white man.
Sitting Bull and other noted chiefs have, at one time or another, been
connected with Indian shows.

A pageant-play based on Longfellow's poem of "Hiawatha" has been given
successfully for several years by native Ojibway actors; and individuals
of Indian blood have appeared on the stage in minor parts, and more
prominently in motion pictures, where they are often engaged to
represent tribal customs and historical events.

USEFUL ARTS AND INVENTIONS

Among native inventions which have been of conspicuous use and value to
the dispossessors of the Indian we recollect at once the bark canoe, the
snowshoe, the moccasin (called the most perfect footwear ever invented),
the game of lacrosse and probably other games, also the conical teepee
which served as a model for the Sibley army tent. Pemmican, a condensed
food made of pounded dried meat combined with melted fat and dried
fruits, has been largely utilized by recent polar explorers.

The art of sugar making from the sap of the hard or sugar maple was
first taught by the aborigines to the white settlers. In my day the
Sioux used also the box elder for sugar making, and from the birch and
ash is made a dark-colored sugar that was used by them as a carrier in
medicine. However, none of these yield as freely as the maple. The
Ojibways of Minnesota still make and sell delicious maple sugar, put up
in "mococks," or birch-bark packages. Their wild rice, a native grain of
remarkably fine flavor and nutritious qualities, is also in a small way
an article of commerce. It really ought to be grown on a large scale and
popularized as a package cereal. A large fortune doubtless awaits the
lucky exploiter of this distinctive "breakfast food."

In agriculture the achievements of the Indian have probably been
underestimated, although it is well known that the Indian corn was the
mother of all the choice varieties which to-day form an important source
of food supply for the civilized world. The women cultivated the maize
with primitive implements, and prepared it for food in many attractive
forms, including hominy and succotash, of which the names, as well as
the dishes themselves, are borrowed from the red man. He has not always
been rewarded in kind for his goodly gifts. In 1830 the American Fur
Company established a distillery at the mouth of the Yellowstone River,
and made alcohol from the corn raised by the Gros Ventre women, with
which they demoralized the men of the