On September 4, 2006 the following letter was published in the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux
Tribe's Lake Traverse Reservation newspaper,
a newspaper named Sota. Lake Traverse Reservation is located in South Dakota and is
home to 10,840 Sisseton-Wahpeton people.
The Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux (Dakota) Tribes on-line newspaper can be found at:
http://www.earthskyweb.com/news.htm.
Open letter to the Oyate
According to Warren Upham, the author of "Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origins and
Historic Significances", a book published by the Minnesota
Historical Society, "The Rum River name is the white men's perversion of the ancient
Sioux name Wakan." Upham also wrote that the Rum River name
is a "punning translation."
The white men's "punning translation" turned the sacred Isanti or Dakota name
for the river from Great Spirit River to (according to Upham) "the
most common spirituous liquor brought into the Northwest, rum, which brought misery and
ruin, as DuLuth observed of brandy, to many of the
Indians."
Vickie Wendel, a co-founder of the Anoka Country Historical Society, wrote in a historical
document that: "In a 1868 St. Paul Daily Pioneer
article, the Rum River name is listed, along with some other geographic names, as
'Profane'". "The 'profane name' was already in use by some
in 1861, as was the animosity toward the native people of Minnesota. A St. Paul newspaper
reported."
I am spearheading a local, national and international movement to change the profane
and derogatory name of Minnesota's "Rum" River. I am trying
to change this river's name back to either its Dakota name - Wakan, or to its
correct interpretation - (Great) Spirit.
The City of Cambridge, Minnesota (population 5,520), a city located on the "Rum" River
corridor, along with Isanti County Active Living By Design
and the Cambridge Campus of Anoka-Ramsey Community College (ARCC) recently established
a two mile nature area located along the currently named
"Rum" River and this nature area was named SPIRIT RIVER NATURE AREA, instead of Rum
River Nature Area.
Interpretive signs were created and added to trials on this nature area. The four trails
are marked for the four tribes of the Isanti. And on an
interpretive sign there are the words: "The Rum River was the super highway for the
Isanti Indians. To them, this important waterway was known as
Watpa Wakan, the Great Spirit River, until a white man's pun turned "spirit"
into "rum."
And the City of Cambridge is now changing a street name along the river to Spirit River
Drive and a developer is calling his local development
Spirit River.
I hope to have more good news to report in the near future.
My website is located at: http://www.towahkon.org/.
Blessings, Thomas Dahlheimer, Wahkon, Minnesota.
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