Description
The Menominee meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans officially known as the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. Their land base is the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated 10 million acres in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members. Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes.
Language
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family
Culture
The Menominee hunted and gathered food resources, but also had small gardens of corn, beans, and squash. They were known for their dependency on wild rice, and fished for sturgeon. They used dugout and birchbark canoes, and dugouts were more common. Hunting was done singly or small groups using bows and arrows, at times larger hunts for deer and buffalo. According to Menominee oral tradition, humans were descended from bears, so special reverence was paid to bears as well as to other animals. Women also collected a wide variety of wild plant foods, including berries, nuts, roots, and wild greens.