dition says that it was a day's walk from Isantamde or Knife Lake.

On a map prepared in Paris in 1703, Rum River is called the river of the M'dewakantonwans, and the Spirit Lake on which they dwelt, was, without doubt, Mille Lac of modern charts.

The second great division is the IHANKTONWAN, commonly called YANKTON. They appear to have occupied the region west of the M'dewakantonwan, and north of the Minnesota river. The geographer De Lisle places their early residence in the vicinity of Traverse des Sioux, extending northward.

The last division, the TITONWAN, hunted west of the Ihanktons, and all the early maps mark their villages at Lac-qui-parle and Big Stone Lake.

Hennepin, in August, 1679, in the vicinity of the Falls of Niagara, met the Senecas returning from war with the Dahkotahs, and with them some captive Tintonwans (Teetwawns).

This division is now the most numerous, and comprises about one-half of the whole nation. They have wandered to the plains beyond the Missouri, and are the plundering Arabs of America. Whenever they appear in sight of the emigrant train, journeying to the Pacific coast, the hearts of the company are filled with painful apprehensions.

North of the Dahkotahs, on Lake of the Woods and the watercourses connecting it with Lake Superior, were the Assiniboine. These were once a portion of the nation. Before the other divisions of the Dahkotahs had traded with the French, they had borne their peltries to the English post, Fort Nelson, on Hudson's Bay, and had received in return British manufactures. By

DIFFERENT DAHKOTAH BANDS.

53

association with the English, they learned to look upon the French with distrust, and in time to be hostile towards those who had formed alliances with the French.

Le Sueur writes, in relation to their separation from the rest of the nation, in these words :

"The Assinipoils speak Scioux, and are certainly of that nation. It is only a few years since they became enemies. It thus originated: The Christianaux having the use of arms before the Scioux, through the English at Hudson's Bay, they constantly warred upon the Asssinipoils, who were their nearest neighbours. The latter being weak sued for peace, and, to render it more lasting, married the Christianaux women. The other Scioux, who had not made the compact, continued to war, and seeing some Christianaux with the Assinipoils, broke their heads." After this there was alienation. A letter, however, written at Fort Bourbon, on Hudson's Bay, about 1695, remarks: "It is said that the Assiniboins are a nation of the Sioux, which separated from them a long time ago.”

The Dahkotahs call these alienated tribes Hohays, and make woman the cause of the separation. They are said to have belonged to the Ihanktonwan (Yankton) division of the nation. A quarrel, tradition asserts, occurred between two families hunting at the time in the vicinity of Lake Traverse. A young man seduced the wife of one of the warriors. The injured husband, in attempting to rescue his wife, was killed in the tent of the seducer. His father and some relatives wanted to secure the corpse. On the road, they were met, by some of the friends of the guilty youth, and three of their number were killed. The father then turned back

and raised a party of sixty warriors, who waged war against the seducer and his friends, which continued until the whole band were involved, and ended in a revolt upon the part of the aggressor and his friends, who in time became a separate people.

In the valleys of the Blue Earth, the Des Moines, and the eastern tributaries of the Missouri, within the limits of the territory of Minnesota, there also dwelt in ancient days bands of the Ioways, Ottoes, Cheyennes, Aricarees, and Omahaws, who sought other hunting-grounds as the Dahkotahs advanced westward.

The Dahkotahs, like all ignorant and barbarous people, have but little reflection beyond that necessary to gratify the pleasure of revenge and of the appetite.

It would be strange to find heroes among skulking savages, or maidens like "Minnehaha" of the poet, among those whose virtue can be easily purchased. While there are exceptions, the general characteristics of the Dahkotahs, and all Indians, are indolence, impurity, and indifference to the future.

The religion of this people is exceedingly indistinct, and with reluctance do they converse on the subject. That a nation so low in the scale of humanity should have preserved the idea of one great spirit, the father of all spirits, the supreme and most perfect of beings, is not to be supposed. To attribute to them more elevated conceptions than those of the cultivated Athenians, is perfect absurdity. The Dahkotahs, in their religious belief, are polytheists. The hunter, as he passes over the plains, finds a granite boulder: he stops and prays to it, for it is "Wawkawn"-mysterious or supernatural. At another time, he will pray to his dog; and at another time, to the sun, moon, or stars.

DAHKOTAH WORSHIP AND GODS.

55

In every leaf, in every stone, in every shrub, there is a spirit. It may be said of them, as Cotton Mather said of the Massachusetts Indians, in his Life of Eliot : "All the religion they have amounts to thus much: they believe that there are many gods, who made and own the several nations of the world. They believe that every remarkable creature has a peculiar god within or about it; there is with them a sun god or a moon god and the like; and they cannot conceive but that the fire must be a kind of god, inasmuch as a spark of it will soon produce very strange effects. They believe that when any good or ill happens to them, there is the favour or anger of a god expressed in it."

The Dahkotahs have greater and minor deities, and they are supposed to multiply as men and animals, and the superior to have power to exterminate the inferior.

The Jupiter Maximus of the Dahkotahs is styled Oanktay hee. As the ancient Hebrews avoided speaking the name of Jehovah, so they dislike to speak the name of this deity, but call him "Taku-wakan," or "That which is supernatural." This mighty god manifests himself as a large ox. His eyes are as large as the moon. He can haul in his horns and tail, or he can lengthen them, as he pleases. From him proceed invisible influences. In his extremities reside mighty powers.

He is said to have created the earth. Assembling in grand conclave all of the aquatic tribes, he ordered them to bring up dirt from beneath the water, and proclaimed death to the disobedient. The beaver and others forfeited their lives. At last the muskrat went beneath the waters, and, after a long time, appeared at the surface nearly exhausted, with some dirt. From this,

Oanktayhee fashioned the earth into a large circular plain.

The earth being finished, he took a deity, one of his own offspring, and grinding him to powder, sprinkled it upon the earth, and this produced many worms. The worms were then collected and scattered again. They matured into infants; and these were then collected and scattered and became full-grown Dahkotahs.

The bones of the mastodon, the Dahkotahs think, are those of Oanktayhee, and they preserve them with the greatest care in the medicine bag. It is the belief of the Dahkotahs that the Rev. R. Hopkins, who was drowned at Traverse des Sioux, on July 4th, 1851, was killed by Oanktayhee, who dwells in the waters, because he had preached against him.

This deity is supposed to have a dwelling-place beneath the Falls of Saint Anthony. A few years ago, by the sudden breaking up of a gorge of ice, a cabin near Fort Snelling, containing a soldier, was swept off by the flood. The Dahkotahs supposed that this great god was descending the river at the time, and, being hungry, devoured the man.

HAY-O-KAH (the anti-natural god).-There are four persons in this godhead. The first appears like a tall and slender man with two faces, like the Janus of ancient mythology. Apollo-like, he holds a bow in his hand streaked with red lightning, also a rattle of deer claws. The second is a little old man with a cocked hat and enormous ears, holding a yellow bow. The third, a man with a flute suspended from his neck. The fourth is invisible and mysterious, and is the gentle zephyr which bends the grass and causes the ripple of the water.

Hayokah is a perfect paradox. He calls bitter sweet,