Legends of the Northwest

I have for several years devoted many of my leisure hours to the study of the language, history, traditions, customs and superstitions of the Dakotas. These Indians are now comm...

Then tall Wakâwa arose and said: "Brave warriors, listen, and give due heed. Great is Heyóka, the magical god; He can walk on the air; he can float on the flood. He's a worker o...

Then up from his seat in the silent crowd Rose the frowning, fierce-eyed, tall Red Cloud; Swift was his stride as the panther's spring, When he leaps on the fawn from his cavern...

Two hundred white Winters and more have fled from the face of the Summer, Since here on the oak shaded shore of the dark winding swift Mississippi, Where his foaming floods tumb...

Hark!--the shouts and the braying of drums, and the Babel of tongues and confusion! From his teepee the tall chieftain comes, and Duluth brings a prize for the runners-- A keen...

Now a light, rustling wind from the South shakes his wings o'er the wide, wimpling waters; Up the dark winding river DuLuth follows fast in the wake of Tamdóka. On the slopes of...

Wazíya came down from the North --from his land of perpetual winter. From his frost-covered beard issued forth the sharp-biting, shrill-whistling North-wind; At the touch of his...

In the moon Magâ-o-Kâda, [71] twice an hundred years ago-- Ere the "Black Robe's" [a] sacred shadow stalked the prairies' pathless snow Down the swollen, rushing river, in the s...

Spoke the mother to the Raven: "O my son--my brave young hunter, Feed my tender little orphan; Be a father to my orphan; Be a mother to my orphan,-- For the Crafty Red Fox robbe...

[Footnote 38: Carver's Cave at St. Paul was called by the Dakotas "Wakân Teepee"--sacred lodge. In the days that are no more, they lighted their Council-fires in this cave, and...

[Footnote 86: Pronounced _Kah-thah-gah_--literally, _the place of waves and foam_. This was the principal village of the Isantee band of Dakotas two hundred years ago, and was l...