GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1915

_Copyright, 1915, by_
Doubleday, Page & Company

_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The author of this book was born in a teepee of buffalo hide near
Redwood Falls, Minn., during the winter of 1858. His father was a
full-blooded Sioux called "Many Lightnings," (Tawakanhdeota). His
mother, the granddaughter of Chief "Cloud Man" of the Sioux and daughter
of a well-known army officer, died shortly after his birth. He was named
Ohiyesa (The Winner).

The baby was reared to boyhood by the care of his grandmother. When he
was four years old, the so-called "Minnesota massacre" of 1862 separated
him from his father and elder brothers and only sister, and drove him
with a remnant of the eastern Sioux into exile in Manitoba. There for
over ten years he lived the original nomadic life of his people in the
family of an uncle, from whom he received the Spartan training of an
Indian youth of that day. The knowledge thus gained of life's realities
and the secrets of nature, as well as of the idealistic philosophy of
the Indian, he has always regarded as a most valuable part of his
education.

When Ohiyesa had reached the age of fifteen years, and had been
presented with a flint-lock musket in token of his arrival at the estate
of young manhood, he was astonished by the reappearance of the father
whose supposed death at the hands of white men he had been taught that
he must some day avenge. He learned that this father had adopted the
religion and customs of the hated race, and was come to take home his
youngest son.

Ohiyesa's new home was a pioneer log cabin on a farm at Flandreau,
Dakota Territory, where a small group of progressive Indians had taken
up homesteads like white men and were earning an independent livelihood.
His long hair was cropped, he was put into a suit of citizen's clothing
and sent off to a mission day school. At first reluctant, he soon became
interested, and two years later voluntarily walked 150 miles to attend a
larger and better school at Santee, Neb., where he made rapid progress
under the veteran missionary educator, Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, and was soon
advanced to the preparatory department of Beloit College, Wisconsin. His
father had adopted his wife's English name of Eastman, and t