about 800 lodges, and are spirited and warlike. From the Wazikute branch of this band the Assinniboins, or Hohe of the Dakotas, are said to have sprung.

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7. The Titonwans,

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Village of the Prairie,' are supposed to constitute more than one-half of the whole Dakota nation. They live on the western side of the Missouri, and extend west to the dividing ridge between the little Missouri and Powder rivers, and thence south on a line near the 106th meridian. They are allied by marriage with the Shyennes, but are enemies of the Pawnees and Crows. The Titonwans, except a few of the Brulés, on White river, and some of the families connected with the whites by marriage, have never planted corn. They are divided into seven

principal bands, viz.:

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They

1. Unkpapas, they who camp by themselves.' roam from the big Shyenne up to the Yellowstone, and west to the Black Hills; to this band Mato Chiqukesa, or the Bear's Rib, belongs, who was made by General Harney the first chief of the Dakotas. They number about 365 lodges.

2. Sihasapas (Blackfeet). Hunts and homes same as the Unkpapas. They number 165 lodges. These two bands have very little respect for the power of the whites.

"3. Itazipchos. (Sans Arc, no bows.') Roam over nearly the same territory as the Unkpapas. They number about 170 lodges. It is difficult to say how these bands received their present names; the Itazipchos being as well provided with bows as any other band, and use them as skillfully.

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"4. Minikanyes or Minni-kan-jous (meaning they who plant by the water'). They number about 200 lodges, and roam principally from the Black Hills south to the Platte. They are generally well disposed toward the whites.

5. Ogalalas or Okandandas. They number about 460 lodges, and are generally to be found on or near the Platte near Fort Laramie. They are the most friendly disposed toward the whites of all the Titonwans.

"6. Sichangus (meaning Burnt Thighs), Brulés. They number about 380 lodges, and live on the Niobrara and White rivers, and range from the Platte to the Shyenne. They include the Wazazhas, to which belonged Matoiya (the Scattering Bear), made chief of all the Dakotas by Colonel Mitchell of the Indian Bureau, and who was killed by Lieutenant Grattan.

7. Oo-he-non-pas (Two Boilings, or Two Kettle Band). These are now very much scattered among other bands. They number about 100 lodges. Some of them are generally to be found in the neighborhood of Fort Pierre.

"The Dakotas, on and west of the Missouri, which includes all but the Isanties, are the only ones I have heard estimated. I should think eight inmates to a lodge, and one-fifth of them warriors, an ample allowance. We would then have 3,000 lodges, with 24,000 inmates and 4,800 warriors."

In 1775 Standing-Bull, the great-grandfather of the present Standing-Bull, discovered the Black Hills. He brought back to White river a large branch of a pine tree, a tree not seen by the Indians before, except by a few very old men in the eastern parts of the great prairies, near the lakes.

Red Cloud, whom I asked at the Pine Ridge Agency about the time of the coming of the Sioux to the Black Hills, said: My ancestors came from the smoky country far, far off to the rising sun; my grandfather was born east of the Missouri river and he died west of it. My father was born west of the Missouri river and I was born near the mountains. Often did I climb, when a boy, up to the top of Bear Butte." I asked him about the stones placed in the branches of trees on top of the Butte and he said that by placing these stones thus the different tribes showed by the number of stones what claim they had on the country.

"Yes," said he, "we came from the rising sun; we drove ahead of us to the setting sun all our enemies: the Komaches and Kiowas, the Crows and the Cheyennes. With the

Cheyennes we were mostly on friendly terms, but the Crows are our enemies."

He stated further that his people knew since 1800 that there was gold in the Hills. When he was a young boy his people killed three white men close to the Hills.

CHAPTER VI.

RELIGION.

Aboriginal Idea of Religion.

In Schoolcraft's History of Indian Tribes, Mr. Gideon H. Pond gives the following interesting account of the religious idea of the Aboriginals: "Deism, probably, exists in no purer form among the uncivilized nations of mankind, than it is found in the abstract beliefs of the North American tribes. The Indian is, psychologically considered, a religious being. His mental organization leads him to trust in the power of a deity. He is a believer in the mysterious and wonderful. Every phenomenon in nature which he can not explain is the action of a god. The clouds in their varied display, are invested with the sublime symbolic teachings of a god. God is everywhere present. The thunder and lightning, and the brilliant auroral displays of the hemisphere, are identified as manifestations of the power of God, who is the great creative spirit.

"The Indian's ear is open to his teaching in every sound of the forest. Living, as he does, in the open air, his eye is familiar with the face of the heavens, which are spread out before him, as a vast volume of pictography, in which he reads wonderful things. He sees a supernatural power in all these surroundings, telluric and sublime ethereal manifestations. He fills the universe with scintillations of the deity; and appears to realize the idea of a Jacob, who, after rising from his stone pillow at Bethel, acknowledges

the local presence of Jehovah, by the remark — 'surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.' (Gen. XXVIII. 16.)

That there exists a unity in this idea of a Great Spiritual existence, who made all things, and governs all things, even to the minutest destinies of men, is apparent to those who closely scrutinize the Indian, and direct their attention to the objects of his hopes and fears. While looking directly to the Great Spirit for success in life, and acknowledging life and death, fortune and misfortune, as due to his supreme power and omnipresence, his mind has been strongly impressed that there is also an evil influence in this world. To account for this, without impugning the benevolence and goodness of God, an antagonistic god is believed in, who is the author of evil. Thus, there are two gods created in the Indian theology, which most strongly remind the observer of the ancient Persian system of Ormusd and Ahriman; for while, like the ancients, ascribed to the former all good and benevolent acts, the latter is regarded as the potent power of malignancy.

"The primary term for the deity is still retained by the Indians; but they prefix to it an epithet, signifiying good or bad. In this manner, there is created a duality of gods, rather than a dual deity. It is impossible, however, to witness closely the rites and ceremonies which the tribes practice in their sacred and ceremonial societies, without perceiving that there is no very accurate or uniform discrimination between the powers of the two antagonistical deities; while the benignant power, which accords life and death, is regarded as possessing the spiritual mastery.

"It was not enough for the founders of the Indian religion to generalize the powers of good and evil, by creating in their theology, two gods. To enable these diverse gods to exercise their powers in a certain conceivable god-like manner, each is provided with an innumerable host of minor gods, or spirits, who, under the shape of birds, beasts, reptiles, men, angels, demons, giants, dwarfs, sorcerers, enchanters, fairies, pigmies, and

other forms, inhabit the world. These are classified into malignant and benignant spirits, or semi-gods, agreeable to the deity under whose influence they are sent abroad.

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Imagine the diverse influences which are now placed before the Indian's mind and heart. What sources of vivid hopes and fears? A fast and absolute power, nothing is too astonishing, mysterious, and subtile for him to believe or doubt. Everything he sees or hears in the animate world may be the subject of intense fear or hope; he is perpetually in doubt which. He is a ready believer in transformations, possessions and incarnations. A deer, a

bear, or a swift-flying bird, may be the messenger of good or evil. He is constantly on the qui-vive, but especially on the lookout for something untoward. The movement of a bush, or the voice of a wild animal, may be as premonitory a sign to him as the roar of Niagara, or a clap of thunder. This is not yet the extent of his susceptibilities to mysterious fears, he is not only a believer in the influences of magic, sorcery, and necromancy - he is not only on the constant watch, through these, or other sources, for hosts of good or evil spirits - but all these influences may be exhibited or excited through the violent powers of invisible and invulnerable agencies.

"God in revealing himself to Moses, said to him, ‹ Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standst is holy ground.' It has not occurred to the Indians, nor their unknown ancestors, from whom we may suppose them to have derived their religion, that God should be represented to be holy. Yet it admits of no question, when properly viewed, that the Great Spirit of the Indian is a purer deity than the Greeks or Romans, with all their refinements, possessed. For the Indian, by his system. of a dual-deity, or two separate persons, is careful to guard his good and merciful god from all evil acts and intentions, by attributing the whole catalogue of evil deeds, among the sons of men, to the bad spirit of his theology. His Manito, Owayneo, or Wacondah, is thus kept intact. He neither interferes in wars, hunting, domestic life, or love, further