“Father Louis Hennepin visited the Sioux at Mille Lacs Lake in 1680 and reported that it was the sacred lake of these Indians and the focal point of the whole nation, from which the tribes and bands spread out over a wide area. (Wilford 1944:329).”

On a Mille Lacs Kathio State Park interpretive sign, Leonard E. Wabasha is quoted as saying: “My people are the Mdewakanton Oyate. Mdewakanton means the People of Spirit Lake. Today that lake is known as Mille Lacs. This landscape is sacred to the Mdewakanton Oyate because one Otokaheys Woyakapi (creation story) says we were created here. It is especially pleasing for me to come here and walk these trails, because about 1718 the first Chief Wapahasa was born here, at the headwaters of the Spirit River. I am the eighth in this line of hereditary chiefs.”

When addressing the subject of Lakota/Dakota creation stories, Wilhelm K. Meya, one of the most active anthropologists working with the Lakota today, wrote: “The Mdewakanton are considered in the oral tradition, one of the most ancient divisions of the Sioux Nation or Ocetisakowin ‘Seven Council Fires’. The sacred lake (Mille Lacs) figures prominently in Lakota/Dakota creation stories. The lake is considered sacred because the Dakota people emerged from it as human beings into this world.”

The following interpretation of the name Mdewakanton, an interpretation that incorporates the Dakota’s creation story associated with Mille Lacs Lake, is displayed on the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Community website. “The Mdewakanton, ‘those who were born of the waters,’…”

references: http://www.towahkon.org/Dakotahistory.html