the remainder of their lands on the east side and certain interests on the west side of the Mississippi river, and agreed to remove to a portion of the Neutral Ground in northeastern Iowa, set aside for them in the previous treaty of September 15, 1832. This treaty of 1837 was loudly proclaimed by the tribe to be a fraud. It was stated that the delegation which visited Washington in that year had no authority to execute such an instrument. Chiefs, also, who were of this party an made the same declaration.5
The first attempt to remove the Winnebagoes was made in
1840, when a considerable number were induced to move to the Turkey
river. That year a portion of the Fifth and Eighth regiments of United
States infantry came to Portage, Wisconsin, to conduct their removal.
Antoine Grignon and others were connected with this force as interpreters.
Two large boats were provided to transport the Indians down the Wisconsin
river to Prairie du Chien. Captain Sumner, who later was a commanding
____________
5Wisconsin Archeologist.
Vol. 6, No.3. pg. 112.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
10
officer at Fort Atkinson, secured 250 Winnebagoes in southern
Wisconsin. These were also taken to Prairie du Chien. They first disliked
the idea of going on to the Neutral Ground, because on the south were
the Sauks and Foxes, and on the north were the Sioux, and with these
tribes they were not on friendly terms. Considerable resentment was
felt by the Sauks and Foxes towards the Winnebagoes for having delivered
Black Hawk over to the whites, although previous to this occasion the
Winnebagoes had been in intimate relationship with these tribes. However,
they soon grew to love the Iowa reservation.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
And they painted on the grave-posts
On the graves yet unforgotten,
Each his own ancestral Totem,
Each the symbol of his household;
---The Song of Hiawatha.
In each tribe there existed, on the basis of kinship, a division into
clans and gentes. The names given to these divisions were usually those
of the animals, birds, reptiles, or inanimate objects from which their
members claimed descent, or which were regarded as guardian deities
common to them all; these were known as their totems.
The term "clan" implies descent in the female, and "gens" in the male line. Clans and gentes were generally organized into phratries; and phratries, into tribes. A phratry was an organization for ceremonial and other festivals.
The Winnebago social organization was based on two phratries, known as the Upper, or Air, and the Lower, or Earth, divisions. The Upper division contained four clans: (1 ) Thunder-bird, (2) War People, (3) Eagle, (4) Pigeon (extinct); while the Lower division contained eight clans: (1) Bear, (2) Wolf, (3) Water-spirit, (4) Deer, (5) Elk, (6) Buffalo, (7) Fish, (8) Snake.
The Thunder-bird and Bear clans were regarded as the leading clans of their respective phratries. Both had definite functions. The lodge of the former was the peace lodge, over which the chief of the tribe presided, while the lodge of the Bear clan was the war, or disciplinary, lodge. Each clan had a number of individual customs, relating to birth, the naming-feast, death, and the funeral-wake. An Upper individual must marry a Lower individual, and vice versa.
When Carver, an early traveler, first came in contact with the Winnebagoes, their chief was a woman. The man, however, was the head of each family. Where clans existed, a man could become a member of any particular clan only by birth, adoption, or transfer in infancy from his mother's to his father's clan, or vice versa. The place of woman in a tribe was not that of a slave or beast of burden. The existence of the gentile organization, in most tribes with descent in the female line, forbade that she be subjected to any such indignity.
Dr. J. O. Dorsey obtained a list of the gentes of the
Hotcangara, or Winnebagoes.6 They were (1) Shungikikarachada ('Wolf');
(2) Honchikikarachada ('Black Bear'); (3) Huwanikikarachada ('Elk');
(4) Wakanikikarachada
__________________________
6 The late J. Owen Dorsey of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
in Bull. 30, pg. 961.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
13
('Snake'); (5) Waninkikikarachada ('Bird'); (6) Cheikikarachada ('Buffalo'); (7) Chaikikarachada ('Deer'); (8) Wakchekhiikikarach;da ('Water-monster'). The Bird gens was composed of four sub-gentes, namely: (a) Hichakhshepara ('Eagle'), (b) Ruchke ('Pigeon'), (c) Kerechun ('Hawk'), (d) Wakanchara ('Thunder-bird'). It seems probable that each gens was thus subdivided into four sub-gentes.
In 1843 they were on the Neutral Ground in different bands, the principal one, called the School band, occupying territory along the Turkey river.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
The Winnebagoes are distinctly a timber people, and always confined themselves to the larger streams. In early days their wearing apparel consisted commonly of breechclout, moccasins, leggings, and robes of dressed skins. The advent among them of the whites enabled them to add blankets, cloths, and ornaments to their scanty wardrobes.
Jonathan Emerson Fletcher, the Indian agent at the Turkey river, furnished Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, LL. D., at one time Indian agent for Wisconsin Territory and author of "Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States," a description of the costume of the Winnebagoes, from which the following is condensed:7 "White blankets are preferred in winter, and colored in the summer. Red is a favorite color among the young, and green with the aged. Calico shirts, cloth leggings, and buckskin moccasins are worn by both sexes. In addition to the above articles, the women wear a broadcloth petticoat, or mantelet, suspended from the hips and extending below the knee.
"Wampum, ear-bobs, rings, bracelets, and bells are the most common ornaments worn by them. Head-dresses ornamented with eagle's feathers are worn by the warriors on public occasions. The chiefs wear nothing peculiar to designate their office, except it be medals received from the President of the United States.
"Some of the young men and women paint their blankets with a variety of colors and figures. A large majority of the young and middle-aged of both sexes paint their faces when they dress for a dance.
"Old and young women divide their hair from the forehead to the back of the crown, and wear it collected in a roll on the back of the neck, confined with ribbons and bead-strings. The men and boys wear their hair cut similar to the whites, except that they all wear a small quantity on the back of the crown, long and braided, which braids are tied at the end with a ribbon. The men have but little beard, which is usually plucked out by tweezers."
One style of Winnebago wigwam consisted of an arched frame-work
of poles firmly set in the ground and lashed together with strips of
bark and so arranged as to give it sloping sides and a rounded top.
Cross-pieces of wood secured the poles to one another. The roof and
sides were covered with pieces of bark, or matting. The general outline
was round or elliptical. Conical lodges were employed chiefly in the
summer time. Fur robes, matting, and
____________
7Wisconsin Archeologist,
Vol. 6, No.3, pg. 121.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
14
blankets served for bedding. Branches were heaped around the side walls, and these, covered with blankets, served as a bed.
Mr. Fletcher stated8 that the lodges at the Turkey river, Iowa, were; "from twelve to forty feet in length, and from ten to twenty feet in width, and fifteen feet in height from the ground to the top of the roof. The largest would accommodate three families of ten persons each. They generally have two doors. Fires, one for each family, are made along the space through the center. The smoke escapes through the apertures in the roof. The summer lodge is of lighter materials and is portable."
Council houses and other structures were erected in each village. Mr. Oliver Lamere states: "It is said that all of their councils were held at the Turkey river, as that was their agency at the time. Usually everything went as the chiefs wanted it." Regarding the vicinity of Fort Atkinson, Mr. H. J. Goddard says: "There were two Indian camping grounds south of here, one about a quarter of a mile, and the other half a mile, distant. One had about 50 wigwams, and the other between 300 and 400. They took poles and stuck them in the ground, then bent them over and tied the tops together and covered them with bark. The bark was pealed from the water or slippery-elm trees during the spring."
Bark served the Indians in a multitude of ways. It was stripped from trees at the proper season by hacking it around so that it could be taken off in sheets of the desired length. The Winnebagoes also made a kind of drink from bark. Mr. Lamere says, "They also made a matting from reeds sewed or matted together with strings made out of bass-wood bark; of course, they used canvas when they could purchase it, but their permanent lodges would be of bark."
It was the man's duty to protect his village and family, and by hunting to provide meat and skins. The women dried the meat, dressed the hides, made the clothing, and, in general, performed all the household duties. The processes employed for dressing skins were various, such as fleshing, scraping, braining, stripping, graining, and working. In the domestic economy of the Indian, skins were his most valued and useful material, as they also later became his principal trading asset. A list of the articles made of this material would embrace a great many of the Indian's principal possessions.
Moccasins and other articles made of skin were often covered with artistic bead-work, replete with tribal symbolism. The Winnebagoes also had, not long ago, a well developed porcupine quill industry.
In common with other tribes the Winnebagoes were accustomed
to prepare dried and smoked fish and meat. Nuts, wild fruits, and edible
roots of various kinds were also used for food. Corn was raised and
such vegetables as squash, pumpkins, beans,' potatoes and watermelons.
Corn was often eaten green, but usually after it had been dried; ground,
and made into bread; it was sometimes boiled with meat. At the Turkey
river near Fort Atkinson the Indians cached their corn in holes dug
in the ground three or four feet square and about three feet deep. Wild
rice was raised and was prepared by being boiled with meat and vegetables.
Shelled dried corn, dried hulled fruit, and nuts
_________
8Wisconsin Archeologist,
Vol. 6, No. 3, pg. 124, condensed from information furnished to H. R.
Schoolcraft.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
15
were cached in storage pits for future use. Tobacco was raised, but only in small quantities. Notwithstanding the abundance of animal and vegetal food that the fields and forest afforded, the Indians suffered occasionally from famine. For wood the limbs of trees were used, but not the trunk; in the neighborhood of Fort Atkinson evidence remains today of this practice.
Of the Winnebago marriage customs Moses Paquette, who went (1845) to the Presbyterian school at the Turkey river, stated9 in 1882: "Presents to the parents of a woman, by either the parents of the man or the man himself, if accepted, usually secure her for a partner. However much the woman may dislike the man, she considers it her bounden duty to go and at least try to live with him. Divorce is easy among them. There are no laws compelling them to live together. Sometimes there are marriages for a specified time, say a few months or a year. When separations occur, the woman usually takes the children with her to the home of her parents. But so long as the union exists, it is deemed to be sacred, and there are few instances of infidelity. Quite a number of the bucks have two wives, who live on apparently equal, free, and easy terms; but although there is no rule about the matter, I never heard of any of the men having more than two wives. With all this ease of divorce, numerous Indian couples remain true to each other for life." Many of the early traders took Winnebago wives.
The Indians had their favorite pastimes and games, some of which were played by the women and children. There were also several kinds of dances for various occasions.
Regarding their burial customs, the graves were in later times protected by logs, stones, brush, or pickets. With the bodies of the deceased were buried their personal possessions or symbolical objects. With the corpse of a woman were buried her implements of labor. The graves of chiefs and persons of distinction were sometimes enclosed with pickets. Over such a grave it was customary to place a white flag. The blackening of the face by mourners was a common custom. In the winter the remains were encased and placed on a scaffold and then elevated into the branches of a tree, or placed between two trees. In the spring the permanent burial was made in a shallow grave. Over this was erected an A-shaped structure, consisting of two short, forked posts, which, placed one at each end of the grave, supported a cross-piece. Against this frame-work were placed wooden slabs.
Lengthwise the graves at the Turkey river extended from east to west, in order that the dead might "look towards the happy land" that was supposed to lie somewhere in the direction of the setting sun. The body of the dead was sometimes placed in the grave in a sitting posture, the head and chest extending above the ground. A pipe of tobacco was buried with an adult male, and a war-club was placed in the grave of a warrior. The hieroglyphics painted on the post at the head of a warrior's grave represented the exploits of those who danced about the grave at his funeral.
Mr. Goddard says: "There were about a dozen or more
Indian graves close to the fort, but these have long since been obliterated.
An Indian child, about seven or eight years of age, was put above ground
in a coffin placed
________
9Wisconsin Archeologist,
Vol. 6, No.3, pg. 126.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
16
between, and near the top of, four cedar posts set in the ground, and about seven or eight feet high. I was told by the Indians who later traveled through the country quite frequently that the child belonged to a Chippewa woman who was visiting the Winnebagoes. Later, a man who stopped at my place took from inside the heavily beaded blanket, in which the child was wrapped when buried, a round mirror ornament with a loop for suspension, about three inches in diameter, on the back of which was a picture of General Jackson.
"An Indian grave was on the top of a hill in Jackson township, section twenty. The Indians told me that a chief called Black Bear was buried there; however, there is nothing further authentic to prove this. The grave was surrounded by a stockade made of boards split out of logs and was seven feet high; it enclosed a space about seven by eight feet in area. The boards were spiked together.
"Near the Little Turkey river, a fork of the Turkey river, at a point about one and one-half miles from Waucoma in Fayette county, was a farm of about one hundred acres broken up (supposedly by the Government) and owned by a chief called Whaling Thunder [evidently Whirling Thunder, but not definitely known]. Here Whaling (?) Thunder died, and on his land was a group of about thirty graves, six Indians being buried in one grave."
Hon. Abraham Jacobson, of Springfield township, stated10 that, "On the banks of the Upper Iowa river many Indian graves were found. The bodies were buried in a sitting position, with the head sometimes above ground. A forked stick put up like a post at each end of the grave held a ridge pole on which leaned thin boards placed slanting to each side of the grave. Thus each grave presented the appearance of a gable of a small house."
On Mr. J. I. Tavener's land in West Decorah are three mounds, or artificial hillocks, now nearly obliterated by cultivation. These mounds are circular in form and, before being worn down by the plow, were low, broad, round-topped cones from two and one-half to three feet high in the center. The largest of the group was about forty feet in diameter. Conical mounds are, as a rule, depositories of the dead. As yet, no bones have been exhumed from any of these mounds, so that it is not known at present what purpose they served; but it seems probable that they were burial mounds.
The early settlers furnished evidence of the existence of many Indian graves throughout the county, notably where the city of Decorah is located. These graves are now almost imperceptible.
RELIGION
Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, Who have faith in
God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend
not,
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10 "Reminiscences
of Pioneer Norwegians," by Hon. A. Jacobson in "The Illustrated
Historical Atlas of Winneshiek County, Iowa," 1905, Sec. II, pg.
12.
17
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened;
Listen to this simple story,
The Song of Hiawatha.
The fundamental religious concept of the Indian is the belief in the
existence of magic power in animate and inanimate objects. This gave
rise to their idea that there are men who possess supernatural power.
This magic power is called Man'una (Earth-maker)11 by the Winnebagoes,
and corresponds to the Gitchi Manito of the Central Algonquian tribes,
and Wakanda12 of the Siouan tribes. As a verb, "wakanda" signifies
"to reckon as holy or sacred, to worship;" the noun is "wakan"
and means "a spirit, something consecrated." "Wakan,"
as an adjective, is defined as "spiritual, sacred, consecrated,
wonderful, incomprehensible, mysterious." "Wakan" and
various other forms of that word are of common occurrence in the Winnebago
language.
The Winnebago mythology consists of large cycles relating to the five personages, Trickster, Bladder, Turtle, He-who-wears-heads-as-earrings, and the Hare. Other deities known to them are Disease-giver, Sun, Moon, Morning Star, the Spirits of the Night, One-horn, the Earth, and the Water.
The Indian had no understanding of a single, all-powerful deity, the "Great Spirit," till the Europeans, often unconsciously, informed him of their own belief. He belived in a multitude of spirits that were the source of good or bad fortune, and whom he feared to offend.13 He seems to have had no conception of a future punishment. The mortuary rites of the Winnebagoes, and other tribes, testify to the fad that they believed in a life after death; but as to the nature of "the happy land of the West" their ideas were vague.
The Winnebagoes had two important tribal ceremonies, the Mankani, or Medicine Dance, and the Wagigo, or Winter Feast. The Medicine Dance could take place only in summer; and the Winter Feast only in winter. The Medicine Dance was a secret society, ungraded, into which men and women could be initiated on payment of a certain amount of money. The purpose of the society was the prolongation of life and the instilling of certain virtues, none of which related to war. These virtues were instilled by means of the "shooting" ceremony, the pretended shooting of a shell, contained in an otter-skin bag, into the body of the one to be initiated. The ceremony was performed in a long tent occupied by five ceremonial bands, whose positions of honor depended on the order of invitation. The general ceremony itself was public, but a secret vapor-bath ceremony preceded, and a secret ceremony intervened between the first and second parts.
The Winter Feast was a war feast and the only distinctively
clan ceremonial among the Winnebagoes. Each clan had a sacred bundle,
which was in the hands of some male individual, and was handed down
from one generation to another, care being always taken to keep it in
the same clan. The purpose of
_________
11Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 30, part 2, pg. 960.
12Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 30, part 2, pg.
897
13Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 30, part 2, pg.
284.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
18
this feast was to appease all the supposed deities known to them. Mr. Fletcher, :the agent at the Turkey river, gave Mr. Schoolcraft a description of the War dance and the Medicine society.
There were a number of other important ceremonies, of which the best known were the Herucka and the Buffalo Dance. The latter was performed in the spring, and had for its purpose the magical calling of the buffalo herds. All those who pretended to have had supernatural communication with the Buffalo spirit might participate in the ceremony, irrespective of clan. It seems that the object of the Herucka was to stimulate an heroic spirit.
Moses Paquette gave Doctor Thwaites of Wisconsin a brief account of the Buffalo Dance, which he describes as "Probably the most popular of their dances." "They represent," he continues, "themselves to be bisons, imitating the legitimate motions and noises of the animal, and introducing a great many others that would quite astonish the oldest buffalo in existence. Of course it has been a long time since any Winnebagoes ever saw buffalo; their antics are purely traditionary, handed down from former generations of dancers."14
Other dances and feasts were the Snake, Scalp, Grizzly-bear, Sore-eye, and Ghost dances. Little Hill, a Winnebago chief, gave Mr. Fletcher an account of their creation, which, in all its parts, bears testimony to their belief in numerous spirits.15 Mr. Lamere states that, "The Buffalo Dance was carried on by the Winnebagoes for a long time, but the dance that they seemed to have liked and indulged in mostly while there [Iowa] was the Fish Dance, which was only a dance of amusement. The Herucka dance was adopted from some of the western tribes and was brought back by the Winnebagoes who enlisted as scouts during the Sioux outbreak in 1862 and was introduced after the Winnebagoes came here to Nebraska;" he further states,--"The Thunder-bird was held in awe by the Winnebagoes, and they believed that thunder-storms were caused by these beings, the lightning being caused by the opening and closing of their eyes; the Winnebagoes do not describe them as birds, but beings of the human type and always wearing cedar boughs on their head, or hair, and carrying flat war-clubs."
GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF THE DECORAH FAMILY
How fair is Decorah,
Our city named so
For the Indians that roamed
O'er its hills years ago,
Whose well trodden pathways
The story could tell
How from all directions
They came here to dwell.
In fitting remembrance
These lines we inscribe
To Waukon Decorah,
A chief of their tribe,
__________
14Wisconsin Archeologist,
Vol. 6, No.3, pg. 130.
15 "Red Men of Iowa," by A. R. Fulton.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
19
Whose name is a landmark
And honored shall stand
For heeding the fiat
"Move on, yield your land."
And Indians that peopled
This beautiful site,
Reluctant but friendly
Relinquished their right.
They left us this valley
With beauties untold,
Gave way to the settlers,
Our pioneers bold.
Things have changed, to be sure,
In this valley,--still
'Tis but sixty odd years
Since they camped on yon hill
Where now stands the courthouse
A pride of our town,
The heart of the county,
Of widespread renown.
Mrs. John C. Hexom.
Hopokoekau, or "Glory of the Morning," also known as the Queen
of the Winnebagoes, was the mother of a celebrated line of chiefs, all
of whom, well known to border history, bore in some form the name Decorah.
Her Indian name is also given as Wa-ho-po-e-kau. She was the daughter
of one of the principal Winnebago chiefs. There is no record of the
date of her birth or death.
She became the wife of Sabrevoir De Carrie, who probably
came to Wisconsin with the French army, in which he was an officer,
in 1728. He resigned his commission in 1729, and became a fur-trader
among the Winnebagoes, subsequently marrying "Glory of the Morning."
He was adopted into her clan and highly honored. After seven or eight
years, during which time two sons and a daughter were born to him, he
left her, taking with him the daughter. The Queen refused to go with
her husband, and remained in her home with her two sons. "The result
is today that one-half or two-thirds of the Winnebago tribe have more
or less of the Decorah blood in their veins."16 Through the intervening
generations there has been no other mixture of Caucasian blood, so that
the Decorahs of today are probably as nearly full-bloods as any Indians
in any part of the country. .
De Carrie returned to Canada, reentered the army, and was killed at
Ste Foye in the spring of 1760. The daughter whom he took with him became
the wife of a trader, Constant Kerigoufili, whose son, Sieur Laurent
Fily (so-called), died about 1846.
Capt. Jonathan Carver, who visited the Queen in 1766,
states that she received him graciously, and luxuriously entertained
him during the four days he remained in her village, which "contained
fifty houses." Her two sons, "being the descendants of a chief
on the mother's side, when they arrived at
_________
16 Statement by Geo.
W. Kingsley.
PAST AND PRESENT OF WINNESHIEK COUNTY
20
manhood * * * assumed the dignity of their rank by inheritance. They were generally good Indians and frequently urged their claims to the friendship of the whites by saying they were themselves half white.'
Choukeka Dekaury, or Spoon Decorah, sometimes called the Ladle, was the eldest son of Sabrevoir De Carrie and Hopokoekau. The name is also rendered Chau-ka-ka and Chou-ga-rah. After having been made chief he became the leader of attacks on the Chippewas during a war between them and the Winnebagoes, but he maintained friendly relations with the whites. He was the ancestor of the Portage branch of the family. It was principally through his influence that the treaty of June 3, 1816, at St. Louis, Missouri, was brought about.
His wife, Flight of Geese, was a daughter of Nawkaw (known also as Carrymaunee and Walking Turtle), whose management of tribal affairs was decidedly peaceful. According to La Ronde, Choukeka's death occurred in 1816, when he was "quite aged." He left six sons and five daughters. The sons were: (1) Konokah, or Old Gray-headed Decorah; (2) Augah, or the Black Decorah, named by La Ronde, Ruch-ka-scha-ka, or White Pigeon; (3) Anaugah, or the Raisin Decorah, named by La Ronde, Chou-me-ne-ka-ka; (4) Nah-ha-sauch-e-ka, or Rascal Decorah; (5) Wau-kon-ga-ka, or the Thunder Hearer; (6) Ong-skaka, or White Wolf, who died young. Three of the daughters married Indians. One married a trapper named Dennis De Riviere and later married Perische Grignon. The other married Jean Lecuyer.
Cyrus Thomas17 makes the statement that, "From Choukeka's daughters who married white men are descended several well known families of Wisconsin and Minnesota."
Chah-post-kaw-kaw, or the Buzzard Decorah, was the second son of De Carrie and "Glory of the Morning." He settled at La Crosse in 1787, with a band of Winnebagoes, and was soon after killed there. He had two sons: (1) Big Canoe, or One-eyed Decorah, and (2) Wakun-ha-ga, or Snake Skin, known as Waukon Decorah.
Old Gray-headed Decorah, called by the whites Konakah
(eldest) Decorah, often mentioned as Old Dekaury, was the eldest son
and successor of Choukeka Dekaury. His common Indian name was Schachipkaka,
or The War Eagle. The signature "De-ca-ri" attached to the
treaty of Prairie des Chiens (as the word is frequently spelled in early
documents), Michigan Territory, August 19, 1825, is probably that of
Old Dekaury. He signed the treaty of Prairie du Chien, Michigan Territory,
August 1, 1829, as "Hee-tsha-wau-sharp_skaw-kau, or Ehite War Eagle."
Among those representing the Fort Winnebago deputation at the treaty
of Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, Illinois, September 15, 1832, he signed
as "Hee-tshah-wau-saip-skaw-skaw, or White War Eagle, De-kauray,
sr."
Old Decorah was born in 1747, and died at Peten well, the high rock on the Wisconsin river, April 20, 1836, about ninety years old. Old De-kau-ry's town contained over one hundred lodges, and was the largest of the Winnebago villages. Before he died he called a Catholic priest, who baptized him the day of his death.
Before his father's death, in 1816, Old Gray-headed Decorah
had joined a band of Winnebagoes who took part, August 2, 1813, in the
attack led by General
_________
17Of the Bureau of American
Ethnology.
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