Ho-Chunk - Etymology

Etymology

The Winnebago speak a Siouan language and their name for themselves, or autonym, is Ho-Chunk (Hocąk). It has had numerous spelling variations: Hocak, Hotanke, Houchugarra, Hotcangara, Ochungaraw, Ochungarah, Hochungra Hochungara, and Ochangara, as Europeans tried to transliterate the name. Translations include: "the fish eaters," "the trout people," "the big fish people", "the big speech people," "the people of the big voice," "the people of the parent speech", and "the people of the original language." Current elders say it means, "the people of the big voice" or "the people of the sacred language.".

The term "Winnebago" was derived from an exonym, that is, a name given to the people by others, in this case, the neighboring Algonquian-speaking tribes, such as the Fox, Sauk, and Ojibway (Ojibwe/Chippewa). Various spellings exist, reflecting the French and English colonists' attempts to record transliterations of the Algonquian words for the people. These include: "Winnebago, Wiinibiigoo, Wuinebagoes, Ouinepegi, Ouinipegouek, and Winipeg". This name has been variously translated as, "people of the stinking water," "people of the filthy water," "people of the stagnant water'" and "people of the smelly waters."

The Algonquian words do not have the negative overtones associated with the French word puant and the English word "stinky." The French translated and shortened the name to simply les puants (or les puans), which was translated into English as "the Stinkards." Many researchers believe that the waters referred to were either stagnant waters of Green Bay or the aromatic, algae-filled waters of the rivers or lakes where the Winnebago were living in the mid-17th century. The earliest reports indicate that both the French explorers and the First Nations people understood the name to refer to their place of origin, not where they were living at the time of European encounter. They had migrated from earlier territories. While the names Lac des Puans (for Lake Michigan on a map from 1650) and Le Baye des Puans (on later maps) led some historians to conclude these referred to the condition of the waters, early records of both bodies reported them as clear and fresh. The waters were named after the American Indian people then living on their shores.

Nicholas Perrot was an early 20th-century historian who believed that the Algonquian terms referred to salt-water seas, as these have a distinctive aroma compared with fresh-water lakes. An early Jesuit record says that the name refers to the origin of Le Puans near the salt water seas to the north. Algonquians also called the Winnebago, "the people of the sea." (A Native people who lived on the shores of Hudson Bay were called by the same name.)

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.

In recent studies, ethnologists say that the Winnebago, like the other Siouan-speaking peoples, originated or coalesced on the east coast of North America and gradually migrated west. The early 20th-century researcher H.R. Holand said they originated in Mexico, where they had contact with the Spanish and gained a knowledge of horses. He cites the records of Jonathan Carver, who lived with the Winnebago in 1766-1768. But, contact with the Spanish could have occurred along the Gulf of Mexico or the south Atlantic coast, where other Siouan tribes originated and lived for centuries. Others suggested that the Winnebago originated in salt water areas, to explain how mid-western tribes had a knowledge of the Pacific Ocean, which they described as where the earth ends and the sun "sets into the sea." The Ho-Chunk say that their people have always lived in what is now the north central United States. Linguistic and ethnographic studies have generated other deep histories of the various American Indian peoples.