Legler — Wisconsin Place-Names. 
21 
Mechasipi. Joliet, when his canoe came from! the Wisconsin 
river to the junction with the great river at the place where 
later rose the city of Prairie du Chiien, christened the stream 
Buade river, in honor of the family name of Count Fronte- 
nac. His companion, Marquette, less worldly-minded, called 
the river Conception, because it was on the day known by that 
name in the calendar of his faith that he had received permis¬ 
sion to accompany Joliet. Eleven years later the Sieur de 
La Salle gave to the noble river, which he descended to its 
mouth, the name Colbert, in honor of the great minister of 
France whose friendship he enjoyed. A century and a half 
before the Spaniard De Soto had given to the river the name 
Rio Grande del Espiritu Santo. 
The name the Spaniard gave, the many namjes given by the 
Frenchmen, are to be found only on maps yellow with age; 
on the modern map there survives, as is meek the name given 
by the aborigines. The orthography has been most varied, for 
geographers who sought to convey in modern spelling the pro^ 
nunciation of the old Algonquin word rarely agreed. Thus the 
old maps, and the old chronicles of travelers, have included 
these forms of the word Mississippi: Mechisipi, Messasipi, 
Miscissipy, Misasipi, Mischasippi, Missessipie, Mississippy. 
The definition usually given of the word Mississippi is, 
“father of waters.’ 7 This is far from a literal translation of 
the word derived from the Algonquin language, one of the origi¬ 
nal tongues of the continent. The historian, Shea, who made 
a study of aboriginal philology, says that the word Mississippi 
is a compound of the word Missi, signifying “great,” and Sepe, 
“a river.” The former is variously pronounced Missil, or 
Michilj as in Michilimackinac; Michi, as in Michigan; Missu, 
as in Missouri, and Missi, as in Mississippi. The word Sipi 
may be considered as the English pronunciation of Sepe, de¬ 
rived through the medium of the French, and “affords an in¬ 
stance of an Indian term of much melody being corrupted by 
Europeans into one that has a harsh and hissing sound.” 
An interesting, but apparently unauthentic version of the 
meaning of the word Mississippi is given in The Magazine of 
American History, Vol. I. The writer quotes a tradition given 
