Editing Ho-Chunk (section)

== Etymology ==
[[File:Waa-kaun-see-kaa.jpg|thumb|upright|Chief [[Waukon Decorah]] in 1825]]

The Ho-Chunk speak a [[Siouan languages|Siouan language]], which they believe was given to them by their creator, Mą’ųna (Earthmaker).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ho-Chunk Oral Tradition {{!}} Milwaukee Public Museum |url=https://www.mpm.edu/educators/wirp/nations/ho-chunk/oral-tradition |access-date=April 10, 2025 |website=www.mpm.edu}}</ref> Their native name is ''Ho-Chunk'' (or Hoocạk), which has been variously translated as "sacred voice" or "People of the Big Voice", meaning [[mother tongue]], as in they originated the Siouan language family.<ref name="hochunkFN">{{cite web | title=Ho-Chunk Nation | website=Wisconsin First Nations | date=August 16, 2017 | url=https://wisconsinfirstnations.org/ho-chunk-nation/ | access-date=June 23, 2024}}</ref>

Neighboring [[Siouan languages|Siouan tribes]] refer to the Ho-Chunk by translations of their name into their language, such as ''Hotúŋe'' in the [[Chiwere language|Iowa-Otoe language]]) or ''Hotháŋka'' in the [[Dakota language]]. The term "Winnebago" is a term used by the [[Potawatomi]], pronounced as "Winnipego".

The [[Jesuit Relations]] of 1659–1660 said:

{{blockquote|He started, in the month of June of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight, from the lake of the Ouinipegouek, which is strictly only a large bay in lake Huron. It is called by others, the lake of the stinkards, not because it is salt like the water of the Sea—which the Savages call Ouinipeg, or stinking water—but because it is surrounded by sulphurous soil, whence issue several springs which convey into this lake the impurities absorbed by their waters in the places of their origin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/relations_45.html|title=home|date=August 11, 2014|website=puffin.creighton.edu|access-date=April 25, 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321002758/http://www.puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/relations_45.html|archive-date=March 21, 2016}}</ref>}}

[[Nicolas Perrot]] was a 17th-century French trader who believed that the Algonquian terms referred to saltwater seas, as these have a distinctive aroma compared with freshwater lakes.<ref>Among them Nicolas Perrot, ''et al''; [https://books.google.com/books?id=H8psAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA288 ''The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes'']; Emma Helen Blair, Ed.; Arthur H. Clark Company; Cleveland; 1911; Vol. 1, p. 288, note 199</ref> An early [[Jesuit]] record says that the name refers to the origin of ''Le Puans'' near the saltwater seas to the north.<ref>[http://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/library/articles/kraft.htm "Origins of the French and English Names for the Bay of Green Bay"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930022313/http://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/library/articles/kraft.htm |date=September 30, 2007 }}, ''Wisconsin's French Connections'', University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Library</ref> When the explorers [[Jean Nicolet]] and [[Samuel de Champlain]] learned of the "sea" connection to the tribe's name, they were optimistic that it meant ''Les Puans'' were from or had lived near the [[Pacific Ocean]]. They hoped it indicated a passage to [[China]] via the great rivers of the Midwest.