“The Sturgeon Are Coming Home”

The Menominee called Keshena Falls (Nama’o skiwamit) or the place where sturgeon come home. In the spring of the year, the Menominee waited for the sturgeon to migrate into their rivers and streams where they were harvested with spears in great abundance. The Menominee relied upon the sturgeon to supplement their diet along with other fish, wild game, wild rice and maple sugar. Sturgeon was also used for medicinal purposes. The return of the sturgeon each spring meant the Menominee could replenish their food supply, which was close to depletion after long winter months. The celebration that followed the harvest included tobacco offerings, songs, and the ancient Menominee fish dance (mimicking the movement of the spawning sturgeon going up river) was performed honoring the return of the fish and a feast thanking the creator for allowing the sturgeons to return to their traditional spawning grounds at Keshena Falls and for replenishing their food supplies after a long winter.

There are three versions of the Menominee creation story; all of which involve sturgeon. One version of the Menominee creation story takes place near the mouth of the Menominee River where the creator transformed the five Menominee clans: ancestral bear, eagle (thunderer), wolf, moose and crane into human form. The creation story goes onto to say that when the bear found himself to be alone he called the Kenew (eagle) flying above to come down and walk with him and be his brother. Thereupon the eagle descended and also took human form and walked with the bear as his brother. While the bear and eagle were considering who to call upon to join them, they perceived a beaver (namaeh) approaching. The Beaver requested to be adopted into the totem of the Thunderers, but being a woman, was called Namaehkukiw (Beaver Woman), and was adopted as younger brother of the Thunderer. Soon afterward, as the Bear and the Eagle stood on the banks of the river, they saw a sturgeon, which was adopted by the Bear as a younger brother and servant who were keepers of the Wild Rice and tribal historian.

In another version of the creation story states that “in the beginning, the Menominee came into existence near the mouth of the Menominee river which flows into Green Bay. First of all, a bear came forth from under the earth and became a man. Then another followed him became a woman and they existed there. The name of the man was Sekatchokemau or Great Chief. As soon as the man and woman saw each other they were pleased and recognized that they were to be mates. The man realized that they would need shelter. Sekatchokemau built the first wigwam for their home and then made a canoe so that he might go out on the waters and catch sturgeon, which were very abundant at the foot of the nearby cataract, where they had been created for the use of man. Sakatchokemau was very successful in taking sturgeon. He brought home a large quantity, which his wife prepared. First, she split them from the head down and drew them; then she hung them over a frame to dry. When they were sufficiently cured she cut them into flakes and made the first sacrifice and ceremonial offering to all powers”.

A third version of the Menominee creation story that was record by linguist Leonard Bloomfield in 1928, states “When the first Menominee came into the world they brought a kettle with them. They carried the kettle to the Menominee river which they found to be full of sturgeon, and the tribe’s leader used the kettle to feed sturgeon to his people”. The importance of sturgeon as sustenance also accorded its spiritual importance. It became the totem of one of the tribe’s clans. It is interesting to note that the sturgeon clan is a sub-group under one of the principal clans, the ancestral bear.

Several historical accounts of missionaries and explorers indicate that the Menominee would fish for sturgeon. After the Menominee discovered French explorer Jean Nicolet on their shores at Green Bay in 1634 other explorers would follow. Among them were Nicholas Perrot who noted 1667 “they (Menominee) raise a little Indian corn, but live upon game and sturgeons: they are skillful navigators. If the Sualteurs (Ojibwa) are adroit at catching whitefish at the Sault, the Malhominis (Menominee) are no less so in spearing the sturgeon in their river (Menominee)”. He continues, “For this purpose (spearing) they use only small canoes, very light, in which they stand upright, and in the middle of the current spear the Sturgeon…Only canoes are to be seen, morning and night”. He adds that sturgeon were an important food source for the Menominee “all year round”.

Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, a Dominican missionary who served among the Menominee at Lake Winnebago from 1830 to 1834 wrote “The Menominee make a hole in the ice about a yard across, and let down a cord with a little wooden fish that they keep in motion. Stretched at full length with head over the hole and under cover the better to see below the ice, they watch for the sturgeon as he makes for the little wooden decoy. Then the skillful Indian with a barb fastened to a pole spears the sturgeon, which, after a useless struggle, becomes his prey. This is the principal means the tribe (Menominee) gets their food”.

During the same period French fur traders, living and trading in Menominee country, noted the sturgeon and its importance to the Menominee. John Lawe (of Green Bay), writing to Louis Grignon in January of 1820, for example, observed that the late date at which ice had yet to form on the bay (Green Bay) forced Menominee to wait before they could begin their winter spearing. In February of 1824, Lawe wrote to James Porlier that the lake had not yet frozen, which caused great hardship to the Menominee.  Lawe said “The winter had been so open and mild this year that the lake is not yet have ice to this day so that there has not been a single speared sturgeon has been brought to the bay this year, the Indians (Menominee) is all starving and it is quite a famine for them. There is not a single bit of ice at Follavoine (Menominee River) nothing but the bare beach the nets has catch’d but few fish I do not know what is going to become of us it will be quite a famine in the bay this year”.

The land was thought to be of no value to the white man yet in the eyes of the Menominee would provide an abundance of natural resources. The Menominee had always hunted fished and gathered in the area, which is a part of Menominee aboriginal territory.

When the different Menominee bands had assembled on the reservation after the 1854 treaty, in his book, The Menomini Indians, Flex Keesing recorded “every spring this Oshkosh (band) and We’ke (band) would assemble on either side of Keshena Falls to fish (spear) the sturgeon”. After the sturgeon was harvested the fish was either boiled or baked for consumption or dried on racks for future use. Celebration and ceremonies followed the sturgeon harvest. However, this activity stopped when dams were built below the reservation at Shawano in 1892. The Menominee Tribe was never consulted prior to the construction of the dams at Shawano and Balsam and this caused a deep subsistence and cultural loss to the tribe.

According to Skinner “Up to the time that the whites placed dams (at Shawano) on the Wolf River, Keshena Falls on the present reserve, was a great resort of these fish (sturgeon) in the spring (of the year). Here the high water that follows the thaws and rains beats against a mass of rock, making a drumming noise. Menominee folklore declares that this is the music of a mystic drum belonging to the Awaehtok (spirit) who owns the cataract. They say that when this drum beats, the toads and frogs begin their mating songs, and the sounds call the sturgeon to the pools and eddies below the cataract (at Keshena Falls). There they formerly spawned and were then speared in large numbers, and the river at this point (the falls) was celebrated with great ceremony as a breeding place for the sturgeon.” Unfortunately, prosperity and modernization had won over a centuries old tradition.

According to the book “People of the Sturgeon” Wisconsin’s Love Affair with the Ancient Fish 2009, The Menominee continued to live in small bands even after they were moved to their present reservation, and every spring they continued to congregate on the Wolf River to wait for the sturgeon. Residents from Shawano, a town just seven miles south of Keshena, wrote about the annual spring pilgrimage of both the sturgeon and the spearers. J.L. Whitehouse a lifelong Shawano resident… remembers “When sturgeon were running in spring I have seen as many as 30 canoes come down the river at a time. There was shoal water below the Whitehouse bridge and they (Menominee) would line up across the river 8 feet apart and others would drive the sturgeon by striking the water with their spear poles to get them (sturgeon) out of the deep water. Some of the sturgeon were monsters. The Indians (Menominee) at one time hired my father to take a load to Keshena, giving him 4 large sturgeons for pay. I remember one fish that reached the full length of his 11-foot wagon box. I believe that fish (sturgeon) would weigh 200 lbs. I have caught many sturgeon that I couldn’t raise high enuf by the gills so the tail could be off the ground”.

During oral history interviews, conducted by Historic Preservation staff, tribal elders remembered some of the sturgeon spawning activities that were told to them by their parents and grandparents. One elder stated that “a medicine was extracted from one of the glands of the sturgeon and was used as a healing medicine”. Another elder stated that “a sturgeon was given to the members of the Mitawin (medicine lodge) ceremonies in the 1940’s and Dream Dance (Big Drum) ceremonies were held before and after the sturgeon harvest. Another elder knew the ceremony and prayers that were given to him by his grandfather and performed the ceremony at Chikenay creek at the first Sturgeon ceremony 26 years ago. Most of the elders that were interviewed knew of the sturgeon and its cultural and spiritual importance to the Menominee people.

For the past 26 years the Menominee tribe has negotiated with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for a certain number of sturgeon that are brought to the reservation for their annual celebration.

In 2019, 15 sturgeons were brought to the tribe for ceremonial purposes. The ceremonial feast and celebration pow-wow consisted of a traditional opening in the Menominee language, a welcome from the tribal Chairman, honor songs, and traditional dances. Before the feast the Menominee fish dance was performed in honor of the return of the sturgeon to the Menominee reservation. The sturgeon feast included smoked sturgeon, wild rice, corn soup, maple sugar and other traditional Menominee foods.

On April 11, 2022, the DNR returned about 100 sturgeon to the Wolf River on the reservation ahead of the annual pow wow, including 15 that were used during this year’s ceremony.

While the sturgeon, through tribal negotiations with the WDNR, will continue to return to the reservation each year, the Menominee people hope that one day in the future the fish will be able to migrate to Keshena Falls over or around the dams below the reservation by the use of fish passage ways.

The sturgeon feast and celebration is only one of several that honored a clan symbol. The Menominee people have revived an ancient tradition that once was a main stay of the tribe and will continue to honor this tradition for years to come.