crowd to fill a tepee and listen with fixed attention to the recital for hours during the long winter evenings.

MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

Mention has been made of their popular tunes, and there were many of these, each appropriated to some special service. Probably some of them had been sung by them and their ancestors for many generations.

One of these tunes was used by mourners, and that and no other was used by them all in wailing for the dead. One was used to express feelings of terror and dismay. This is what we call the "death-song," but the Dakotas called it "the song or tune of terror," and it was sung when they were in great peril. It was reported of the delegation of chiefs which went to Washington in 1837, that some of them began to sing this tune when without any warning they were carried into a railroad tunnel; and this is the tune that was sung on the scaffold by those who were hung at Mankato.

Another of these tunes was sung when the recipient of a present made a public acknowledgment of the generosity of the donor, and yet another when they were gambling with the ball and moccasin. Each dance and religious feast had its appropriate tune. There are a great many of these tunes and they were sung very frequently, so that, although few have a less discriminating ear for music than the writer, he learned to distinguish them, and when singing was heard in the camp he knew at once what was going on by the tune that was sung. A few words were occasionally sung with these tunes, as a sort of chorus; but they were sung a great deal without any words at all.

It would be presumption in me to attempt to criticise Dakota music. I can only say of their singing that it seemed to me to accord well with the character of the singers. The loud, wild notes were doubtless animating to their spirits and pleasing to their ears, but not to mine.

Some of their singing, especially when heard in the night, had a weird, unearthly sound. The loud, rude voices of the singers, and the dismal sound of the drum, made music that accorded well with the war-whoop of the young braves, the wailing of mourners, and the howling of conjurers, all of which might be heard at the same time.

The musical instruments most used were the drum, rattle, and flute. The drum was made by straining parchment, made of deerskin, over the end of a powder keg. Probably in earlier times a piece of hollow log was used. This drum was beaten in a very monotonous manner with a single stick. The sound was dull and not particularly inspiring, but could be heard quite a distance. Light portable drums were made by putting parchment heads on hoops, five or six inches broad, and fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter.

The rattle was made of a gourd shell, into which were put the round teeth of the white bass. This instrument was used principally by conjurers. They made other rattles of deer hoofs, or of pieces of metal attached to a handle, and these were used in some dances.

Flutes might be made of sumac, but by the Medawakantonwans they were commonly made of red cedar. A stick was first made of the requisite size and shape for the tube, then was split through the middle, and the two pieces were hollowed out and glued together again. The sounds produced by this little instrument were very agreeable; its soft melody, which was quite in contrast with their other music, proved that they had a relish for sounds less harsh than those produced by the drum and rattle. Often a young man might be seen sitting alone, playing on a flute of his own making, and seemingly delighted with its soft, sweet tones. That the women were pleased with the sounds of the flute may be inferred from the fact that it was much used in serenading young ladies.

NOTATION.

The Dakotas compute numbers like other people, by tens; because, like other people, they have ten fingers and thumbs on their hands. Their names for numbers are very much like our own. They count ten, two tens, three tens, etc., till they reach a hundred, then commence again, and when they have reached ten hundred, call it one thousand and begin again. In fact their mode. of counting is substantially the same as our own. Their name for a million was coined for them by interpreters, when they sold their lands, and the most intelligent of them did not at first understand it, not having before had occasion to use it.

They count a great deal on their fingers, and often hold them up in answer to the question, How many? They practice this so much that many of them will straighten out what fingers they please, keeping the rest closed. The fingers may represent units, tens, hundreds, or thousands. If they wish to signify ten they hold open both hands; and if twenty, thirty, etc., they open and close the hands as many times as there are tens in the number.

Time was measured by days, or rather by nights, and by moons. None of the Dakotas knew the exact number of days in a year. One of them told the writer that he had tried to ascertain the number by cutting a notch in a stick for each day, but when the year came round he had no means of ascertaining the precise day on which he began to count.

Being very close and careful observers of natural phenomena, they could tell very nearly the time of the year in summer by the appearance of vegetation, and in winter by the fetuses of the animals which they killed, but of course the information obtained from such sources could not be exact. They seemed most at fault about the time of year in February and March, and looked anxiously for the return of the crows, who were the harbingers of spring and always brought welcome tidings to the Dakotas, for they knew that the ducks and geese were not far behind.

They had an absurd way of accounting for the wane of the moon, saying that it was eaten up. The moon-eater seemed quite unequal to the task assigned him, for he was nothing more than a little mouse of a peculiar form, a species found occasionally though rather rarely in this country. How much credence this queer fancy gained among the Dakotas is uncertain, for, when bantered about it, they laughed and did not seem to care whether it was true or not. They had no better way of accounting for the decrease of the moon, and perhaps their theory was as good as none. Lying outdoors so often by night, they learned to appreciate the value of the moon as a luminary and were unwilling that it should suffer harm.

While sleeping one night in one of their camps, I was suddenly aroused by the discharge of fire-arms. Running out to learn the cause, I found the moon eclipsed and the Indians trying to frighten away the monster which had assailed it. They suc

ceeded in this praiseworthy attempt, as doubtless their ancestors had done for generations before them, and so would be encouraged to try it again when necessary.

They were close observers of the stars, and had given names to many single stars and constellations. In the absence of the moon, they looked at the stars as we do at a timepiece to learn the time at night.

STANDARDS OF MEASURE.

In measuring cloth the Dakotas used the distance from the ear to the end of the longest finger, turning the head so that the measure with a man of ordinary size was about a yard in length. Poles, canoes, etc., were measured by the fathom, the distance between the ends of the fingers when both arms are extended in opposite directions. For short measures they used the span and the hand's breadth.

In pacing distances they did not walk as we do, taking long steps, but put the feet as far apart as possible. This was a laborious way of measuring and was used only for short distances. Long distances were measured by day's journeys or a part of a day's journey. Some young men once measured the distance from Kaposia to Mendota, and from Mendota to Lake Calhoun, by bow shots, but probably this mode of measurement was not often resorted to.

They had no standard for weights and liquid measures, and none for dry measure except the hands.

RELIGION AND WORSHIP.

It is not easy to exhibit the religious views of the Dakotas in a very clear or satisfactory light. Their external forms of worship can be described, but I shall not attempt to tell just what they thought of things unseen, for many of their notions concerning supernatural things were confused, unsettled, and contradictory.

I went among them with a determination to know all that was to be learned about them, and especially about their views on religious subjects. For this purpose I carefully observed all that was to be seen of their acts of worship, even entering their wakan feasts and taking part in their ceremonies. All the information. that was to be gained by conversing with the most intelligent and

communicative among them convinced me, after a careful research, extending through many years, during which I made a diligent use of my eyes and ears, that they had no fixed, uniform belief.

Probably a harmonious system of mythology was never found among any heathen people. Each pagan writer, when speaking of the gods, would aim to be consistent with himself, but these writers do not always harmonize with each other; and the superstitious notions of the common people were perhaps as confused and contradictory as those of the American Indians. The great poets of pagan Greece and Rome were great inventors, and they sometimes drew on their invention or imagination much more than Milton did in writing his "Paradise Lost."

My brother, Gideon H. Pond, in a little work published some years ago, has perhaps done as much to reduce this discordant and chaotic mass of materials to order as any one can; but I will tell some things about their superstitious notions and practices, because this work would be incomplete were no such statement included. His paper, entitled "Dakota Superstitions and Dakota Gods," forms pages 215-255 in the second volume of the Minnesota Historical Society Collections. Another paper, on "The Religion of the Dakotas," by James W. Lynd, is in pages 150-174 of the same volume.

The Dakotas had certain ideas about religious subjects which were not taught them by their prophets and had no connection with their superstitions, but which seem to have been the suggestion of reason and conscience. These ideas were deficient rather than erroneous, but mention of them will be made in another place. Here I am speaking of their superstitions, the inventions of their wakan-men. No well-informed person will expect to find in the mythology of the Dakotas a well defined system. As they had no books and no class of persons whose business it was to teach the common people the articles of religious belief, each one knew only what he happened to hear, and some heard one thing and some another.

If the members of the Wakan-lodge had any knowledge of these things more than others, they kept such knowledge to themselves; but it is probable that if all their secrets had been divulged, they would have amounted to nothing more than crafty devices for upholding the credit of their own order.