Tshah-ee-zhun-kaw-kaw​

He Who Runs with the Deer

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Based on name orthography and his association with the Baraboo villages, it is believed that Tshah-ee-zhun-kaw-kaw on the 1832 census of the lower Baraboo village correlates with the figure otherwise known to history as Tshizunhaukau, or He Who Runs with the Deer.  From the census and a surviving portrait, we may deduce that He Who Runs with the Deer was of middle age in the 1830s and presided over a family of five, including two adult women and two minors.  Evidence exists that he may have been connected to the Decorah family.  He lived at the entrance to the Baraboo River very near the Portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, thus being geographically close to the majority of travel through the region. 

 

We are told in a fragmentary description of his life from McKenney and Hall’s History of the Indian Tribes of North America that He Who Runs with the Deer was a medicine man and warrior of note.  His status as a warrior correlates with his name which would place him in the “earth” clans of the tribe.  When pressure broke between the federal government and the Hoocąk in 1827, he was a member of the delegation which met with President Adams in Washington the following year.

 

He Who Runs with the Deer is perhaps best known to history, however, for his knowledge of astronomy.  He kept a strikingly detailed tabulation of the lunar cycle on what became known as his calendar stick which is depicted in his portrait.  Not much is known about the rest of his life.  His calendar stick was passed down within the tribe until 1918 which it was acquired from a member of the Whitebear family and documented by the Cranbrook Institute of Science in some detail in 1945.