Menominee (people)
The Menominee (also Menomini or Menomonee ) are an Indian tribe from the region of the upper Mississippi River in Wisconsin . The Minominee-language belongs to the Algonquian - language family is, however, closely related to any other Algonquian dialect. Their self-designation is Ome nomenew , which means something like wild rice people . This name was given to them by the neighboring Anishinabe . The Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin is federally recognized and has a reservation in Wisconsin. In 1950, the tribe's recognition and thus the reservation was terminated. In a trial before the United States Supreme Court , the Menominee were regained their rights in 1968 and regained state recognition in 1973.
Residential and hunting area
The traditional living and hunting area of the Menominee was in Wisconsin and northern Michigan west of Lake Michigan . Their neighbors were the Anishinabe in the north and the Winnebago in the south. It appears from traditional accounts that they have lived in this area for quite some time. After 1667 the Menominee came into contact with French traders who preferred to exchange beaver pelts for European goods. Since the beavers were soon overhunted, they expanded their hunting area to the west. When the power of the Iroquois was broken around 1701, a further territorial expansion followed. The tribes who fled the Iroquois left Wisconsin and retreated east. The once numerous Winnebago in the south had lost most of its members due to wars and devastating epidemics in the past sixty years, so that the Menominee were able to colonize their deserted area. At the time of their greatest expansion, they controlled almost all of central Wisconsin to what is now Milwaukee in the south. The area covered around 40,000 km². White American settlements and commercial logging began to displace the Indians from their ancestral areas around 1832. After various land sales and contracts, the Menominee agreed to move to an approximately 951 km² reserve in northeastern Wisconsin around 1835. Despite several attempts to relocate them to Minnesota , they still live on this reservation today.
Demographics
Before contact with Europeans, the Menominee were a relatively small tribe, numbering between two and four thousand members. Numerous similarly small strains have been absorbed by the Anishinabe, Potawatomi, and Menominee over time . By the time the French reached Green Bay around 1667, endless wars and epidemics brought in by Europeans had reduced the menominee to 400 people. They then recovered and their population slowly grew again to 850 people in 1736, 1,100 there were in 1764 and 1,350 were counted in 1806. The 1854 census showed 1,930 members in seven villages. After that, the numbers fell again, although some landless Potawatomi and French-Indian mixed race were added in the 1870s. In 1910 only 1,422 menominees were counted. In 1937 there were 2,221 tribesmen, which increased to 3,720 by 1957. In the 1970s, the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin had 7,200 registered members, 3,400 of whom lived on the reservation west of Green Bay. The US census 2000 identified 7,883 members of the Menominee.
Population table
| year | total | Women | Men | children | swell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1718 | 100 (warrior) | WJ Hofmann 1896 | |||
| 1761 | 750 | 150 (warrior) | WJ Hofmann 1896 | ||
| 1820 | 3,900 | 900 | 600 | 2,400 | WJ Hofmann 1896 |
| 1847 | 2,500 | Keesing 1939 | |||
| 1857 | 1,697 | 425 | 358 | 914 | WJ Hofmann 1896 |
| 1886 | 1,308 | Keesing 1939 | |||
| 1902 | under 1,300 | Keesing 1939 | |||
| 1916 | 1,736 | Keesing 1939 | |||
| 1929 | 1.939 | Keesing 1939 | |||
| 1956 | 2,917 | 320 | 380 | 2,217 | I. Spindler 1962 |
| 2000 | 7,883 | US 2000 census |
Culture
Livelihood
Before European contact, the Menominee lived mainly from hunting and collecting wild herbs and berries. They also grew squash , beans and corn in small gardens, and in the rivers they caught sturgeon and gathered wild rice . The hunt took place individually or in small groups. Only the hunt for buffalo and deer took place in larger groups. Before the hunt, there were rituals and a number of magic formulas to ensure the hunt was successful and to invoke the guardian spirits. Some of these rituals were still being performed before the hunt in 1960.
The importance of wild rice as a food is known from early French records, and traditional harvesting techniques were still in use in the early twentieth century.
The fur trade with the Europeans brought about decisive changes in the social and economic realms of the Menominee. The semi-sedentary way of life between summer villages and winter camps was almost given up. In recent times, nomadic groups have stopped moving to winter camps, but few menominees have retained the nomadic way of life. There were some men who worked as lumberjacks in the woods and in the sawmill, and made a living from hunting and fishing. By 1960, most families were migrant workers , harvesting cherries, gooseberries, and potatoes from orchards and farms in Wisconsin and Michigan. Others gathered ferns and evergreen twigs. Several families moved to Minnesota each year to collect wild rice. In the summer, some conservative groups perform traditional dances and rituals in front of tourists. Some tour the whole country.
technology
The menominee had birch bark canoes, but most of them had dugouts. Their weapons included bows and arrows, clubs, knives with blades made of stone, shells, bones and copper, and axes with stone blades. They tanned leather, wove bags and woven baskets from vegetable fibers, bark and buffalo hair. They also made reed and bark mats, clay pots and other household items. They made devices for lighting fires, drums and pipes. Except for the ritual, sacred artifacts and accessories for hunting and fishing, all of these objects were made by women. Alanson B. Skinner reported in 1921 that leather was still tanned and spoons made from seashells were used. The manufacture of chip baskets was taken over by the Oneida and Stockbridge Indians . Even bows and arrows were still in use in the early twentieth century. Various cult objects still existed in the 1960s and were used in ceremonies of the Medicine Lodge, Dream Dance and the peyote religion .
Houses
The rectangular huts they lived in in the summer consisted of a framework made of thin tree trunks covered with tree bark. In winter they lived in dome-shaped dwellings that were sealed with reed mats or bark. In addition, there were sweat lodges , menstruation houses, cabins for fasting and waiting for visions and a house for shamans . WJ Hoffman reported in 1896 cone-shaped structures, used in winter and summer, made of young trees and bark. Skinner described houses made of tree bark and an elongated building for ceremonies in 1921. In 1950 some older menominees still lived in the bark houses described above. For ritual ceremonies, tribesmen erected a frame made of bent tree trunks for the Medicine Lodge in 1954 , which was covered with canvas.
art
Paintings showing geometric shapes and stylized figures were discovered on pottery shards and well-preserved medicine bags. The earliest finds of clothing included decorations made from porcupine bristles and images of religious motifs made from animal hair and feathers depicting the thunderer and other sacred beings. Around 1830 a new phase of the Menominee culture began, in which the traditional geometric shapes, as well as leather clothes and feather headdresses were replaced. The Menominee used other color pigments to decorate fabric clothing and jewelry with carefully crafted floral displays and ornaments. The new art spread rapidly due to the displacement of the tribes from the eastern woodland region to the great plains. Even in the 1950s, such decorated items of clothing could be seen at special events and demonstrations in front of tourists.
Clothing and jewelry
Very little is known about the clothing worn by the Menominee prior to European contact. They are said to have rubbed their hair and body with oil and grease and their leather clothing was decorated with different colored ornaments that had a certain religious meaning. Reports from the first fur traders show that clothing such as loincloths, leggings and moccasins were mainly made from deerskin. There was also an ornate coat that was only worn on special occasions. Numerous other items of outer clothing on images and paintings date from a later period. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the menominee adopted the garments worn by white women during this period. In the twentieth century, the menominee bought their clothes in white shops, with the exception of moccasins, which were still widely worn in the 1960s.
In the nineteenth century, conservative members of the medical lodge movement wore jewelry and clothing accessories such as beads, colored ribbons, earrings, combs, headdresses made of fur and eagle feathers, garters and bells on their arms and ankles. Many of these items were still in use around 1960 for demonstrations of ritual dances to tourists. Cross-tribal ritual clothing for ceremonies in the Great Plains prevailed in the middle of the twentieth century.
religion
Hoffman (1896) and Skinner (1921) described the worldview of the Menominee. Their research largely coincides with the reports of the fur traders and Jesuits from the late seventeenth century: “They believed the earth was an island floating in a boundless ocean that divided the universe into an upper and a lower realm where the good ones respectively evil forces ruled. Each area in turn was divided into four superimposed levels, which were inhabited by supernatural beings whose power grew in proportion to the distance from earth. In the highest level above the earth was the deity, to which all beings were subordinate. According to the unanimous opinion of the early authors, this being was the sun […] ”(Skinner 1921).
Below the highest level and in descending order there were the Thunderbirds, the Gods of War, the Morning Star, the Golden Eagles, and the White Swan, as well as the others Bird species with the bald eagle on top. Beneath the earth at the deepest level was the Great White Bear with a copper tail, believed to be the traditional ancestor of the Menominee tribe. Next in ascending order was the Great Underground Panther, which plays an important role in the mythology of the Central Algonquin and the southern Sioux tribes. Then comes the White Deer, who appears in the myths of the Medicine Dance. Finally, there is the Horned Hairy Serpent, who lives in lakes and rivers and capsizes canoes to carry inmates into the underworld.
The earth itself is populated by evil spirits and goblins, for example man-eating giants who live in the north and eat Indians. There is a malicious living skeleton with dead eyes that roams the forest at night. There is a ghostly old man who carries a sacred bundle on his back and is doomed to wander forever to atone for his sins. According to Skinner there is also: "A race of dwarves who live in remote rock fortresses. [...] Flying skulls and a mysterious man who pursues and harasses delayed travelers. Rocks, ponds and hills have their unreal inhabitants. All animal species are guided by supernatural beings. "
In the religion of the Menominee, the sacred bundles played a central role. Each bundle contained so-called medicine, which consisted of round stones (thunder eggs), roots and miniature lacrosse clubs. The bundles were assigned different levels of power, which they received through rituals, chants and incantations, and which could bring about good but also bad. The Menominee religion is characterized by a dual system in which the good spirits above the earth fight against the evil spirits of the underworld. The ancient religion is still widespread among the traditional menominee.
Social and political organization
Early documents and the myths of the Menominee indicate that there was a division of the tribe into so-called Moietys . They were called Thunderer and Bears and were divided into patrilineal lineages and clans. There was presumably an exogamic ruling , but details are not known. According to the Jesuit reports, polygamy was allowed among the Menominee. Marriage requires the consent of both parents. Mutual gifts between the parents were common. A newly married couple usually lived with the husband's parents.
The chief of the bear clan was the chief leader of the tribe. Subordinate to him there were hereditary chiefs in the individual lineages. These chiefs formed the tribal council, which regulated civil affairs to a limited extent. In addition to the hereditary chiefs, there are said to have been other leaders who were recognized as chiefs because of their special skills. War medicine was in their care and they served as spokesmen for the hereditary chiefs and as masters of ceremonies at public appearances.
After the arrival of the French traders in 1667, the social and political organization of the tribe changed significantly. By 1830 there were nine bands. When game became scarce in the nearby forest areas, the hunting groups had to move to more distant areas and each family claimed a certain hunting ground. In order to secure the value of their previously delivered goods, French agents accompany these hunting groups. During the summer months, the Menominee camped near their fishing grounds, tended their gardens, gathered maple syrup, berries, and wild rice. Bands consisted mostly of friendly families, but also followed family ties. The cohesion of the bands later loosened, although some strong groups were still known during the reservation period. The marriages were now largely monogamous. In the loose clan system, the individual nuclear family prevailed and this trend continued into the 1960s. In the course of time the type of tribal leadership changed. New assignments included success in fur-sourcing, hunting and trading, obtaining credit, speaking, and maintaining good relationships with whites and other tribes.
After moving to a reservation in 1854, a sedentary lifestyle became necessary for subsistence. The leaders of the individual bands selected suitable places in the reservation and their band members settled nearby or further away. The cohesion of the individual bands did not dissolve completely, but new groups formed under other leaders who were also called bands.
The former dualism continued in a renewed division into Christians and pagans. The followers of the traditional religion were also divided into two parts, namely the descendants of the former thunderer or bear group. They lived mostly in or around Zoar in 1960 and were referred to as the Pagan Group by other Menominee . They are all broadly related to one another. Many followers of the traditional group have a totem . Until the middle of the twentieth century it was customary for everyone who died at the grave to have their totem painted on a post.
Some of the traditional rights and duties between relatives were retained. The old humorous relationships, especially between a man and his brother-in-law, are still current. Other family obligations, such as handing out meat after a hunt, are still practiced today. When relatives are in distress, they are given economic assistance upon request. The village elders experience great respect in the community. They know the rituals of the Medicine Lodge and the Dream Dance, have direct contact with supernatural beings, can interpret their dreams and give a child the appropriate name.
history
Early history
According to the lore of the Menominee, their original home in the north of the Great Lakes at Sault Ste. Marie and Fort Michilimackinac lay. Probably around 1400 they were pushed by the Anishinabe to the southwest into the area of the Menominee River . They had their first contact with the French in 1634 in the person of Jean Nicolet on his journey to the Winnebago on Green Bay.
From the records of the early missionaries, it is known that the Winnebago and Menominee inhabited an area that lay between Green Bay, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior in what is now Wisconsin. During the Beaver Wars between 1635 and 1653, the Iroquois attacked the Central Algonquin tribes south of the Great Lakes. As a result, the Potawatomi , Ottawa and Sauk fled north, while the Fox , Kickapoo and Mascouten fled south. The Menominee were in a more protected, more remote position, and only fled when a direct attack by the Iroquois threatened.
After peace was made with the Iroquois in 1667, the Ottawa and Wyandot came to Green Bay to act as intermediaries between the whites and other tribes. The Menominee had the closest cultural ties with the Winnebago and Anishabe until the beginning of the reservation period. Early trade relations existed with the Sioux , from whose quarries in Minnesota they probably obtained the whistle stone , as well as copper west of Lake Superior. The Winnebago, in turn, received stone and wood products from the Menominee. There are reports of early barter of cultural goods between Algonquian and Iroquois tribes that took place at sporadic meetings in the northern wilderness.
Allies of the French and English
The first French trader, Nicolas Perrot , joined the Menominee in 1667 and set up a trading post on Green Bay. Four years later, French missionaries under the Jesuit Claude-Jean Allouez settled in one of their villages. By that time, the Menominee and Winnebago's population had shrunk dramatically due to epidemics and wars. Allouez reported that only about 10 percent of her former 4,000 tribesmen were still alive. With the European trade goods, the previous settlement pattern of the Menominee changed. The fur traders pushed the Indians into the role of debtors. In the summer they were lured into the French trading posts and encouraged to buy large quantities of European goods against the promise to pay for them in winter with a corresponding amount of furs. The tribe split up into nomadic bands who set traps all year round to catch fur-bearing animals. The Menominee were close allies of the French and became one of the dominant tribes in the region around 1736.
After the French defeat in the French and Indian War (1754–1762), the British appeared at Green Bay around 1761. They initially met with rejection and bought the sympathy and loyalty of the Menominee with extensive gifts. They were one of the few tribes that did not take part in the Pontiac uprising (1763–1766). They remained loyal allies of the English for the next fifty years and stood by their side in the American Revolution (1775–1783) and the War of 1812 (1812–1814).
Life in the reservation
After 1815, the Menominee came under American control. White settlers invaded their land and tried to push them further west. Between 1827 and 1852 they signed several contracts for land sales in which they ceded much of their territory. The Menominee owed the negotiating skills of their chiefs Oshkosh and Keshena to the fact that the Wolf River Treaty was signed in 1854 . Around 2,000 tribesmen then had to move to an approximately 957 km² reservation on the upper Wolf River in northern Wisconsin. It was a country with many small lakes, rivers and streams and abundant fish and wildlife. Nevertheless, in the long run the population was not sufficient for a livelihood for all menominee and some of them began with agriculture and cattle breeding according to the American model. The farm work was not very successful and was soon replaced by logging as the main occupation. In 1908, a tribal sawmill began operating.
Soon after arriving at the reserve, the tribesmen spread out over the entire area depending on the band they belonged to. The two villages of Neopit and Keshena were formed , the last of which served as the headquarters of the United States Indian Service until its closure in 1961. In 1928 the Menominee adopted a constitution and a tribal council, the Menominee Indian Advisory Council , was established.
The Menominee were known in government circles as an uncomfortable tribe. In the 1870s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) began cutting lumber in the vast forests of the Menominee reservation. This forest consisted mainly of white pines ( Pinus sabiniana ), which were of considerable value. The timber sales were lucrative, so the timber industry tried to acquire larger pieces of forest from the Indians. Although the BIA, with the approval of the US Congress, advocated the sale and put pressure on the Indians, the Menominee consistently refused to open their forests for industrial use. Ten years later, the tribe rigorously opposed the General Allotment Act , which called for the distribution of tribal land to its relatives.
Termination
Under Termination phase is the Federal Indian Policy to understand that aimed to abolish the administration of Indian reservations by the government and the Indians assimilated to all citizens of the United States. Responsible for the new Indian policy was Dillon S. Myer , representative for Indian affairs at the BIA. The law passed in 1953 had far-reaching consequences for the Indians. The government had a list of all the tribes that it believed should be terminated immediately. By 1962, 120 mostly smaller tribes, but also some larger ones such as the Menominee in Wisconsin or the Klamath in Oregon , were quickly dissolved. The affected Indians lost their special autonomous status, had to pay taxes and no longer received state support.
This eliminated all special rights and government grants to the Menominee with which the USA wanted to promote the assimilation of the Indians. You became the first victim of the so-called termination policy of the USA. Other consequences of the termination were a rapid rise in unemployment, as well as the total collapse of the health system and housing programs. The disastrous effects of this policy led to the organized resistance of the Menominee and other tribes. After endless negotiations and under the influence of conflicts such as the occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969-71) and the armed uprising of Wounded Knee (1973), the Indian Self Determination Act of 1975 finally came about. This law established relations between the Indian peoples and the federal government on a new basis, confirmed the validity of the treaties concluded in the past and guaranteed the collective rights of the peoples to self-government.
President Richard Nixon stated in a 1974 report to the US Congress entitled "Justice for Indians":
"[...] Since the Menominee involuntarily lost their Indian tribe status, but nonetheless retained their land and tribal organization, Congress passed a bill that I signed that restored federal trusteeship over the Menominee tribe. In the courts, we emphatically defend the Indian rights to natural resources. [...] One measure of our efforts to pursue a more humane policy is to increase federal funds to support the Indians by twice that amount to over 1.6 billion dollars [...] "
In 1975 the Menominee achieved recognition as a Native American tribe and the re-establishment of their reservation in Wisconsin. Today they live partly from the timber industry again. There has also been a casino and hotel within the reserve in Keshena, Wisconsin, since 1987 .
In the US census 2000 a total of 7,883 menominees were counted.
See also
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978, ISBN 0-16-004575-4 .
- Axel Schulze-Thulin: Away without moccasins. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1976, ISBN 3-7701-0419-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b MenomineeHistory , accessed March 5, 2013.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast, pp. 708/709.
- ↑ a b c d e f Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast, pp. 710/711.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast, pp. 712-714.
- ↑ a b MenomineeHistory , accessed March 16, 2013.
- ↑ a b c d e Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15. Northeast, pp. 718-720.
- ↑ a b c d Axel Schulze-Thulin: Way without moccasins. Pp. 121-122.
- ↑ US Census 2000 (PDF; 145 kB), accessed on March 20, 2013.