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On September 1, 2005 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

(Editor's note: The following comes from Thomas Dahlheimer, Director of Rum River Name Change Organization, Inc., Wahkon, MN. He may contacted at: P.O. Box 24, Wahkon, MN 56386; e-mail Wahkon@scicable.com.)

Greetings from Wahkon, Minnesota.

(slightly-edited paragraph)
I am spearheading the international movement to revert the name of Minnesota's Rum River back to either its sacred Dakota name Wakan, or to its correct translation (Great) Spirit. The Minnesota Historical Society's Indian Advisory Committee has given its support for the effort to change the name of the Rum River "to more accurately reflect its past."

And I just recently read in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press that a mis-spelled Minnesota lake, Lake Wagonga, was known in the past as Lake Waconda, and that it was just recently renamed to its correct spelling (Lake Wakanda). And I also read in another article about the history of how the lake got its appropriate name back. This article is presented below.

WAGONGA BECOMES WAKANDA
07/08/2005

The process has begun to restore and correct the name of a lake in Kandiyohi County.

Prior to the 1980s, Wagonga Lake, south of Willmar, was known as Lake Waconda, and this week, the Kandiyohi County Board approved a resolution to rename the lake, "Lake Wakanda," which is the proper spelling according to the Dakota language. Wakanda means "to reckon as sacred or holy." The recommendation now goes to the State of Minnesota. Marilee (marlee) Druskin's family has lived on the lake since 1866, and says it's always been called Waconda, and says she doesn't know why it began to be called Wagonga about 25 years ago. The word "Wagonga" doesn't exist in the Dakota language.

Marilee says her mother, Muriel Felt, began researching the name and found numerous historic references to the lake as "Waconda" over the past 140 years. After Muriel died, Marilee took up the petition effort to restore the proper name with the help of Mona Nelson of the Kandiyohi County Historical Society. At Nelson's suggestion, Marilee contacted Joe Circlebear, an expert in the Dakota Language, who suggested the lake be renamed "Wakanda". It could take several months for the name change to be finalized.

After state approval, then it goes to the federal government.

I am very pleased that this name-change has occurred.

I am on a mission to find and change all of Minnesota's geographic place names, park names, street names and names of public buildings etc. that demean or desecrate the Dakota people's sacred word wakan (sometimes spelled wahkon). And the sacred Dakota word/or name Wakanda (sometimes spelled Wahkonda) and Wakantonka (sometimes spelled Wahkontonka) are also sacred Dakota names that I am especially dedicated to delivering from being desecrated or demeaned, as was the name of Lake Wakanda while it was being mis-pronounced and consequently mis-spelled.

Even though I did not know that there was an effort to rename Lake Wagonga to Lake Wakanda, I have been hoping and praying that wherever these sacred Dakota words are being desecrated or demeaned they will be redeemed or restored to there original sacred stature.

So I feel like I have personally won a great victory in respect to the renaming of Lake Wagonga to Lake Wakanda.

The following website links are links to my proposed name-changes of other Minnesota places with names that desecrate or demean sacred Dakota words or names:

www.towahkon.org http://www.towahkon.org/WestBranch.html www.towahkon.org/Wahkon.html www.towahkon.org/StateBill.html


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