obtained from the Dakotas. Charlevoix speaks of this pipe-stone in his
_History of New France_. LeSueur refers to the Yanktons as the village
of the Dakotas at the Red-Stone Quarry. See _Neill's Hist. Minn._, p.
514.

[24] "_Ho_" is an exclamation of approval--yea, yes, bravo.

[25] Buying is the honorable way of taking a wife among the Dakotas. The
proposed husband usually gives a horse or its value in other articles to
the father or natural guardian of the woman selected--sometimes against
her will. See note 75.

[26] The Dakotas believe that the _Aurora Borealis_ is an evil omen and
the threatening of an evil spirit (perhaps _Waziya_, the
Winter-god--some say a witch, or a very ugly old woman). When the lights
appear danger threatens, and the warriors shoot at, and often slay, the
evil spirit, but it rises from the dead again.

[27] _Se-so-kah_--The Robin.

[28] The spirit of _Anpetu-sapa_ that haunts the Falls of St. Anthony with
her dead babe in her arms. See the Legend in _Neill's Hist. Minn._, or
my _Legend of the Falls._

[29] _Mee-coonk-shee_--My daughter.

[30] The Dakotas call the meteor, "_Wakan-denda_" (sacred fire) and
_Wakan-wohlpa_ (sacred gift). Meteors are messages from the Land of
Spirits warning of impending danger. It is a curious fact that the
"sacred stone" of the Mohammedans, in the Kaaba at Mecca, is a meteoric
stone, and obtains its sacred character from the fact that it fell from
heaven.

[31] _Kah-no-te-dahn_,--the little, mysterious dweller in the woods. This
spirit lives in the forest, in hollow trees. _Mrs. Eastman's Dacotah_,
Pre. Rem. xxxi. "The Dakota god of the woods--an unknown animal said to
resemble a man, which the Dakotas worship: perhaps, the
monkey."--_Riggs' Dakota Dic. Tit--Canotidan_.

[32] The Dakotas believe that thunder is produced by the flapping of the
wings of an immense bird which they call _Wakinyan_--the Thunder-bird.
Near the source of the Minnesota River is a place called
"Thunder-Tracks" where the foot-prints of a "Thunder-bird" are seen on
the rocks twenty-five miles apart. _Mrs. Eastman's Dacotah_, p. 71.
There are many Thunder-birds. The father of all the
Thunder-birds--"_Wakinyan Tanka_"--or "Big Thunder," has his _teepee_ on
a lofty mountain in the far West. His _teepee_ has four openings, at
each of which is a sentinel; at the east, a butterfly; at the west, a
bear; at the south, a red deer; at the north, a caribou. He has a bitter
enmity agains