Winona (legend)

Winona or Wenonah is a Dakota Sioux character in a "Lover's Leap" romantic legend set at Maiden Rock, which is on the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin in the United States. Winona is said to have leaped to her death from this high precipice rather than marry a suitor she did not love. This theme is found in a number of apocryphal, post-contact tales in the place-name lore of North America.

There are several variations of the story. Winona's father is sometimes said to be Chief Wabasha (Wapasha) of a village identified as Keoxa, now known as Winona, Minnesota, or perhaps Chief Red Wing of what is now Red Wing, Minnesota. Rather than marry a suitor she does not love, Winona chooses to leap from the cliff of Maiden Rock to her death. The story is very similar to the apocryphal legend of a young Cherokee woman of Noccalula Falls Park in Gadsden, Alabama, as well as events in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

The identity of the suitor depends on the version of the tale. Some versions feature him as a French trapper; others say he is a Native American of another tribe. In Last of the Mohicans the man is a brutal murderer, and the young woman chooses death over life as a slave or battered woman.

In the traditional Dakota language, "Winona" is not a personal name, but a general term for a first-born child of any class distinction who happens to be female.

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