Culture and Resource Conflict: Why Meanings Matter

Chapter Six. Ethnographic and Historical Background

Chapter Six Ethnographic and Historical Background “On my vision quest I found myself thinking about trees. They are strong because they stand all the time, some grow together in groups, they are different ages, and even dead ones are standing. My guiding elder said that the trees were sending me their thoughts. Trees have spirits and must be respected.” —A Menominee educator IN THIS CHAPTER we provide historical background on the Menominee and the majority-culture communities. THE MENOMINEE The Menominee have been in Wisconsin for a long, long time—evidence from the tribe’s oral tradition and archaeological records both provide clear evidence that Menominee residence in the area dates back at least several thousand years (Beck 2002). The name of the tribe in the Menominee language is Kayaes Matchitiwuk, which means “original people.” Today, however, they are known and also describe themselves as Menominee , a word that derives from the Algonquin word “manomin,” for wild rice (Zizania aquatica), or “manomini,” “the wild rice people” (Spindler and Spindler 1991). Traditionallly the Menominee have depended on wild rice as a major staple of their diet. According to Menominee legend, their history began when the Great Bear emerged from the mouth of the Menominee River and soon was followed by other spirit beings, including the eagle, beaver, sturgeon, elk, crane, and wolf. These spirits became the Menominee. These animals correspond to the Menominee clans; the clan system continues to this 58 Ethnographic and Historical Background 59 day and marks the Menominee sense that people are not separate from the rest of nature. (“Animals are our cousins; we’re all related,” they say.) The major clans initially were Bear and Eagle. The Menominee are a woodland tribe. Prior to contact with white people , the Menominee seemed to have followed a semi-sedentary seasonalvillage pattern that was organized around hunting, fishing, gathering, and horticulture. They occupied a considerable area of what is now Wisconsin , 9 million acres by one estimate, and were concentrated in part in villages along the Menominee River. The glacial drift left this area with networks of streams, small lakes, and swampy areas linked to rivers flowing either east, to the western shore of Green Bay, or west, to the Mississippi (Keesing 1939/1987). In the 1600s the area was covered with mixed hardwood-coniferous forest, and birch, basswood, oak, cedar, butternut , and hickory were particularly important. Although hunting was important to their survival, at no season did the tribe move far from rivers or lakes. Spearing sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish of the area, carried special meaning, for sturgeon were important to both physical survival and to social and ceremonial life (Beck 2002). In the spring, thousands of sturgeon migrate from Lake Winnebago upstream on the Wolf River to look for spawning sites. On the banks of the river Menominee fishermen waited for the sturgeon ’s arrival in order to spear “the first food of the year.” According to mythology, sturgeon provided the first food to the bear, the first ancestor of the Menominee. Subsequently, sturgeon became the first offering to the powers that provided this food (Hoffman 1896/1970). After the harsh winter, the arrival of the sturgeon in the spring must have been an anxiously awaited event, providing not only a change in diet but also a large quantity of food and a harbinger of warmer weather. In addition, sturgeon skin was used for different kinds of medicines, certain bones were used to make utensils, and the backbone was processed into glue (Beck 2002). To this day, the role of the sturgeon in Menominee culture goes beyond material value, and one can still hear Menominee conversations in which individuals talk about the sturgeon as “grandpa” or “uncle.” In the late pre-contact era, around 1600, two Menominee bands fought over a dam built by the band that lived downstream from the other, along the river. This created an obstacle to the sturgeon in migrating upstream and hence posed a serious disruption of the supply of sturgeon to the upstream band. A fight broke out, leading eventually to the departure of the downstream band. According to the U.S. army officer who recorded the story in 1853, this was the only civil dissension of importance in pre-contact history (Beck 2002). Today, the sturgeon’s annual migra- 60 Culture and Resource Conflict tion to their spawning fields at Keshena Falls on the Wolf River, located within...