within reach far and near, and the fishermen did not suffer the grass to grow in them. They prowled around the margin of every lake and marsh, and no tortoise could venture on the land, or turtle put his head above the water, without running the risk of being captured.

Go where you would, you could hardly get out of sight of Indians, for they were to be seen always and everywhere in quest of something to eat. Their daily supplies of food must be obtained, and had been obtained no one knows how long, and the very fact that the Indians lived proved that they were a hard working race. They, if ever a people did, earned their living by hard labor. They had no property that brought gain to the owner while he rested, no income but that brought in daily by their own hands.

To them it was a perpetual, unceasing struggle for existence, and had been so throughout their past history. There never could have been a time when their very existence did not depend upon their active and unremitted exertions. In the meantime much else was to be done besides searching for the daily supplies of food. Fields, if they had any, were to be planted and cultivated, and houses to be built or repaired. The bark with which their houses were covered was in large pieces, thick, and very heavy when green. This bark they often carried several miles on their backs. Their fields were only little patches of ground, but they laid out a great deal of labor upon them. As soon as the corn was hoed, many of them left their bark houses and went off in quest of food, for by this time there was little game left in the vicinity of their villages. Frequently in summer parties of men went off a day's journey or more to hunt, staying several days and drying their venison if they killed deer. They went also long distances after geese in moulting time. The Lake Calhoun band, while waiting for their corn to ripen, frequently lived a while chiefly on bullpouts which they caught by night in Mud Lake, a short distance above the "Little Waterfall," as the Dakotas called it, now Minnehaha, a name neither known nor understood by them.

SUMMER OCCUPATIONS.

In the summer the bands divided into small parties, each party going where it was hoped food would be found most abundant, or in pursuit of some article used for food or otherwise, which

could be best procured at that season of the year. Some went after birch bark, to make sap troughs and sugar boxes for the next season; others went up the Mississippi, to pick blueberries; and some to the woods, to gather the stalks of the wild spikenard and other edible plants. Occasionally, some of the men went to the red pipestone quarry and brought home pieces of the stone for pipes. Indeed, they made excursions in all directions, and for various purposes.

Their eyes were on all kinds of fruit, watching the ripening process. Berries of all kinds were industriously gathered. In a word, they diligently sought out everything edible, whether it grew on bushes or trees, on the ground, or in the mud at the bottom of the lakes. While some were digging all day on the prairies for a peck of wild turnips, others were in the water up to their arms, exploring the bottom of the lakes in search of psinchincha. Nothing was so hidden that they did not find it, nor so hard to come at that they did not get it.

At all times of the year there were, besides clothing, many articles to be manufactured. Almost everything that they used in the way of implements, except those made of iron and steel, they made themselves; and, as they had few tools to work with, the process of manufacturing was slow and laborious. They had to smooth their timber without planes, cut it off without saws, and bore holes in it without augers.

Their mode of gathering corn has been described. When that was harvested, it was time to make preparations for the fall hunt, because the cold weather was coming on, and they would soon need a fresh supply of clothing, ammunition, etc. It must be strong cloth indeed that could long endure the wear and tear to which it was exposed on a Dakota man or woman. The hunter took little thought of his raiment as he crouched in the swamps, lying in wait for ducks, or rushed through the bushes in pursuit of game; and the garments of the women were also necessarily subjected to very rough usage. The blanket not only served for a cloak by day and a bed by night, but it was a general receptacle into which everything was gathered, and in which everything that needed to be put into a bag was transported. No article of clothing could last long with them, but must be often replaced. New guns, new kettles,

etc., were also needed, as well as clothing and ammunition; and all these things must be paid for in furs, for there was no other currency.

How well so ever they were supplied in the spring, they might be destitute in the fall, for they bartered many of the goods received from traders with the Indians living farther west, for tents, robes, horses, etc.

They started on the fur hunt in September, and, as they left some in the spring to make sugar, so in the fall many went to the rice-lakes and cranberry-swamps. The seeds of the rice were easily shaken out by the wind, and therefore some went before it was ripe and tied the heads together in bunches. It is considerable labor to gather and clean wild rice, and though it is as abundant now as ever, probably none but Indians would think it worth harvesting. Some men who did not go for furs and many women picked cranberries, often carrying them long distances on their backs. Most of these they sold.

The fall fur-hunt frequently encroached on the deer-hunt. When the hunters returned from the haunts of the muskrats, it was high time to be off for the deer.

The foregoing is no exaggerated account of the yearly labors of the Dakotas, before they sold any portion of their lands. After they began to receive annuities, there was a rapid change in their habits, not for the better; but of that later time I am not writing. They are here described as they were when they supported themselves by hunting, and not as they were in that false position. in which the policy of our government placed them, treating them more like paupers than like hunters or farmers. Hunting was the legitimate occupation of the uncivilized Dakota, and it was on the hunting-grounds that his good qualities were best exhibited. They who only saw him lounging listlessly about his tent, knew little about him. There was a great deal of hardihood, fortitude, foresight, and energy in a genuine Dakota; and it will be well for Minnesota if she never nourishes a race of men and women who have less native force of character and resolute determination than her aboriginal inhabitants.

WARLIKE PURSUITS.

In describing the employment of the Dakotas for the year, I have spoken only of their peaceful pursuits. In the midst of their other engagements, some of them found time to pay considerable attention to their neighbors, the Sacs, Pottawattamies, and especially the Ojibways, who indeed required a good deal of attention.

The Dakotas were not averse to undertaking these excursions against their hereditary enemies, and if they had been so peacefully inclined as not to go in search of them, their restless and warlike neighbors would have made work for them at home. The Indians. did not make war on each other because they were Indians, but because they were men and like other men. Their wars were as necessary as wars generally are. If they were to live at all, they must have a country to live in; and if they were to live by hunting, they must have a very large country, from which all others were excluded. Such a country they had, not because their enemies were willing they should occupy it, but because they were able and determined to defend it by force of arms. If they had not resisted the encroachments of their enemies, they would soon have been deprived of the means of subsistence and must have perished. If they would have game to kill, they must kill men too.

The Ojibways boasted of having deprived them of a part of their country, and these Sioux were determined to keep them off from the remainder. In regard to the responsibility for these wars, we are not to suppose that the Dakotas or Sioux were more or less to blame than their neighbors. The Indians were none of them Quakers in principle or practice, and if they had from conscientious scruples been less averse to war we should have stronger proof than now that they did not belong to our race. Their propensity for fighting, and their love of military glory, furnished at least one indication and proof of their relationship to us. Here we meet on common ground, and those who had most signalized themselves in war were treated with the highest consideration by their civilized neighbors.

We might suppose that, whatever necessity there was originally for the prosecution of these hostilities, there could be none after Fort Snelling was built and the country placed under the protection of our troops. After we had a military force stationed at the

fort, there was for a time a cessation of hostilities between the Dakotas and Ojibways who were near, but there was neither peace nor truce between the Dakotas and Ojibways of Leech Lake and Red Lake; and those who lived near the fort soon learned that each must take care of himself. The garrison at Fort Snelling protected just so much of the country as was enclosed within its walls. Twice the Ojibways killed Dakotas within sight of the fort, and they might have killed them with impunity right under the portholes.

It was not possible for our government to compel each tribe to respect the rights of others and hunt only on their own lands. Long after Fort Snelling was built, the Dakotas sometimes found, on going to their hunting grounds, that they had been anticipated by the Ojibways, and that their game was all gone. It was of no use to appeal in such cases to the commander of the garrison. It would have been absurd for him to attempt to call Hole-in-the-Day or the Pillagers of Leech Lake to account for game killed on the lands of the Dakotas, for they would have laughed him to scorn. The death of one intruder, shot down by the Dakotas, had more salutary warning in it than all the admonitions that could be given by the agent and military officers; and the Ojibways had more respect for a little war party of Dakotas, skulking in the grass, than for all the troops ever quartered at Fort Snelling.

Besides the necessity of defending their country, they had many relatives killed by the enemy, whose death they felt bound in honor to revenge.

It has been said that, in prosecuting their wars, they were actuated less by patriotic motives than by a desire to show their prowess and decorate their heads with eagle feathers. This may be all too true, but patriotic motives alone are not always a sufficient stimulus even for civilized soldiers. Certainly Indians are not the only people ambitious of renown and eager in the pursuit of martial fame. Civilized soldiers do not take scalps, nor adorn their heads with eagle feathers, and we may hope they are all more or less patriotic, but do not some of them keep at least one eye fixed on epaulettes and stars and crosses of honor? What are medals and badges of honor, and names of battle-fields inscribed on banners, but substitutes for the eagle plumes of the Dakotas?