their tribe,
with what strength and beauty of diction they clothed their
thoughts--how energetic in gesture! Alas! for the people who had no
higher creed, no surer trust, for this and for another world.

However they may have been improved, no one could have had better
opportunities than I, to acquire all information of interest respecting
these Indians. I lived among them seven years. The chiefs from far and
near were constantly visiting the Fort, and were always at our house.
Not a sentiment is in the Legends that I did not hear from the lips of
the Indian man or woman. They looked on my husband as their friend, and
talked to him freely on all subjects, whether of religion, customs, or
grievances. They were frequently told that I was writing about them,
that every body might know what great warriors they were.

The men were sometimes astonished at the boldness with which I reproved
them, though it raised me much in their estimation. I remember taking
Bad Hail, one of their chiefs, to task, frequently; and on one occasion
he told me, by way of showing his gratitude for the interest I took in
his character, that he had three wives, all of whom he would give up if
I would "leave Eastman, and come and live with him." I received his
proposition, however, with Indian indifference, merely replying that I
did not fancy having my head split open every few days with a stick of
wood. He laughed heartily after his fashion, conscious that the cap
fitted, for he was in the habit of expending all his surplus bad temper
upon his wives. I have sometimes thought, that if, when a warrior, be he
chief or commoner, throws a stick of wood at his wife's head, she were
to cast it back at his, he might, perhaps, be taught better behaviour.
But I never dared to instil such insubordinate notions into the heads of
my Sioux female friends, lest some ultra "brave," in a desperate rage,
might substitute the tomahawk for the log. These opinions, too, might
have made me unpopular with Sioux and Turks--and, perchance, with some
of my more enlightened friends, who are self-constituted "lords of
creation."

I noticed that Indians, like white people, instead of confessing and
forsaking their sins, were apt to excuse themselves by telling how much
worse their neighbors were. When told how wicked it was to have more
than one wife, they defended themselves by declaring that the
Winnebagoes had twice or thrice as many as the Sioux. The attempt to
make one