Once, long ago, all the other tribes surrounding the Hotcâgara were arrayed against them on the warpath. The nation suffered many losses and the fear of renewed war caused four long lodges to cross the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien or McGregor to seek safer lands to the south and west. They never returned. It is said that these are the Oto, for the Oto speak a language full of archaic words that have all but passed from the Hotcâk language. [1]

Commentary. The StCyrs told Gatschet that "There is a tradition that some of the Winnebagos are lost, and that they are somewhere south." [2] This might refer to the split off of the Chiwere peoples.

Radin mentions another obscure account that may be a variant of this:

Some lodges left the tribe never to return. Some say there were four, others give different numbers (of long lodges). Some say only one lodge. My uncle used to say that there were four. "I think that it is believed that they went to the east," he said. [3]

The east would be a very odd direction, and may explain why the informant does not connect these people with any existing tribe.

Links: The Wazidja, Introduction.

Stories: about the separation of the Hotcâgara from other Siouan nations: Ioway & Missouria Origins, Quapah Origins, cf. Introduction, The Hotcâk Migration Myth; set on the Mississippi (Nî Kuse): The Two Children, Trickster Concludes His Mission, The Hotcâk Migration Myth, Bluehorn's Nephews, Earthmaker Sends Rucewe to the Twins, Traveler and the Thunderbird War, Keramanic'aka's Blessing, The Woman's Scalp Medicine Bundle; mentioning McGregor, Iowa: Earthmaker Sends Rucewe to the Twins.

Themes: the Hotcâgara are the parent tribe from which other (Siouan) tribes separated: Ioway & Missouria Origins, Quapah Origins.

Notes:

[1] Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]) 3.

[2] Albert Samuel Gatschet, Linguistic and Ethnological Material on the Winnebago, Manuscript 1989-a (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, 1889, 1890-1891) p. 66. Informants: Reuben David St. Cyr (b. 1864), and his father, John Michael St. Cyr.

[3] Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 3.