The French name of the melody means 'lake that speaks.' Wakantanka taku nitawa is its original Dakota name. The song was sung by the Dakotas as they escorted their dead to their final resting place.

It was also sung by thirty-eight Dakota prisoners of war as they went to the gallows for their 10 a.m. execution on December 26, 1862, the largest mass execution in American history.

Williamson, John Poage, and Alfred L Riggs, eds. Dakota odowan. Dakota hymns. New York, Printed by the American tract society, 1879. Image. https://www.loc.gov/item/30002122/.

—Peter Paul Olejar