Young Thunder and Dog Head

by Mark J. Green (Wą́nihegá)
translated by Bill Hall (Hų̄ka)

William Hall, ca. 1895

The things I told here I learned from these people I visited. Some Sauk Indians came to visit here, they came by day and stayed overnight. There were quite a number of them. Just before evening, a man was sent away for some reason, and before he returned, a man was seen approaching. Nearby was an old buffalo trail, it was trodden so much the ground fell in places. Here is where he was coming. "Wa-con-jah-neek-ka," or "Young Thunder," was his name.

A man saw him and said, "How," and shook his hand. "You're back, how did you get along all this time?" He motioned with his hand, "I walk on the ground, below it is something I will not talk about now." The man entered the ceremonial lodge and stood there and saw that the war chief called "Shoonk-gay-pah" was preparing a meal. "About that other tribe, the ones who survived the last ordeal," the man said, "they offended me. This went on until morning. When I was coming, I set it up against something. Some goods for dowry were also there. They [we]re saying, 'They shot you with yellow meal'," he said to "Dog's Head" or "Shoonk-gay-pah".¹

Commentary

Tom Mosley, USDA

A Surviving Buffalo Trace in Indiana

"the ground fell in places" — this probably refers to ruts formed by being repeatedly traversed by buffalo herds. These trails are also known as "traces," and occasionally form the course for modern roads and trails.

"Wa-con-jah-neek-ka" — for Wakąjánįka, "Little (or Young) Thunderbird." However, as is so often the case, he was also known by the synonymous name Wakąjaxųnųga, where xųnų means more specifically "young." He was prominent enough to have signed the Treaties of 1829, 1837, 1846, and 1855. In the first two treaties he used the name Wakająnįka.² Many years later in 1832, we find him living with his wife and four children in the same village as Black Otter on the upper Baraboo River.³ As it happens, Black Otter is the great-grandfather of the author of this story, Mark J. Green. Mark also tells the story of how Black Otter chanced upon Young Thunder, and the two had a chat about their previous lives:

As he was going along an old buffalo trail, he met a man named’Kąjánįka (Young Thunder).  When they met, Young Thunder said, “Well! Did you just come?” Both of these young men had come from the same place in the skies, and they had started about the same time to come among the people. Black Otter told him that he had somehow lost his way and had gone down among the Buffalo Spirits, and so he was late in being born. Young Thunder asked what had become of the person they had started out with[, since] from up there three had started from the sky. Black Otter thought that he might have been born among a different tribe, because he was not among the Winnebago. All those who happened to be along, stood there listening to their talk. They talked like strangers who had met in different parts of the country, and they were speaking of other worlds. And Young Thunder said that he had been in a good many battles among the people, and he noticed that Black Otter was on his first war party. And Young Thunder told his friend Black Otter that he wished he would get the prize that would come to the first warrior of that war-party — it was to be a bone-bead necklace. He told him to try the best he could, and the young man told him that he would do that.⁴

The "first warparty" that Young Thunder mentions was, as it happened, led by Dog Head.

"I walk on the ground, below it is something I will not talk about now" — in the previous comment Young Thunder was also walking along a buffalo trail, and chances upon Black Otter. They rather casually discuss their previous lives, and how Young Thunder had gone down among the Buffalo Spirits which caused his rebirth on earth to be delayed. Buffalo Spirits are also stars, and when they set, they go beneath the earth. Is Young Thunder suggesting that he has the capability to go underground because of his previous association with these Spirits? The contextual material is too thin here to make out what he intended to convey, but it is at least a possibility.

	J. O. Lewis
	Dog Head (Sarcel, Teal, Little Duck)

"Shoonk-gay-pah" — for Šų̄gépà(ga). This is "Dog Head," a famous warrior and chief who quickly became legendary, as we see from semi-mythological accounts of his life in a number of stories. "The Warbundle Maker" says, "There was a man named Šų̄gépàga, who belonged to the Eagle Clan."⁵ The name "Dog Head" is clearly not an Eagle Clan name, and must be a nickname. Prior to the War of 1812, he was known to the French by this same name, Tête de Chien. So what was his Eagle Clan name? The French also knew him by his clan name, which they rendered as Sarcelle, which means "Teal." George recorded the word for teal as being hunašizka, which is for hunašiske, from huna, "to come hither"; šis, "to shoot"; and -ke, a suffix indicating a kind of thing. So a teal is "the kind of thing that comes hither to be shot." So it appears that his Eagle Clan name was Hunašiskega. The Anglos rendered his clan name as "Sarcel," "Teal," or "Little Duck." Col. McDouall in writing to Gen. Drummond in 1814, says of him,

the Susell or tete de Chien, [is] a distinguished Chief of the Winnebago Nation (who came to supplicate assistance) ... The solemn & impressive eloquence of the tete de Chien, excited a general enthusiasm, & never was more zeal or unanimity shown amongst them, this chief is scarcely inferior to Tecumseth, & I doubt not will act a distinguished part in the campaign ...⁶

Brisbois remarks that, "One of the Carimaunee family of Winnebagoes was known as Tête de Chien, or Dog's Head. He lived in 1827, at English Prairie, now Muscoda (ca. 43.210370, -90.30401). He was a prominent man, of considerable good sense, and very honest. The Indians cultivated some fields there, and lived there as one of their changeable localities."⁷ This means that he was related in some way to the famous chief Nąga (Wood), known as the "Elder Keramąnį," who was standing next to Tecumseh when the latter was struck dead by a stray bullet. Lurie's informants told her that the Keramąnįs were originally of Fox or Sauk extraction. Foreign captives who are spared are always put into the Thunderbird Clan, or may enter it through marriage. Mrs. Kinzie said that this name meant, "Walking Rain." This is due to the fact that the name has a double meaning in Hōcąk: Ke-ra-mąnį means literally, "The Turtle Walking," where -ra is the definite article. On the face of it, this name is rather peculiar, since the -ga attached to the end of it to indicate that it's a personal name is also a definite article. This leads to the rather stilted translation, "The Walking One Who is the Turtle." However, the same name differently parsed, Kera-mąnį, means "Walking Cloud," where kera, like the more common mąxí, means both "cloud" and "sky." It could be that Kera-mąnį-ga was originally a Thunderbird Clan name for the ancestor of the lineage, but members of that family liked the mystical association that the double meaning gave them to the God of War. Sometime before 1832, Dog Head had moved to Big Green Lake (43.813354, -88.934092), where he lived in a large lodge with three other men,five women, and six children.⁸ Grignon says, "Sarcel, or The Teal, resided at the Winnebago village at Green Lake, in Marquette county; in his younger days his reputation was not good, but he afterwards became a very good Indian. I have already adverted to his war services. I think he died at Green Lake, before the emigration of his people west of the Mississippi."⁹

"the last ordeal" — probably a reference to the Battle of Tippecanoe, since most stories are set at that time.

Engineer comp geek

Musket Parts

"I set it up" — it is not clear what he is talking about. Is it his musket?

"dowry" — this would be goods given him (presumably) by his wife's parents.

"yellow meal" — this is almost certainly corn meal. A musket, being front loaded through the barrel, can shoot most anything. The impact of such a "round" would leave a yellow patch. So it seems that they were suggesting that he was "yellow" inasmuch as he survived the recent battle. However, "yellow" in this sense is a white man's expression, referring to the color of chicken skin, the chicken being a paradigm of a cowardly bird in Big Knife culture. In Hōcąk culture, the paragon of cowardly animals is the deer, whose heart is said to be "dry." Once upon a time, a Spirit being needed the heart of a deer, and having been given this organ, could find nothing but dirt with which to replace it. Ever since, the hearts of deer have been dry, making them skittish.

The reference to a dowry would bring up  the matter of his wife. His wife will have planted a field which almost always meant the placing of corn into the ground. If Young Thunder was claiming that he had gone underground in his journey, the presumed association of his musket with the planting of corn, would make the image of the musket set among dowry goods while he told them of his underground voyage, might lead to the joke that he had been shot by corn kernels (which would turn into meal when blasted out the barrel of his weapon. Needless to say, this is highly speculative.

However, it is an interesting fact that in our own times, those who fire shot from muzzle loaders find that they get better results if they put corn meal in rather than a standard paper wad.¹⁰ Could this practice have been handed down from the Indian nations?

Comparative Material. ...

Links: ...

Stories: about famous Hocąk warriors and warleaders: How Little Priest went out as a Soldier, Little Priest's Game, The Masaxe War (Hogimasąga), Wazųka, Great Walker's Warpath (Great Walker), Great Walker's Medicine (Great Walker, Smoke Walker, Dog Head, Small Snake), Šųgepaga (Dog Head), The Warbundle Maker (Dog Head), Digging a Trench and White Strategy (Dog Head), Black Otter’s Sacrifice to a Thunder, Black Otter's Warpath (Dog Head, Black Otter), The Shawnee Prophet — What He Told the Hocągara (Smoke Walker, Dog Head, Small Snake), Two War Chiefs are Called on to Spy (Dog Head, Black Cloud), Big Thunder Teaches Cap’ósgaga the Warpath (Big Thunder, Cap’ósgaga), The Osage Massacre (Big Thunder, Cap’ósgaga), The Fox-Hocąk War (Cap’ósgaga), The Origin of Big Canoe's Name, White Thunder's Warpath, Four Legs, The Man who Fought against Forty (Mącosepka), Yellow Thunder and the Lore of Lost Canyon, The Hills of La Crosse (Yellow Thunder), The Blessings of the Buffalo Spirits, Fighting Retreat, Mitchell Red Cloud, jr. Wins the Medal of Honor (Mitchell Red Cloud, jr.), The War of Indian Tribes against White Soldiers (Dog Head, Black Otter, Big Sandbar), How Jarrot Got His Name, Jerrot's Temperance Pledge — A Poem, Jarrot's Aborted Raid, Jarrot and His Friends Saved from Starvation, Bear Gets Challenged, Soldiers Catch Two Boys, a Black One and a White One, v. 1 (Dog Head, Short Wing, Bear), They Owe a Bullet (Pawnee Shooter); about Šųgépaga (Dog Head = Sarcel = Teal = Little Duck): Šųgepaga, The War of Indian Tribes against White Soldiers, The Warbundle Maker, Black Otter's Warpath, Great Walker's Medicine, Digging a Trench and White Strategy, The Shawnee Prophet — What He Told the Hocągara, Soldiers Catch Two Boys, a Black One and a White One, v. 1, Two War Chiefs are Called on to Spy; – see also Kinzie's Receipt Roll; mentioning Young Thunder: Black Otter's Warpath.

Themes: ...

Notes

¹ "Young Thunder and Dog Head," Archives of Traditional Music (ATM), Indiana University, translation by William Hall, Original Typescript (Black River Falls: ca. 1960-1970) D6-7, recording by Milford G. Chandler of Mark J. Green - vocals, bef. 1922, Black River Falls, Jackson County, Wisconsin. ATL no. 526.7 8742.8 trs. 2, Recording 43.SCY 18070154, Collection number (collection identifier): 54-196-F, p. 46 of 87; OT 7695; APS accession number 7226 (?).

² Nancy Oestreich Lurie, "A Check List of Treaty Signers by Clan Affiliation," Journal of the Wisconsin Indians Research Institute, 2, #1 (June, 1966): 50-73 (64, #69).

³ Kinzie's Rolls, 24. Upper Barribault [Baraboo] Village, No. 3.

⁴ Forrest and Monty Green, "Origin of Black Otter's War-Bundle" (December 14, 2001). Presented to the Hocąk Encyclopedia by Frank Weinhold, June 6, 2020.

⁵ W. C. McKern, Winnebago Notebook (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum, 1927) 167-174 [167].

⁶ Douglas Brymner, "The Capture of Fort M'Kay, Prairie du Chien, in 1814," Wisconsin Historical Collections, 11 (1888) 254-270 [260, 263].

⁷ B. W. Brisbois, "Recollections of Prairie du Chien," Wisconsin Historical Collections, IX (1882/1909): 282-302 [300].

⁸ See Kinzie's Rolls for Big Green Lake.

⁹ Augustin Grignon, "Seventy-two Years' Recollections of Wisconsin," Wisconsin Historical Collections, 3 (1857) 197-295 [288].