Winnebago Indian Tribe

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The Winnebago Indians were first discovered by the French in 1634, at the western end of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We do not know how long they had been living in this region, but based on the archaeological evidence, they did not reach Wisconsin much before A.D. 1400. The Winnebago’s were taller than other natives (taller than most Europeans). Their clothing was fringed buckskin, which the Winnebago frequently decorated with beautiful designs created from porcupine quills, feathers and beads .Men originally wore their hair in two long braids, but in time this changed to the scalp-lock and roach headdress favored by the Algonquin. Body tattooing was common to both genders. The Winnebago’s named themselves the Ho-chunk. The Ho-Chunks are originally from the Illinois and Wisconsin by the Great Lakes. In the 19th century the U.S. government forced the Winnebago and Ho-chunk tribes to move their reservations west of Wisconsin to Minnesota, North Dakota and finally in Nebraska. Through these moves, many tribe members returned to previous homes. The U.S. government finally allowed the Wisconsin Winnebago’s or Ho-Chunks to stay in the Green Bay area, but most of their descendents live in Nebraska today. The Ho-Chunk, which means “Big Voice” were given the name “Winnebago” by their neighbors the “Algonquians” and Winnebago means “smelly or filthy water”. They were not given this name as an insult, but because they lived near Lake Winnebago and this lake had a very strong fish smell in the summer. Ho-chunks use to speak their native Ho-Chunk language. A couple of words from their native language are “Haho”-this is a friendly greeting like hello and “Pinagigi” (pee-nah-gee-gee) which means thank you. Today the Ho-Chunks now speak English. The Winnebago/ Ho-Chunk Indians lived in villages made of rectangular houses made out birch bark shingles on the outside; they never

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