Some placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.

The Menominee (also spelled Menomini in early scholarly literature; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people" in their own language) are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin.

The Menominee: Wisconsin's indigenous people[link]

The Menominee are one of the tribes of Wisconsin and have been there for a reasonable number of years.^[2] They are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and their reservation sits 60 miles west of the site of their Creation; where the Menominee River meets the bay of Green Bay (referring to the body of water, not the city) in the present city of Marinette, Wisconsin.^[3] The name "Menominee" comes from the Ojibwe name manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as wild rice is one of their most important traditional staples.^[4]

The Menominee were a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation who had the reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota people, ancestors of several tribes throughout the Midwest, migrated into Wisconsin between A.D.800 and A.D.900, the indigenous Menominee shared the forests and waters with these people and developed and maintained a friendship with them that exists to this day.

First European encounter[link]

Hundreds of years later, in 1634, it was the Menominee and Winnebago (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) who witnessed French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing at what is now Red Banks near the present day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols. For no less than forty years and counting, elementary students studying Wisconsin history are exposed to eurocentric bias when they learn how the native people feared the light-skinned man who could make thunder. More likely the native people feared for the light-skinned man who had demonstrated questionable mental faculties as anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge knows not to stand up in a canoe on the choppy waters of the bay of Green Bay!^[5]

Menominee Indian Reservation[link]

Tribal office in Keshena

The Menominee Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee. However, there are many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) that are not considered to be part of the reservation. These pockets amount to a fairly small 1.14 percent of the county's area, so that, essentially, the reservation is only about 98.86 percent of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena. Furthermore, the reservation has a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m²) in Winnebago County, to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km²), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.111 km²). The non-reservation parts of the county are actually much more densely populated than the reservation, with 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population in the 2000 census.^[6] The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. They operate a number of gambling facilities and speak the Menominee language.^[7]

History of the reservation[link]

The reservation was created in a treaty signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km²) on the Wolf River. An additional treaty signed on February 11, 1856 carved out the southwestern corner of this area, creating a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Munsee tribes. These are the same boundaries in existence today.

Communities[link]

• Keshena (most, population 1,168)
• Legend Lake (most, population 853)
• Middle Village (part, population 106)
• Neopit (most, population 637)
• Zoar (most, population 35)

History of the Menominee[link]

Amiskquew, a mid-19th century Menominee warrior, from History of the Indian Tribes of North America.

Spearing Salmon By Torchlight, an oil painting by Paul Kane depicting Menominees spearfishing at night by torchlight and canoe on Fox River.

Dan Waupoose, a Menomini chief; Algiers, La. U.S. Navy photograph, August 24, 1943.

The tribe formerly lived in what is now upper Michigan around Mackinac. John Reed Swanton records in his The Indian Tribes of North America under the "Wisconsin" section listing "Menominee" a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich."^[8] Father Frederic Baraga in his dictionary records "Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians, (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes,) who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived."^[9] Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. After helping the British and Canadians defeat the invading Americans at Battle of Mackinac Island, ‎they sold their lands to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, they were moved to their present reservation. Although their customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes.

An Eastern Woodlands tribe, the Menominee belong to the Algonquian language branch of North America. They were known as "folles avoines" (wild or foolish oats) by the early French. The Menominees formerly subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important foods; feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served. The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose.

The Menominee Tribe and the termination era[link]

During the 1940s, the Menominee were identified for a U.S. program of termination, legally ending the Menominee's status as a sovereign nation. The Klamath in Oregon were the only other tribal group also identified for termination. The Menominee were chosen for termination because it was believed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs they were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be free of federal oversight.

In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). The area of the former reservation became a new county.

Even by eventual federal measures, the plan was a dismal failure, resulting in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe, and forcing the closure of the hospital and some schools. Menominee County, Wisconsin, was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination further devastated the region. Tribal industries alone could not sustain the community, and the tax base could not fund basic services for the Menominee. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 in 1964.^[10] A 1967 plan by MEI to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans resulted in a fierce backlash.

Community members began an organizing campaign to restore political sovereignty to the Menominee. Former tribe members, among them Ada Deer, an organizer who would later go on to a career as an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level, formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS) in 1970. The organization was successful at blocking the sale of tribal land to non-Indian developers. They successfully fought for control of the MEI board of directors and lobbied Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe.^[11]

The lobbying was successful, resulting in a bill signed by Richard Nixon on December 22, 1973, which recognized the tribe again and started them on the path towards reforming a reservation. The reservation was reformed in 1975, a tribal constitution was signed in 1976, and the new tribal government took over in 1979.

Culture[link]

Menominee mythology is rich with ethical meaning and interrelated in complex ways with the sacred literature of Native American people.

The Menominee believed that the earth was separating the upper and lower worlds. The upper world represented good and the lower world represented evil. These two worlds were divided into several layers, the furthest being the most powerful. The sun was at the highest level in the upper world, followed by the Thunderbird and the Morning Star; the Golden Eagles (symbols of war); and other birds led by the Bald Eagle. The first level below the earth in the lower world was occupied by the Horned Serpent. The next level was the home of the White Deer, which contributed to the origins of the Medicine Dance. The next level was the Underwater Panther. The lowest level was ruled by the Great White Bear.

The Menominee used dreaming as a way of connecting with a guardian spirit in order to gain power. During puberty, both boys and girls would fast for days, living in a small isolated wigwam. Medicine men would then interpret their dreams of spirits in animal form and would inform the youngster what responsibilities he or she owed to the guardian spirit.^[12]

Current tribal activities[link]

The Menominee have a community college called the College of Menominee Nation, which contains a Sustainable Development Institute.^[13]

The tribe also owns and operates a Las Vegas style casino, bingo and hotel that has been in operation since June 5, 1987. Approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are of Native American descent or are spouses of Native Americans.^[14]

The nation also has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program.^[15] In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly 235,000 acres (950 km²), they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has risen to 1.7 billion board feet, and in the intervening years over 2.25 billion board feet have been harvested.^[16]

Notable Menominees[link]

• Chrystos, a Two-Spirit identified poet
• Ada Deer—Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
• Billie Frechette, lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
• Mitchell Oshkenaniew^[17]
• Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858)
• Ingrid Washinawatok—Co-Founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist, killed by the FARC in Colombia, 1999
• Sheila Tousey --actress, Thunderheart
• Wallace Pyawasit, Merceline Sanapaw, and Margaret Richmond: Menominee Language Resource Consultants for the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project(WNALP),a collaborative effort of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Native American Studies Program and the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council (1973—1976). The goal of the WNALP was to bring Native Speakers, linguists and educators together to, not only prevent the loss of Wisconsin native languages, but to create instructional materials, lexicons, vocabularies and audio recordings to prepare native speakers for teaching their language to children from Head Start through High School. Another goal was to offer adults of all ages the opportunity to learn their language and become language teachers.^[18]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
• Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
• Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
• Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.

External links[link]

• Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
• Menominee Language Lessons
• Menominee Clan System
• The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today
• Excerpt of "Wisconsin" entry in Swanton's works
• Information regarding Menominee clans at University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
•  "Menominee Indians". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• Information on treaties between the United States and the Menominee
• "Menominee Termination and Restoration" from the Milwaukee Public Museum