Mountain Wolf Woman

Mountain Wolf Woman, or Xéhachiwinga (1884–1960), was a Native American woman of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) tribe. She was born in April 1884 into the Thunder Clan near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Her parents were Charles Blowsnake and Lucy Goodvillage. She was brought up in the traditional tribal religion; later, she converted to the Peyote religion (Native American Church) after her second marriage. Her life exemplifies a successful adaptation to the larger dominant society while maintaining a serene sense of her own identity as a Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Indian woman. Traditionally, brothers arranged their sisters’ marriages, but she did not like the man her brothers chose and after the birth of her second child, she left him and later married a man of her own choosing.

Her autobiography was transcribed by Nancy Oestreich Lurie and translated in consultation with Frances Thundercloud Wentz. At the time of the interviews for the book, she had eight children, 39 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. Mountain Wolf Woman was then an early full-length autobiography of an American Indian woman. She died at age 76, on November 9, 1960.