Note I-37 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

Our name of these Siouan Indians comes from their Algonkin appellation, which reached us through an assortment of French forms like Ouinipigou (as Vimont, Relation, 1640), etc., several of which have served as the originals of place-names now fixed in current usage. The term Puants, meaning Stinkers, was the French nickname. It is found as Puans, Pauns, Pawns, Paunts, etc., originated very early, and was much in vogue. On the old map cited in the foregoing note appears the legend "La Nation des Puans," though these Indians, with their Green bay, are marked on it N. instead of S. of Lakes Superior and Huron. The Stinkards gave occasion for a Latin synonym, as seen in the phrase "Magnus Lacus Algonquiniorum seu Lacus Fœtentium" of De Creux's map, Hist. Canada, Paris, 1664. They were also called Gens de Mer, Sea People. Jean Nicolet of Cherbourg in France, in the service of Champlain's Hundred Associates, believed to have been the first white man to enter Green bay, in July, 1634, calls them by their own name of themselves, which he renders Ochunkgraw, and which later acquired a variety of forms: see note44, p. 39, and Butterfield's Disc. N. W., 1881, passim, esp. p. 38.