A check of my phone book reveals four listings under the heading “Wild Onion.” They include a restaurant and a yoga center. And though it’s not in the phone book, there is also a group called the Wild Onion Alliance, whose goal is to promote bioregionalism.
Chicagoua first entered history in the late 17th century, when French missionaries and explorers entered this region. Maps dating from the 1680s show a place at the southwestern tip of Lac des Illinois (Lake Michigan) that is designated by such a name. Swenson’s major source is a manuscript written by a man called Henri Joutel, a retired French soldier who accompanied La Salle on his final expedition to the North American interior. After La Salle was murdered by one of his own men in Texas, Joutel– along with La Salle’s brother and nephew and three other men–fled north, hoping to reach Quebec. They arrived at Chicago in September 1687, but decided to return to Fort Saint Louis–at present-day Starved Rock on the Illinois River–to spend the winter.
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The Miami also used the word chicagoua to describe skunks, though the etymological connection here is not the bad smell of skunk but the spray. The word is associated with meanings like weep, rain, spill, splash, and pour rather than with bad smells, but there is no doubt that if you step on a wild leek and crush a leaf, a rather skunklike odor results.
They may have visited the lakefront at certain times of year, but both archaeological evidence and early accounts suggest they spent more time along the Des Plaines and in the marshes around Lake Calumet than they did on the Lake Michigan beaches.
