Feb 2, 2025
In the waterways connected to the Great Lakes, researchers uncover boats that tell the story of millennia of Indigenous history
The Madison area, known as Dejope in the Ho-Chunk language, was an Indigenous metropolis before the arrival of Europeans, says Bill Quackenbush, tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, one of Wisconsin’s 11 federally recognized tribes. Dejope was a richly interconnected society. “There’s this misconception that we had temporary villages here and there,” Quackenbush says, “but Madison was one large living community.”
