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   Winnebago or Ho-Chunk

Ho-Chunk or Winnebago flag

   Like many other tribes, the Winnebago's name is not what they called themselves. It comes from a Fox word "Ouinipegouek" meaning "people of the stinking water." No insult was intended. Instead, the name referred to algae-rich waters of the Fox River and Lake Winnebago where the Winnebago originally lived. The French translated this as "stinking people" and shortened it to Puan. In its English form, it became Stinkard. For obvious reasons, the Winnebago have never been overly fond of this name. They call themselves Hochungra (Hochungara, Hotcangara, Ochangra) "people of the big speech" - perhaps better rendered as "people of the parent speech" referring to their role as "grandfathers," the original people from which other Siouan-speaking tribes sprang. Dissatisfied with their Algonquin name, the Wisconsin Winnebago recently changed their official name to Hocak Nation (pronounced Hochunk).

Winnebago chief WA-KAWN

   The Winnebago do not remember a time when they did not live at Red Banks on the south shore of Green Bay. Their occupation of Wisconsin is very ancient, perhaps thousands of years. Although they have no memories of mound-building, they may well be descendents of the earlier Mississippian, Hopewell, and Adena cultures. Their homeland lay between Green Bay and Lake Winnebago in northeast Wisconsin but they dominated the area from Upper Michigan south to present-day Milwaukee extending west to the Mississippi. Beginning in the 1640s, thousands of Algonquin refugees from the Beaver Wars (1630-1701) invaded Wisconsin from the east, and the resulting wars and epidemics brought the resident tribes, Winnebago and Menominee, to the point of near extinction. The Winnebago who survived remained near Green Bay but were forced to share their homeland with other tribes.

Hoo-wan-ne-ka, Winnebago Chief

   Mention Sioux, and visions of war bonnets, horses, buffalo, and tepees flood the mind. However, this would be a poor description of the Winnebago. Although the Winnebago spoke a Siouan language, they were very much a woodland tribe whose lifestyle and dress closely resembled their Algonquin neighbors in the upper Great Lakes. Like other Siouan-speaking peoples, the Winnebago were taller than other natives (for that matter, taller than most Europeans). Nicollet in 1634 described them as brave but lacking in humility ...almost to the point of arrogance. Their clothing was fringed buckskin, which the Winnebago frequently decorated with beautiful designs created from porcupine quills, feathers and beads - a skill for which they are still renown. Men originally wore their hair in two long braids, but in time of war this changed to the scalplock and roach headdress favored by the Algonquin. Body tattooing was common to both sexes.

Indian tools

   In the process of rebuilding their population after 1670, the Winnebago frequently intermarried with Algonquin. So much so, it has been suggested they lost their original traditions and replaced them with Algonquin. However, prior to contact the Winnebago resembled the Algonquin in so many ways, there was not that much to change. The Winnebago were one of the northernmost agricultural tribes. In spite of a limited growing season, the Winnebago successfully grew three types of corn together with beans, squash, and tobacco. They supplemented this with fishing and hunting, including buffalo from the prairies of southern Wisconsin. Using dugout canoes (rather than the lighter birchbark variety used by the Ojibwe and Ottawa), they also gathered wild rice from the nearby lakes during the fall. The Winnebago used pottery for cooking and food storage, and copper implements were fairly common since it was easily available from the south shore of Lake Superior.

Winnebago family

   The Winnebago also resembled the Algonquin in that they were patrilineal with descent and clan membership determined by the father. Winnebago clans served both ceremonial and social functions, but in distinctive Siouan characteristic, were grouped into two major divisions, or moieties: an Upper (Sky) with four clans; and a Lower (Earth) having eight. Of these, the Thunderbird and Bear clans were the most important with the hereditary head chief of the Winnebago almost always chosen from the Thunderbird clan. Clan membership was more important among the Winnebago than band affiliation, and a Winnebago chief governed with the help of a council composed of the principal members of each clan. Despite intermarriage with Algonquin, it would appear the Winnebago made few changes to their traditional social or political structures.

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