Paging Gazhekwe

[gazhekwe]

Oooh, those thank you posts make me so happy. Aapje ne maamikwendaam. I love to talk about our history and culture.

As for the Sauk, it is my impression that is the name they used because two of their towns were named Place of the Sauk. That does not mean Fox, which is Wagosh. [[wa goesh'). Sauk has been interpreted as People of the Yellow Earth, but it is an extremely abbreviated form if that is correct.

The Sac and the Fox actually started as two closely related tribes and were combined by the US for treaty purposes in 1832. Most of the Sac and Fox are now in Oklahoma, courtesy of the great removal project of the 1830s. Other spellings and names include Sauk, Sauk & Fox, and tribe self name of the Fox people, Mesquakie, Asakiwaki. The last two are versions of Red Earth People, the name used by the Fox. Fox was a clan name within the tribe. Yellow Earth People shoud also end with Aki, or some version of it, Ozaawakiwaki, or something like that. You can see how that could be shortened to Sauk [[zaawakiwaki could sound like Saukiwaki)

They came from the St. Lawrence River area to the Saginaw Bay. Saginaw is derived from Saukinong, Place of the Sauk. As such, their history coincides with the People of the Three Fires, who migrated westard from the eastern seaboard down the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes. Their dialect of Algonquin is mutually intelligible with Anishinaabemowin. From the Saginaw Bay they went to Green Bay, WI, and from there were removed to Oklahoma.

I can't remember what the big fight was here on Lake St. Clair, but it had something to do with the Ojibwe [[protectors) thinking the Sauk were threatening them and the Potawatomi. It is also not clear to me why the Sauk, who had the same origin and migration history as the People of the Three Fires, were not part of that confederation.