The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132331   Message #2994128
Posted By: Jim Dixon
26-Sep-10 - 05:11 PM
Thread Name: Joseph Renville / Lacquiparle / Dakota
Subject: RE: Joseph Renville / Lacquiparle / Dakota
Your thread title caught my attention because, as a Minnesotan, I am aware of Lac qui Parle—the lake, that is—actually a reservoir. I even went fishing once in the Minnesota River right below the dam. (It was a waste of time. All I caught were bullheads, known elsewhere as mudcats!) I understand there was a lake by that name there before the dam was built.

There is also a Lac qui Parle County, Lac qui Parle State Park, and a Lac qui Parle River.

And there is a Renville County and a town of Renville, in Minnesota—but before this thread, I didn't know anything about Joseph Renville, for whom they were named.

Google Books has two viewable books by him:

Dakota Dowanpi Kin: Hymns in the Dakota or Sioux Language (Boston: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1842)—but, alas, I don't think that book contains the hymn LACQUIPARLE; at least it is not identified as such. There are Dakota lyrics only in that book, no musical notation, although sometimes the hymns are identified with an English title.

See also Wicoicage Wowapi, Qa Odowan Wakan: The Book of Genesis and a Part of the Psalms by Joseph Renville (Cincinnati: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1842).