Note 457 — Chapter V

Le Jeune to Vimont, in the Relation of 1640, writes: “Some Frenchmen call them the ‘Nation of Stinkers,’ because the Algonquin word Ouinipeg signifies ‘stinking water.’ They thus call the water of the sea. Therefore these people call themselves ‘Ouinipegous,’ because they come from the shores of a sea of which we have no knowledge; and we must not call them the Nation of Stinkers, but the ‘Nation of the Sea.’”