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Nobody really knows.
But the legend of the Sioux maid who sacrificed herself rather than become the wife of a man she did not love has been part of the lore of the upper Mississippi long before the coming of the white man. Zebulon Pike put down a version of the legend in 1805, on an exploratory journey up the river. This ended her troubles with her life. The dozen or so versions of the legend commonly circulating follow the general outline of Pike's account, with variants on details of place and dramatis personae. In one account, circulated in a booklet published by the Winona Wagon Co. shortly after the com pletion of the Landon Fountain in Central Park, Wenonah is converted to Christianity and falls in love with a white adventurer, and leap to her death to avoid betraying him in a forced marriage to Tamdoka, son of the chief.