This is the first part of an account of the tribe's first meeting with the French explorer Jean Nicolet in Green Bay (which extends west from Lake Michigan) in 1634.
First Encounters of the Ho-Chuck Nation and the French
.....Now this is what the old men have said and handed down to us.
Once something appeared in the middle of the lake. They were the French; they were the first to come to Winnebago. The ship came nearer and the Winnebago went to the edge of the lake with offerings of tobacco and white deerskins. There they stood. When the French were about to come ashore they fired their guns off in the air as a salute to the Indians. The Indians said "they are thunderbirds". Then the French landed their boats and came ashore and extended their hands to the Winnebago, and the Indians put tobacco in their hands. The French, of course, wanted to shake hands with the Indians. They did not know what tobacco was, and therefore did not know what to do with it. Some of the Winnebago poured tobacco on their heads asking them for victory in war. The French tried to speak to them, but they could not, of course, make themselves understood. After a while they discovered that they were without tools, so they taught the Indians how to use an ax and chop a tree down. The Indians, however, were afraid of it, because they thought that the ax was holy. Then the French taught the Indians how to use guns, but they held aloof for a long time through fear, thinking that all these things were holy. Suddenly a Frenchman saw an old man smoking and poured water on him. They knew nothing about smoking or tobacco. After a while they got more accustomed to one another. The Indians learned how to shoot the guns and began trading objects for axes. They liked them very much. They would even build fires at night so that they might try their guns, for they could not wait for the day, they were so impatient. When they were out of ammunition they would go to the traders and tell their people that they would soon return. By this time they had learned to make themselves understood b y various signs.
The second time they went to visit the French, they took with them all the various articles that they possessed. Then the French taught them how to sew, how to use an ax, and how to use a knife. Then the leader of the whites took a liking to a Winnebago girl, the daughter of the chief, and he asked her parents for permission to marry her. They told him that her two brothers had the right to give her away in marriage so he asked them and they consented. Then he married her. He lived there and worked for the Indians and stayed with them for many years and he taught them the use of many tools...........
Account recorded by Paul Radin, published in Thirty-Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1915-1916.
www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=723
This account (if it was accurately recalled through the tribe's elders and accurately recorded by Paul Radin) is a fascinating resource to study the relationship between one set of foreigners and the native peoples. I was particularly interested in the reference to thinking guns and knives were holy, as it seems to illustrate the spiritual nature of their existance. I liked the part which spoke of the gift of tobacco, which the French didn't know what to do with. Their action of pouring water on the man who smoked was amusing. They evidently thought he was on fire. Hostility is not recorded at all in this account - only that the exchange of cultures and technologies could bring the two groups together. The fact that at some point, a white man married the chief's daughter indicates the willingness on both sides to mix with each other socially. The time scale within this account is not easy to define. How many years passed between the different events is not mentioned.
Jill Glazier
