WISCONSIN TRIBES REPRESENTED AT FESTIVAL

Wisconsin is home to 11 federally-recognized American Indian tribes and they will all be at Indian Summer. Here's some things you may not already know about them.

The Chippewa Tribe: One of the largest American Indian tribes in the U.S., Chippewa primarily live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and southern Canada. Chippewa are usually referred to as 'Ojibway' in Canada, which can also be spelled Ojibwe, and Ojibwa. The names come from an Algonquian word meaning 'puckered,' probably because of the tribe's puckered moccasin style shoe. In Ojibway, the word for a friendly hello is "aaniin" (pronounced ah-neen) and "miigwech" (pronounced mee-gwetch) means "thank you."

The Ho-Chunk Tribe: Ho-Chunk comes from their own name "hocak," which means "big voice." The Ho-Chunks are original residents of the Great Lakes area, particularly in Wisconsin and Illinois. Many Ho-Chunk people still live in Wisconsin, but in earlier times, many of their people were forced to move westward by the US government, and most of their descendants live in Nebraska today. In Ho-Chunk, a friendly greeting is called "haho" (pronounced hah-hoh) and "pinagigi" (pronounced pee-nah-gee-gee) means 'thank you.'

The Menominee Tribe: Of all the surviving Native American peoples in Wisconsin, the Menominee and the Ho-chunk are the only ones who claim to be original to the area. Menominee means "wild rice people." Today. Menominee is an endangered language because most children aren't learning it anymore. However, some Menominee people are working to keep their language alive. One easy word to learn is "posoh" which is a friendly greeting.

The Potawatomi Tribe: Potawatomi means "fire keepers" and refers to their traditional role in the Council of the Three Fires, an alliance with their Ojibwe and Odawa neighbors. Primarily from Michigan, many Potawatomi were forced to migrate westward and many settled in Wisconsin. In the U.S. the Potawatomi communities are called tribes and in Canada, they are referred to as First Nations. A friendly greeting in Potawatomi is bozho and and iwgwien (pronounced similar to "ee-gwee-EN") which means 'thank you.'

The Fox and Sauk Tribes: They were originally two tribes: the Sauk (or Sac) tribe and the Meskwaki (or Fox) tribe. The Meskwaki and Sauk Indians were related to each other and spoke the same language, but they were politically independent. However, the Fox tribe was nearly destroyed in a war with the French, and the surviving Fox Indians fled to the Sauk villages for protection. The two tribes merged into a single tribe called the Sac and Fox. Most Sac and Fox people still live together today. Fox is pronounced like the animal. Their own name for themselves, Meskwaki (also spelled Mesquakie or Mesquaki) is pronounced "mesk-wah-kee" and means "red earth people." Sauk (pronounced "sock") comes from the native name Asakiwaki, which means "yellow earth people." In the language of the Fox and Sauk, "ho" (pronounced like the English word "hoe") is a friendly greeting.

The Cheyenne Tribe: The Dakota Sioux name for the Cheyennes is Šahiyenan, which may mean "relatives of the Cree." In their own language, the Cheyenne call themselves Tsitsistas, "the people." The capital of Wyoming is named after the Cheyenne tribe, and so are the Cheyenne River (in Wyoming and South Dakota) and the Sheyenne River (in North Dakota.) Most Cheyenne words are very long and have vowels that are difficult for English speakers to pronounce, but one easy word to learn is "Epeva'e" (pronounced similar to "eh-peh-va,") which means "It is good!"

The Dakota Sioux Tribe: The original Dakota or Lakota homelands were in what is now Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota. "Sioux" comes from the Ojibway name for the tribe, which means "little snakes." In Sioux, "hau" (pronounced similar to the English word "how") is a friendly greeting in both the Lakota and Dakota dialects, and "wašte" (pronounced wash-tay) means "good."

The Huron Tribe: Huron was the French name for the Wyandot tribe. It means "wild boar" in French. The French thought that the Mohawk haircuts of the Huron warriors looked like the bristles on a wild boar's neck. Like the Potawatomi, a Wyandot community is known as a tribe in the US and a First Nation in Canada. The Wyandot people in the United States speak English today, and in Canada, most Hurons speak French. In the past, they spoke their native Huron-Wendat language. The last fluent Huron-Wendat speakers died in the 1960's, but there are still Wyandot elders who remember some of the language.

The Illini Tribe: Illini is pronounced "ih-LIE-nee," and Illinois is pronounced "ih-lih-NOY" (like the state, which is named after the tribe.) They are both European adaptations of the Illinois Indians' original word for themselves, Illiniwek (pronounced "ih-lih-new-eck,") which means "the best people." In the past, the Illini spoke their native Miami-Illinois language. It has this long name because two tribes, the Miami and Illini tribes, spoke the same language with different accents--just like Americans and Canadians both speak English. The Illinois Indian language is not spoken anymore, but here are two Illinois words that are easy to learn: aya (pronounced ah-yah) which means "hello," and niihka (pronounced nee-ka) which means "friend."

The Oneida tribe: Oneida comes from their word for themselves in their own language, Onyota'aka, which means "people of the standing stone." The Oneida tribe was one of the original members of the Iroquois Confederacy, or Kanonsionni in their own language ("league of clans.") The other member nations were the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Cayuga, and the Onondaga. Later a sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined the confederacy. Today these long-term allies refer to themselves as the Haudenosaunee ("people of the longhouse") or Six Nations. Oneida is an endangered language. Most Oneida speakers are elders, but some young people are working to keep their ancestral language alive. In Oneida, "shekó:lih" (pronounced sheh-koh-leeh) is a friendly greeting, and "yawv́" (pronounced similar to yah-wunh) means 'thank you.'