Winnebago

[Alan H. Hartley]

David Costa wrote:

> According to HNAI 15: 706, "the name refers to the muddy water of their 
> river (the lower course of the Fox River of Wisconsin plus Lake 
> Winnebago), described by Cadillac as yearly becoming clogged with the 
> rotting bodies of dead fish during the heat of the summer".

Father Paul Le Jeune wrote in the 1640 Jesuit Relation (ed. Thwaites, 
18:228), "le mot Algonquin signifie eau puante", and later sources for 
Montagnais/Naskapi (of the Cree subgroup) gloss the word as 'sea'. 
Inland Algonquians used it for various (largish?) bodies of odoriferous 
water.

Alan