translation from french

Most probably original map indicated "plaine élevée" (plain well above sea level) and added "jolies vues" (beautiful views). Was that part of Michigan included in Louisiana purchase? Or part of the French Canadian trading posts? Remember 1712 the political map of North America looked different - and so to some extent did French spellings. And of course "longue" means long, so the plain was obviously extensive, perhaps stretching all the way to the "narrows" (aka Detroit in French). What have you done, come across LaSalle's original diaries - let me know, I'm curious about the sources of the Mississipi!

No, I am looking at old maps of Michigan.

My theory is that the word Michigan does not mean "great lakes" but rather means 'great plain'. The Ottawa name for "plain" sounds very much like the word, michigan (all these Indian names were written down by the French, then re-written by the Brits or thrown out altogether)

Maps from the 1600 - 1700s show a distorted shape of the state, but all show this long plain running up the center of the state to the upper peninsula. Hinsdales states in his archeological findings that the lakes, rives and streams were some 5 1/2 feet higher than they were in 1927, so Michigan was very much the swampland, with this elevated plain running up its center.

Schoolcraft's writings talk about exploring the source of the Mississippi. He was sent to find the source by Lewis Cass, then territorial gov. of MI. They thought they found it at Red Cedar Lake in MN (re-named Cass Lake) but an Indian guide showed him the real source, a small area nearby.

Thanks for the translation.

Any idea about the word, oukouarararonous?

That is seen on a 1721 British map running up the center of the state. I didn't know if it was French (which I doubt) or the name of an indian tribe.

It's probably Algonquin (not that I know any Indian languages, but we have some of their names in New York). The Algonquin language is still spoken by thousands in reservations in Quebec and other Canadian provinces - someone in their historical society could help you with translations; maybe try here:


As far as topographic descriptions try to locate a poster here named Farmerman - if it's anything to do with geology he knows all about it.

The Meskwaki were an Algonquian-speaking tribe who are thought to once have dominated the valley of the St. Laurant River. Constant warfare with the Hurons (supported by the French) reduced their numbers and drove them to the west. Beginning in about 1640, the Iroquois, in furtherance of their obsessive mission to exterminate the French, began attempting to exterminate the tribes of the lower Great Lakes region, in order to engross the fur trade and deny it to the French.

Some tribes they did succeed in exterminating, at least according to the Jesuits, who were established with almost all Algonquian tribes, and who has just begun to make successful advances with the Huron. Despite the fact that the Huron and the Iroquois shared a culture and a language, the Iroquois attempted to exterminate them, as well. The Jesuits estimated that between 60% and 70% of the Huron were wiped out. The Iroquois then began moving west. When they reached the peninsula we call Michigan, they encounter the "Fox" Indians, the Meskwaki. The Meskwaki, now reduced to a hard core of survivors of the warrior societies, stopped the Iroquois cold. The Iroquois would later move south into what became Indiana, and west into Illiniwek territory--Illinois.

Ironically, the Meskwaki, even though they had defeated the Iroquois, felt insecure, and moved into what is now Wisconsin. The Jesuits usually referred to them as the Outagamie, which was a French version of a Huron name for that tribe. Other versions of that name were used, and the French continued to call them Outagamie or a version of the name during the Fox wars of the early 18th century when they attempted to exterminate the tribe. I suspect that "oukouarararonous" is a version of the name, or a corruption of it. It is important to recall that no one in Michigan was printing maps until the 19th century. Very likely, some information of a dubious reliability was sent to Europe, where the map was printed up, with high probabilities of transcription errors at every step in the process.

Thanks so much.

Yes, lakes and regions were named by the indians who described the bodies of water or areas of land with descriptive phrases. What is now Lake Michigan was almost named Stinking Lake because early map makers took on the name (of what is now Green Bay) for the big lake since the two were combined as one on the maps.

The algae in the bay was so smelly that the bay became known as the lake of the stinking people. When the two bodies of water were seen as separate, they were named individually.