ada_, [71] twice an hundred years ago--
Ere the "Black Robe's"[CM] sacred shadow
stalked the prairies' pathless snow--
Down the swollen, rushing river, in the sunset's golden hues,
From the hunt of bear and beaver came the band in swift canoes.
On the queen of fairy islands, on the _Wita Waste's_ [CN] shore
Camped Wanata, on the highlands just above the cataract's roar.
Many braves were with Wanata; Ape-duta, too, was there,
And the sad Anpetu-sapa spread the lodge with wonted care.
Then above the leafless prairie leaped the fat-faced, laughing moon,
And the stars--the spirits fairy--walked the welkin one by one.
Swift and silent in the gloaming on the waste of waters blue,
Speeding downward to the foaming, shot Wanata's birch canoe.
In it stood Anpetu-sapa--in her arms her sleeping child;
Like a wailing Norse-land _drapa_ [CO] rose her death-song weird and wild:

[CK] _A-pe_--leaf,--_duta_--Scarlet,--Scarlet leaf

[CL] Stars, the Dakotas say, are the faces of the departed watching over
their friends and relatives on earth.

[CM] The Dakotas called the Jesuit priests "Black Robes," from the color
of their vestments.

[CN] _Wee-tah Wah-stay_--Beautiful Island,--the Dakota name for Nicollet
Island, just above the Falls.

[CO] _Drapa_, a Norse funeral wail in which the virtues of the deceased
are recounted.

[Illustration: ANPETU-SAPA]

_Mihihna_,[CP] _Mihihna_, my heart is stone;
The light is gone from my longing eyes;
The wounded loon in the lake alone
Her death-song sings to the moon and dies.

_Mihihna, Mihihna_, the path is long,
The burden is heavy and hard to bear;
I sink--I die, and my dying song
Is a song of joy to the false one's ear.

_Mihihna, Mihihna_, my young heart flew
Far away with my brave to the bison-chase;
To the battle it went with my warrior true,
And never returned till I saw his face.

_Mihihna, Mihihna_, my brave was glad
When he came from the chase of the roebuck fleet;
Sweet were the words that my hunter said
As his trophies he laid at Anpetu's feet.

_Mihihna, Mihihna_, the boy I bore--
When the robin sang and my brave was true,
I can bear to look on his face no more,
For he looks, _Mihihna_, so much like you.

_Mihihna, Mihihna_, the Scarlet Leaf
Has robbed my boy of his father's love;
He sleeps in my arms--he will find no grief
In the star-lit lodge in the land above.

_Mihihna, Mihihn