intense as at the top. I also noticed that the hair of the Indians was wet. Instead of swallowing the water they had held in their mouths for a moment, and then spouting it into the curved hands, had saturated their hair with it. I at once poured some water from the bowl on my head, thoroughly saturating my hair, and it seemed to clear my brain as from a hot mist. The covering of the lodge remained up some moments, and was then closed as before. This time I held my head down, and my hair being wet, I experienced no uncomfortable sensations. A mouthful of water only was blown upon the stones as before (sometimes a little musk or something of the kind is held in the medicine-man's mouth, so that a pungent odor is emitted as this water is blown upon the stones). The covering was raised and lowered four times, and then quite a quantity of water was poured upon the stones, filling the little house full of hot steam. We all went then to the river and plunged in, and felt greatly refreshed. Had I understood the necessity of wetting my hair and keeping my head near the ground, I do not think I should have experienced any ill-effects from the bath; as it was I was half ill for three or four days, and I attributed it to the overheating. I am accustomed to taking Turkish and Russian baths, and have been in a hot room for some time when the thermometer indicated one hundred and seventy degrees, and gone from this through different stages to nearly ice-cold water, but I have never experienced anything like the cooking I got in that Cheyenne Sweat-Lodge, and I am confident it was their ordinary bath. Women and little children join the men in these baths."

The spring of the year, just as the snow is disappearing, seems to be a favorite time for the Cheyennes to indulge in this bath; and at this time they make "medicine" for a speedy disappearance of the snow, quick growth of the grass, and prompt fattening of all the animals. I once saw an old man, seventy-six years of age, walking around on the snow perfectly naked, except for his breech-cloth, both before and after taking one of these baths.

When vision-seeking, the dreamers do not, I believe, have the skins raised, but try and secure supernatural knowledge by enduring the hot air and steam for prolonged periods.

These baths are also taken by persons who are greatly angered or depressed by the loss of friends or kin by death. I know a Sioux chief whose little son, the pride of his heart, was taken suddenly sick and died. His sorrow and anger made him a dangerous creature to meet. His friends put him into one of these baths and "washed his grief away.

Briefly then, as an Indian once said to me, the SweatLodge is made as a “medicine" to ask of the Great Spirit anything we want. If one is sick or has anything the matter with him, they go in and ask the Great Spirit to heal them; and all go to ask for assistance and guidance.

The figure in the bottom of the hole indicated what was specially wished and prayed for, a figure of a man without limbs indicated a wish to kill an enemy; a pony track, to steal ponies.

It is considered specially good luck for the medicine-man to take the bath with others, and he is master of ceremonies. As they lived mostly on buffalo, the head was placed in front of he Sweat-Lodge that they might pray to it; might not forget to petition the Great Mystery of the Universe to perpetuate the buffalo and have them always near their village.

CHAPTER XX.

COUNTING TIME.

The Dakotas have names for the natural division of time. Their years they ordinarily count by winters. A man is so many winters old, or so many winters have passed since such an event. When one is going on a journey, he does not usually say that he will go back in so many days, as

we do, but in so many nights or sleeps. In the same way they compute distance by the number of nights passed in making the journey. They have no division of time into weeks. Their months are literally moons. The popular belief is that when the moon is full, full, a great number of very small mice commence nibbling on one side of it, which they continue to do until they have eaten it all up. Soon after this another moon begins to grow, which goes on increasing until it has reached its full size, only to share the fate of its predecessor; so that with them the new moon is really new, and not the old one re-appearing. To the moons they have given names, which refer to some prominent physical fact that occurs about that time in the year.

Five moons are usually counted to the winter, and five to the summer, leaving only one each to the spring and autumn; but this distinction is not closely adhered to. The Dakotas often have warm debates, especially towards the close of the winter, about what moon it is. The raccoons do not always make their appearance at the same time every winter; and the causes which produce sore eyes are not developed precisely at the same time in each successive spring. All these variations make room for strong arguments in a Dakota tent for or against Wi-cata-wi or Istawicayazan-wi.

But the main reason for their frequent difference of opinion in regard to this matter, viz., that twelve lunations do not bring them to the point from which they commenced counting, never appears to have suggested itself. In order to make their moons correspond with the seasons they are obliged to pass one over every few years.

DAKOTA METHOD OF COUNTING.

Counting is usually done by means of their fingers. If you ask some Dakota how many there are of anything, instead of directing their answer to your organs of hearing, they present it to your sight, by holding up so many

fingers. When they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten. Eleven is ten more one, or more commonly again one; twelve is again two, and so on; nineteen is the other nine. At the end of the next ten another finger is turned down, and so on. Twenty is two tens, thirty is three tens, etc. Opawinge, one hundred, is probably derived from pawinga to go around in a circle or to make gyrations, as the fingers have all gone over again for their respective tens. The Dakota word for one thousand, keptopawinge, may be formed of "ake" and "opawinge," hundred again, having now completed the circle of their fingers in hundreds and being about to commence again. They have no separate word to denote any higher number than a thousand. There is a word to denote one half of anything but none to denote any smaller aliquot part.

They count years by winters, and compute distances by the numbers of nights passed on a journey. Their months are computed by moons, and are as follows: 1. Wi-teri, January, the hard moon. 2. Wicata-wi, February, the raccoon moon. 3. Istawicazayan-wi, March, the sore-eye moon. 4. Magaokada-wi, April, the moon in which the geese lay eggs; also called Wocakla-wi, and sometimes Watopapi-wi, the moon when the streams are again navigable. 5. Wojupi-wi, May, the planting moon. 6. Wajustecasa-wi, June, the moon when the strawberries are red. 7. Canpasapa-wi and Wasunpa-wi, July, the moon when the choke-cherries are ripe, and when the geese shed their feathers. 8. Wasunton-wi, August, the harvest 9. Psinhnakett-wi, September, the moon when rice is laid up to dry. 10. Wi-wajupi, the drying rice moon; sometimes written Wazupi-wi. 11. Takiyura-wi, November, the deer rutting moon. 12. Tahec-apsun-wi, December, the moon when the deer shed their horns.

moon.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CALUMET.

The "Calumet," first mentioned under this Indian name by DeSoto, is familiar to us as the emblem of peace when smoked and passed from hand to hand in an interview or council. The Dakotas are great smokers. The Red Pipe Stone Quarry, which, according to their tradition, is the assembling place of the nations, is in the land of the Dakotas. The tobacco is furnished by the trader; and the Indian finds the "Kinnekenick " growing along the streams. This is the inner bark of the dogwood, and also of a species of willows, which is scraped off and dried, and then mixed with the tobacco to moderate and flavor the smoke. When the Dakotas are without pipe and tobacco they are usually not in a good humor. A boy learns to smoke when quite young, but a girl is not expected to indulge in that way till she becomes a woman, and occasionally you will find a woman who does not smoke. Smoking takes up much of their time when they are awake.

A man, when alone, lights his pipe and smokes frequently. But, when two or more are together, the pipe is kept going around, and seldom or never gets cold. If an Indian meets another on the prairie, they sit down and smoke before they talk. At their feasts, before and after eating, they smoke, but especially before; indeed the pipe, on many of these occasions, is held up reverently to the Great Spirit or to the god they wish to propitiate, and the prayer is offered," Have mercy on me." As smoking is a luxury so highly valued by the Indians, they have bestowed much pains and no little ingenuity, on the construction of their pipes. The bowls of these are generally made of the redsteatite (Catlinite) or "pipe-stone" and many of them designed and carved with much taste and skill, with figures and groups in alto-relievo standing or inclining upon them. When the terms of a treaty have been agreed upon, the