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UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
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THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
INDIAN HISTORY OF
WINNESHIEK COUNTY
BY
CHARLES PHILIP HEXOM
INDIAN HISTORY OF
WINNESHIEK COUNTY
Compiled by CHARLES PHILIP HEXOM :
A. K. BAILEY & SON, INCORPORATED DECORAH, IOWA
1913
Copyright, 1913 CHARLES PHILIP HEXOM
E 100 I6HS
PREFACE
In the preparation of this article it has been the compiler's aim to make the work as complete and correct as possible. Dili- gent search has been made for information, and considerable pains have been taken to give the people of Winneshiek county a reliable account of the Indians who once inhabited this section of the country. The writer has discovered that a number of erroneous statements in regard to these Indians have unfortu- nately found their way into print. In such instances every effort has been made to procure accurate information.
In gathering the data here assembled the writer has had the kind assistance of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Iowa Library Commission, and the United States Ethnological Bu- reau. Thanks are also due to Oliver Lamere (a first cousin of Angel De Cora), who has made diligent search for desired in- formation among members of his tribe on their reservation in Nebraska; Geo. W. Kingsley, Angel De Cora, Little Winne- shiek, and Antoine Grignon (all of whom are Winnebago In- dians, except the last, who is part Winnebago and part Sioux) ; Dr. Eben D. Pierce; Roger C. Mackenstadt; Chas. H. Saun- ders, and H. J. Goddard.
All of the above have responded in a most gratifying man- ner to requests for information, some of them taking the trouble to prepare long communications, which have been indispensable in the preparation of the following article and which the writer cherishes as among his most valued possessions. All quotations credited to them in this article have been taken from letters re- ceived by the writer since December, 1912.
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In regard to Angel De Cora, a summary of her career is given in the body of the article, where the main facts about Antoine Grignon's life will also be found. That the reader may form a proper conception of the value of the information im- parted by other individuals mentioned above (and all this has a bearing on the trustworthiness of the article), the following statements are appended :---
"During the month of August, 1911, there came to Madison from the Nebraska reservation two Winnebago Indians, Mr. Oliver Lamere and Mr. John Rave. Both men were in the em- ploy of Dr. Paul Radin of the American Bureau of Ethnology, who for several years past has been conducting researches among their tribe for the government. They remained in Wis- consin until the first weeks in September. Both were Indians of exceptional intelligence. Mr. Lamere is a grandson of Alex- ander Lamere, one of the group of early Lake Koshkonong fur- traders, and a grandson of Oliver Armel, an early Madison fur- trader. Mr. Lamere [Oliver] acted as Dr. Radin's assistant and interpreter." From an article in "The Wisconsin Archeolo- gist," 1911, by Charles E. Brown, secretary and curator of The Wisconsin Archeological Society, and chief of The State (Wis.) Historical Museum, Madison, Wis.
"George Kingsley * a member of the Wiscon- sin Branch of the Winnebago Tribe of Indians, I consider to be the best authority on these matters."-L. M. Compton, Super- intendent of Tomah School (United States Indian Service), Wisconsin.
Dr. Eben D. Pierce is a member of the state (Wis.) and county (Trempealeau) Historical Societies. He has written a biography of Antoine Grignon, a short history of the Winne- bago Indians, and has contributed several articles on the history of that section.
Roger C. Mackenstadt, now at the Uintah and Ouray In- dian Agency, Utah, was formerly chief clerk at the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska.
Chas. H. Saunders is a white man who has lived with the Indians most of the time (since he was thirteen years old). He married into the Waukon family of Winnebago Indians, whose language he speaks fluently. He was raised at Lansing, Ia., and was for a number of years a resident of Wisconsin. He now re- sides in Nebraska.
H. J. Goddard of Fort Atkinson has been a resident of Winneshiek county since 1849. Mr. Goddard has willingly placed at the disposal of the writer his well-stored memory of early recollections. He is a Civil War veteran and is thus es- pecially competent to speak with authority in regard to military matters connected with the fort.
Other old settlers have also responded cheerfully to re- quests for information. In most instances their names appear in the article. The writer acknowledges a debt of gratitude to them all.
The following authorities have been consulted :
"History of Winneshiek and Allamakee Counties." -- W. E. Alexander, 1882.
"Atlas of Winneshiek County."-Anderson & Goodwin, 1905.
"The Making of Iowa."-Henry Sabin, LL. D., 1900.
"History of Iowa," v. I .- G. F. Gue, 1903.
"The Red Men of Iowa."-A. R. Fulton, 1882.
"The Indian, The Northwest."-C. & N. W. Ry., 1901.
"North Americans of Yesterday."-F. S. Dellenbaugh.
"Handbook of American Indians."-B. of A. E., 1911.
"Smithsonian Report," 1885.
"Annals of Iowa." 1
"The Wisconsin Archeologist." ยช
CHARLES PHILIP HEXOM. June 18, 1913.
1 Articles by Eliphalet Price, C. A. Clark, and War Dept. Records of Fort Atkinson.
" " The Winnebago Tribe," by P. V. Lawson, LL. B.
THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE
Taki maka a-icha'gha hena mita'wa-ye lo-Yo, yoyo! All that grows upon the earth is mine-Yo, yoyo! -Translation of a Sioux song.
The Winnebago tribe is the fourth group of the great Siouan, or Dakota, family. The Wninebagoes were styled by the Sioux, Hotanke, or the "big-voiced people;" by the Chippe- was, Winipig, or "filthy water ;" by the Sauks and Foxes, Wini- pyagohagi, 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 Ochungurah, 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 ancestral." Thus the Winnebagoes called 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-ize, 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 "con- federated," "allied."
1
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 Carolina, and Mississippi were the homes of tribes now extinct, which eth- nologists class as belonging to the Siouans .* The prehistoric migration of these Indians, which undoubtedly was gradual, pro- ceeded 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 ex- tended to Lake Winnebago. How long the tribe had main- tained its position in that territory previous to the coming of the whites is unknown. They were then numerous and power- ful. Father Pierre Claude Allouez spent the winter of 1669-70 at Green Bay preaching to the Winnebagoes and their Central Algonquin 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 com- bine all the tribes against the Foxes, the French in some way won over the Winnebagoes. After being on unfriendly terms with the Foxes for several years, the old friendship was re- vived; 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 Winne- bagoes, however, were reluctant to transfer their allegiance to
* "The Siouan Tribes of the East," by James Mooney, Bulletin Bureau of Ethnology, 1894, Washington.
the English ; but when they did, they remained firm in their new fealty. The English were known to the Winnebagoes as Mo"hinto"ga, meaning "Big Knife;" this term is said to have originated from the kind of swords worn by the English .* 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 General 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 in- solent.
The so-called Winnebago War of 1827 was of short dura- tion. The energetic movements of Governor Cass, the prompt- ness of the militia under Colonel Henry Dodge, and the des- patch of General Atkinson of the federal army filled the Winne- bagoes 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 7,000. It might also be men- tioned 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 it- self to the eye of the traveler through their country is the war of sympathy and pity.".
* " The Omaha Tribe," by Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, Eth. Ann. 27, pg. 611.
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 south- ern portion was given over to the Sauks and Foxes. In a coun- cil 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 en- counters 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 "Neu- tral Ground." The tribes on either side were to hunt and fish on it unmolested, a privilege they ceased to enjoy when this terri- tory 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 with- in 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 Winne- bagoes 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 exe- cute such an instrument. Chiefs, also, who were of this party all made the same declaration. *
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 regi- ments of U. S. infantry came to Portage, Wis., 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 Sum- ner, who later was a commanding 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
* Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 6, No. 3, pg. 112.
these tribes they were not on friendly terms. Considerable re- sentment was felt by the Sauks and Foxes towards the Winne- bagoes 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
pos
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 divi- sion, 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 organi- zation for ceremonial and other festivals.
The Winnebago social organization was based on two phra- tries, known as the Upper, or Air, and the Lower, or Earth, divisions. The Upper division contained four clans : (1) Thun- der-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 num-
ber of individual cutsoms, 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, how- ever, 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 or- ganization, 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 Hot- cangara, or Winnebagoes .* They were (1) Shungikikarachada ('Wolf'); (2) Honchikikarachada ('Black Bear'); (3) Huwani- kikarachada ('Elk'); (4) Wakanikikarachada ('Snake'); (5) Waninkikikarachada ("Bird'); (6) Cheikikarachada ('Buffalo') ; (7) Chaikikarachada ('Deer'); (8) Wakchekhiikikarachada ('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.
* The late J. Owen Dorsey of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in Bull. 30, pg. 961.
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 a breechclout, mocca- sins, 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 des- cription of the costume of the Winnebagoes, from which the following is condensed *: "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 occa- sions. The chiefs wear nothing peculiar to designate their office, except it be medals received from the President of the United States.
* Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 6, No. 3, pg. 121.
"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 blankets served for bedding. Branches were heaped around the side walls, and on these, covered with blan- kets, served as a bed.
Mr. Fletcher stated * 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 apertures in the roof. The summer lodge is of lighter materials and is portable."
* Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 6, No. 3, pg. 124, condensed from information furnished to H. R. Schoolcraft.
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 perma- nent 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, per- formed 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 cov- ered 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 accus- tomed 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 were cached in storage pits for future use. Tobacco was raised, but only in small quantities. Notwithstanding the abund- ance 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 to-day of this practice.
Of the Winnebago marriage customs Moses Paquette, who went (1845) to the Presbyterian school at the Turkey river, stated* 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 dis- like 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
* Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 6, No. 3, pg. 126.
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, sup- ported a cross-piece. Against this frame-work were placed wooden slabs.
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