s
an insult to Him who made them and us. May this little work do something
towards exciting an interest in a single tribe out of the many whose
only hope is in the mercy of the white man!

RED EARTH;

OR,

MOCKA-DOOTA-WIN.

"Good Road" is one of the Dahcotah chiefs--he is fifty years old and has
two wives, but these two have given a deal of trouble; although the
chief probably thinks it of no importance whether his two wives fight
all the time or not, so that they obey his orders. For what would be a
calamity in domestic life to us, is an every day affair among the
Dahcotahs.

Good Road's village is situated on the banks of the St. Peter's about
seven miles from Fort Snelling. And like other Indian villages it
abounds in variety more than anything else. In the teepee the farthest
from us, right on the edge of the shore, there are three young men
carousing. One is inclined to go to sleep, but the other two will not
let him; their spirits are raised and excited by what has made him
stupid. Who would suppose they were human beings? See their bloodshot
eyes; hear their fiendish laugh and horrid yells; probably before the
revel is closed, one of the friends will have buried his knife in the
other's heart.

We will pass on to the next teepee. Here we witness a scene almost as
appalling. "Iron Arms," one of the most valiant warriors of the band, is
stretched in the agonies of death. Old Spirit Killer, the medicine man,
is gesticulating by his side, and accompanying his motions with the most
horrid noises. But all in vain; the spirit of "Iron Arms," the man of
strength, is gone. The doctor says that his medicine was good, but that
a prairie dog had entered into the body of the Dahcotah, and he thought
it had been a mud-hen. Magnanimous doctor! All honor, that you can allow
yourself in error.

While the friends of the dead warrior are rending the air with their
cries, we will find out what is going on in the next wigwam. What
a contrast!

"The Whirlpool" is seated on the ground smoking; gazing as earnestly at
the bright coals as if in them he could read the future or recall the
past; and his young wife, whose face, now merry, now sad, bright with
smiles at one moment, and lost in thought the next, gained for her the
name of "The Changing Countenance," is hushing her child to sleep; but
the expression of her features does not change now--as she looks on her
child, a mother's deep and devoted love is pictured on