Marie Aioe Dorion

Marie Dorion
Dorion historic marker outside St. Louis Catholic Church
Born	probably 1786 Iowa or its vicinity
Died	September 5, 1850(1850-09-05) (aged 63–64) Saint Louis, Oregon
Known for	assisting fur-trading expeditions in the Pacific Northwest; wilderness survival skills
Spouse(s)	Pierre Dorion Jr., Louis Joseph Venier, Jean Baptiste Toupin
Relatives	five children

"Madame" Marie Aioe Dorion Venier Toupin (ca. 1786 – September 5, 1850) was the only female member of an overland expedition sent by Pacific Fur Company to the Pacific Northwest in 1810. Like her common-law first husband, Pierre Dorion Jr., she was Métis, with her mother from the Iowa tribe and a French Canadian father. She was also known as Wihmunkewakan (Holy Rainbow), "Walks Far Woman" and Marie Laguivoise, the latter recorded in 1841 at the Willamette Mission and apparently a variation on Aiaouez, later rendered as Iowa.

NOTE FROM THE IOWA TRIBE: The source for the name "Holy Rainbow" (Wihmunkewakan) states the name refers to Pierre Dorion's FIRST wife, a Yankton Sioux woman, not Marie: "It is believed that Dorion had taken the young Iowa Indian woman for a wife about 1806, after abandoning a Yankton woman named Holy Rainbow." Marie was the second wife, not the first who was the Yankton named "Holy Rainbow." Marie was Ioway, not Yankton, and her name was not "Holy Rainbow." Wihmunkewakan is the Lakota translation of Holy Rainbow it seems, although if it is a name of a woman, it properly would have ended with -win (female suffix). We do not have documentation of what Marie's actual Ioway name was, but the Ioway language is as different from Lakota, as German is from English. It is also unclear as to the evidence for stating she was a common-law wife or a Metis. Both seem to be assumptions of some kind. Marriages between French trappers and Indian women generally were recognized and formalized, arranged and made according to Indian law through bride price to the parents of the bride, often horses or goods.

It is likely that Marie and Sacajawea knew one another. Peter Stark notes the similarities between the two women in his book Astoria: both women were originally based in the then-small settlement of St. Louis, and they were both wives of interpreters in the burgeoning Missouri fur trade.

Her husband Pierre Dorion Jr. was hired by the Pacific Fur Company to join Wilson Price Hunt and a group on an overland expedition to the Pacific Fur Company.) were their two young boys, who were probably two and four years old. She gave birth to another child near modern North Powder, Oregon, who died several days later. After reaching Fort Astoria, Marie and her family returned with a trapping party to the Snake River area. While at trading post in January 1814, Marie Dorion learned from a scout that her husband and a small trapping party were about to be attacked by a band of Bannocks After traveling three days only with her two infant children, she found the scene of the attack. One only of the trappers, LeClarc was alive, and was moved away from the area on a horse. Despite the medical attention of Dorion, he died that evening.