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The health and well-being of community members were of prime importance, and Great Lakes Indians people had a number of techniques which they used to prevent and cure various illnesses.

Both illnesses of the body and the spirit were recognized and had specific cures and preventative techniques. Minor illnesses of the body could sometimes be cured by a sweat bath or by taking an herbal or other remedy.

Robert Ritzenthaler and Frederick Peterson: An “Ethnographer’s Paradise” (1954)

Origins of the Cudahy-Massee Expedition, 1928-29

Story of Manabush

There once was an old woman called Nokomis (Grandmother) who had an unmarried daughter. The daughter gave birth to twin boys and during the birth, one of the boys died and so did the mother. Nokomis wrapped the surviving boy in soft grass and laid him on the ground at one side of her wigwam and placed a wooden bowl over him to protect him. She buried her daughter and the other grandchild a ways from her wigwam.

There are several misconceptions regarding Sami culture. The first is that all Sami are reindeer herders. This myth stems from the way Sami have been portrayed in historical records. As is discussed above, the vast majority of Sami are not–and never were–herders. Only ten percent of today's population is made up of reindeer pastoralists, and herding as a lifestyle only developed with the Scandinavian colonization of Sami lands in the 17th-19th centuries. Before that, Sami were mostly hunters and fishers. Dr.

Introduction

The Old Copper Complex, also known as the Old Copper Culture, refers to the items made by early inhabitants of the Great Lakes region during a period that spans several thousand years and covers several thousand square miles. The most conclusive evidence suggests that native copper was utilized to produce a wide variety of tools beginning in the Middle Archaic period circa 4,000 BC. The vast majority of this evidence comes from dense concentrations of Old Copper finds in eastern Wisconsin.

Early Life
 

John Baptiste DuBay is believed to have been born July 10, 1810 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His father was John Louis DuBay, a French-Canadian fur trader from Montreal, rumored to be the first European in Portage County. His mother is thought to be a Menominee woman, possibly the daughter of Chief Pewatenot (Menominee). Little else is known about DuBay until his involvement in the fur trade in his early teens.
 

Fur Trading Years

DENNIS KOIS NAMED NEW PRESIDENT OF MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM
Milwaukee-area native brings experience at premier U.S. museums,
including Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian, to lead Milwaukee treasure