Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocąk, Hoocągra, or Winnebago are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Today, Ho-Chunk people are enrolled in two federally recognized tribes: the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
In the Late Woodland Period, precontact Ho-Chunks built thousands of effigy mounds in Wisconsin and surrounding states. They are successors to the Oneota culture. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Ho-Chunk were the dominant tribe in its territory in the 16th century, with a population estimated at several thousand. They lived in permanent villages of wigwams and cultivated corn, squash, beans, wild rice. They hunted wild animals, and fished from canoes. The name Ho-Chunk comes from the word Hoocąk and "Hoocąkra", meaning "People of the Sacred Voice". Their name comes from oral history that state they are the originators of the many branches of the Siouan language. The Ho-Chunk have 12 clans, each with specific roles. Wars with the Illinois Confederacy and later wars with the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Meskwaki, and Sauk peoples pushed them out of their territories in eastern Wisconsin and Illinois, along with conflicts with the United States such as Winnebago War and Black Hawk War. The Ho-Chunk suffered severe population loss in the 17th century to a low of perhaps 500 individuals. This has been attributed to casualties of a lake storm, epidemics of infectious disease, and competition for resources from migrating Algonquian tribes. By the early 19th century, their population had increased to 2,900, but they suffered further losses in the smallpox epidemic of 1836. In 1990 they numbered 7,000; current estimates of total population of the two tribes are 12,000.
Through a series of moves imposed by the U.S. government in the 19th century, the tribe was relocated to reservations increasingly further west: in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and finally Nebraska. Oral history suggests some of the tribe may have been forcibly relocated up to 13 times by the federal government through forced treaty cession, losses estimated at 30 million acres in Wisconsin alone. During these removals, bands of Ho-Chunk hid out in Wisconsin rather than be moved.
In 1832, other bands of Ho-Chunk were moved to the Neutral Ground Reservation in eastern Iowa and the southeastern tip of Minnesota, where they faced hostile conditions between the warring Dakota people and Sauk peoples and a small pox outbreak. In 1846, they signed a treaty which exchanged the Neutral Ground lands for a new reservation known as "Long Prairie Reservation" in Todd County, Minnesota. In 1855, this group signed its final treaty for Minnesota land giving back the Long Prairie Reservation in exchange for land near Mankato, Minnesota. This new reservation was referred to as the "Blue Earth Reservation". After the Dakota War of 1862 and tensions created by the hate group Knights of the Forest, about 2,000 Ho-Chunk were interned at Camp Porter in Mankato before being expelled from Minnesota to Crow Creek, South Dakota in 1863.
The Ho-Chunk often nonviolently resisted removal by staying home, or simply returning home, rather than engaging in uprisings. Poor conditions at Crow Creek led many Ho-Chunk to leave for the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska. The Winnebago Reservation was founded for the Ho-Chunk in Nebraska in 1865. The Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin is considered a "non-reservation" tribe, as members historically had to acquire individual homesteads in order to regain title to ancestral territory. They hold land in more than 13 counties in Wisconsin and have land in Illinois. The federal government has granted legal reservation status to some of these parcels, but the Ho-Chunk Nation does not have a contiguous reservation. While related, the two tribes are distinct federally recognized sovereign nations and peoples, each with its own constitutionally formed government and completely separate governing and business interests. Since the late 20th century, both tribal councils have authorized the development of casinos. The Ho-Chunk Nation is working on language restoration and has developed a Hoocąk-language iOS app and online dictionary.
Name
The Ho-Chunk speak a Siouan language, which they believe was given to them by their creator, Mą’ųna. Their native name is Ho-Chunk, which has been variously translated as "sacred voice" or "People of the Big Voice", meaning mother tongue, as in they originated the Siouan language family.Neighboring Siouan tribes refer to the Ho-Chunk by translations of their name into their language, such as Hotúŋe in the Iowa-Otoe language) or Hotháŋka in the Dakota language. The term "Winnebago" is a term used by the Potawatomi, pronounced as "Winnipego". Winnebago was later adopted by the French and English, and today refers to the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
The Jesuit Relations of 1659–1660 said:
Nicolas Perrot was a 17th-century French trader who believed that the Algonquian terms referred to saltwater seas, as these have a distinctive aroma compared with freshwater lakes. An early Jesuit record says that the name refers to the origin of Le Puans near the saltwater seas to the north. When the explorers Jean Nicolet and Samuel de Champlain learned of the "sea" connection to the tribe's name, they were optimistic that it meant Les Puans were from or had lived near the Pacific Ocean. They hoped it indicated a passage to China via the great rivers of the Midwest.
Culture
Before Europeans entered into Ho-Chunk territory, the Ho-Chunk were nomadic and intimately knew their vast homelands. They farmed, hunted, and gathered wild foods from local sources, including nuts, berries, roots, and edible leaves. They knew what the forest and river's edge had to give. With the changing seasons, Ho-Chunk families moved from area to area to find food. For example, many families returned to Black River Falls, Wisconsin, to pick berries in the summer.All genders had culturally defined roles in making best use of resources. Ho-Chunk women were responsible for growing, gathering, and processing food for their families, including the cultivation of varieties of corn and squash, in order to have different types through the growing season; and gathering a wide variety of roots, nuts, and berries, as well as sap from maple trees. In addition, women learned to recognize and use a wide range of roots and leaves for medicinal and herbal purposes. The maple sap was used to make syrup and candy. Women also processed and cooked game, making dried meats combined with berries to sustain their families when traveling. Tanned hides were used to make clothing and storage bags. They used most parts of the game for tools, binding, clothing, and coverings for dwellings. They were responsible for the survival of the families, caring for the children as well as elders.
The main role of the Ho-Chunk man was as a hunter—and a warrior when needed. Leaders among the men interfaced with other tribes. As hunters, they speared fish and clubbed them to death. The men also hunted game such as muskrat, mink, otter, beaver, and deer. Some men learned to create jewelry and other body decorations out of silver and copper, for both men and women. To become men, boys would go through a rite of passage at puberty: they fasted for a period during which they were expected to acquire a guardian spirit; without it, their lives would be miserable.
Besides having a guardian spirit, men would also try to acquire protection and powers from specific spirits, which was done by making offerings along with tobacco. For example, a man would not go on the warpath without first performing the "war-bundle feast", which contained two parts. The first part honored the night-spirits and the second part honored the Thunderbird spirit. The blessings these spirits gave the men were embodied in objects that together made the war-bundle. These objects could include feathers, bones, skins, flutes, and paints.
History
Ancestral Ho-Chunk
Ho-Chunk oral history says they have always lived in their current homelands of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. Their Siouan language indicates common origin with other peoples of this language group. They say their ancestors built the thousands of effigy mounds through Wisconsin and surrounding states during the Late Woodland period. In the Terminal Late Woodland Period, the practice of building effigy mounds abruptly ceased with the appearance of the Oneota Culture. The Ho-Chunk claim descendancy from both the effigy mound-building Late Woodland cultures and the successor Oneota Culture. The tribe began cultivating maize at the end of the Late Woodland period, while they continued to hunt, fish, and gather wild plants. They cultivated wild rice and harvested sugar from sugar maple trees.Dugout canoes found near many small lakes and rivers are prompting new anthropological research projects near Madison, Wisconsin, that may yield better information about ancient settlements.