Note 39 — Front matter (continued 2)

(page page 52).—This is incorrect. The French popularly called the Winnebagoes “Puants” (stinkards), a term long supposed to be a literal translation of Winepegou, the name given this tribe by its neighbors. But later investigation proves that Winepegou meant “men from the fetid water,” or “the fetids.” At first, these people were called by the French, “Tribe of the Sea,” because it was thought that salt-water must be meant by the term “fetid.” As the continent was not then thought to be as wide as it has since proved to be, the early French inferred that the Winnebagoes must live on or near the ocean, and might be Chinese. When Champlain sent Jean Nicolet to make a treaty with the Winnebagoes, he equipped the latter with an ambassadorial costume suitable for meeting mandarins. Nicolet was much disappointed to find them at Green Bay, merely naked savages. Baye des Puans (or Puants) was the French name for Green Bay, until well into the eighteenth century. It is now thought that the Winnebagoes came to Wisconsin from the Lake Winnipeg region, and obtained their name from sulphur springs in the neighborhood of which they had lived. They are an outcast branch of the Dakotan stock.