The myth of Princess Wenonah

Homecoming to explore roles of American Indian womenThere is perhaps no one more enamored with the legend of Princess Wenonah, said to be Winona’s namesake, than the town itself, with her image immortalized in bronze, advertising pieces and our imaginations for at least a century.

Wenonah, which literally translated from the Dakotah language means firstborn daughter, is said to have been the child of Chief Wapasha, leader of the band of Dakotah that called this region home when white settlers first stepped off boats in the 1850s.

The legends that have surrounded her life and death since days when the Dakotah lived here are many, though all carry a central theme: Princess Wenonah’s father was going to force her to marry someone she didn’t love, so she leaped to her death from hundreds of feet above the Mississippi River at a place called Maiden Rock.That's the myth. Now here are the facts:Research suggests that in the Dakotah language, the word “Wenonah” is more a designation than a personal name, much like the words “grandma,” “great-grandma” or “uncle” are to us today. It refers to the first-born daughter of any family, tribal chief or not, and it is only in modern times that it would likely be used as an actual first name. Few dispute that any of the generations of Chief Wapashas may have had a daughter, but what their tribal names were and whether any of them actually dashed herself on the rocks is another matter.

Also, Dakotah Indians do not have a designation of “princess,” that is a fabrication by white people, researchers say. In fact, there is not even an equivalent word to princess in the Dakotah language.

The truth of the matter is that settlers of European descent have been infatuated with the mystique of American Indian women since Pocahontas supposedly saved John Smith in 1607. There are many, many Princess Wenonah legends that can be found all across the Midwest, as well as other kinds of “Indian princess” legends from one coast to the other.Comment:  From Pocahontas to the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls to various doomed maidens in old Westerns and romance novels, stories of Indian princesses who sacrifice themselves are common. I'd guess that almost none of these stories are true.

Rather, I'd guess these cases were psychosexual fictions based on Christian feelings of shame. The white man was attracted to the exotic Indian maiden, who was wild and free and "hungry as a wolf" for sex. But puritanical Americans were raised to repress or deny their sinful feelings of lust.

The solution? These Americans invented or exaggerated stories about self-sacrificing Indian maidens. The maidens sacrificed themselves for the greater good, thus redeeming their devilish souls and freeing the white man from temptation.

P.S. I await correspondent DMarks's comments on this subject with bated breath. He's our resident expert on all things related to Winona.

Below:  "I see a white man who wants me. To save myself, I must throw myself off a cliff."