A less tenable claim has sometimes been made that they were affiliated with the effigy mound expression of the 'Woodland' archaeological tradition. Scholarly agreement has not been reached as to their place of origin before entering Wisconsin and their archaeological antecedents in the state, but many traditional cultural attributes point to affiliations with the 'Mississippian' cultures of the Southeast. They also are closely related linguistically to the Quapaw, Omaha, and Ponca.Īt the time of French contact, the Ho-Chunk constituted a Siouan island among Algonkian-speaking neighbors such as the Menominee, Ojibwe, Ottawa, and others. Ho-Chunk can be glossed as either Big Voice or Big Fish, Ho being a homonym the translation 'big' really means ancestral or primordial. Their language is related to the Chiwere branch of Siouan that includes the Ioway, Oto, and Missouria, who acknowledge having broken off from the Ho-Chunk and moved west. The Ho-Chunk are a Siouan-speaking people whose presence in present-day Wisconsin was known to the French at Quebec as early as 1616.Īccording to oral tradition, they originated at Red Banks, generally assumed to be a site on the Door Peninsula on Green Bay, where they were located at the time of French contact in the 17th century. View Announcement Search toggle Mobile Menu Toggle Nations in Wisconsin: Sovereignty and Treaty Rights.

Modern Tribal Communities: Politics, Prosperity, and Problems.

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