white man, except when it was necessary, but staid at home and industriously engaged in taking care of their families. The conversation of many of the Indians was lewd enough at best, but probably the worst language that some of the women ever heard was addressed to them by white men. Yet I do not think the example of the whites had, up to the year 1834, exerted a very deleterious influence on the Dakotas as a people.

The character of some of the females in the vicinity of Fort Snelling suffered in consequence of their intercourse with soldiers. and others, but they were few in comparison with the mass of the people, and their example was not thought worthy of imitation. A great many of the women in the neighborhood of the fort, however, had nothing to do with unprincipled white men; while those living more remote seldom saw any white man but the traders, who commonly each had an Indian wife of his own.

Whatever may be thought of the conduct of officers and others. who cohabited with Indian women, as far as the women themselves were concerned it was lawful wedlock. They were married according to the customs of their people, and were wives, not concubines.

While some of the whites were exerting a bad influence over the Indians, others gave them salutary advice and set them good examples. I should have thought that the example of the whites had done the Indians much damage, if I had not had an opportunity to compare those nearest the white people with those more remote from them. In 1834, the morals of the former were certainly as good as those of the latter, and they were more intelligent and more agreeable in their manners. In later years, however, they were rapidly demoralized by coming into too close contact with their white neighbors.

In concluding what I have to say about the chastity or unchastity of the Dakotas, I will only add that while all who knew them will admit that they were quite bad enough, yet when we consider that their libidinous passions had no restraint but the private conscience of pagans and the public sentiment of a savage people, ignorant of all religious obligations, and that the marriage contract had no legal force, we may well wonder that we found among them so many families, so many men and women living together as man and wife, whom nothing but death could separate,

and who used their best endeavors to take care of their children, make them comfortable, and place them in a position to take care of themselves when they could do no more for them.

CLEANLINESS.

All who write about Indians characterize them as filthy, and if they mean by this term that their mode of life is such that they cannot keep themselves as clean as those who live in houses, have changes of raiment, and conveniences for washing and bathing, it is true; but if they mean to say that they are reconciled to filth and take no pains to keep thmselves clean, it is a mistake, at least so far as the Dakotas are concerned.

Certainly they kept neither their persons nor their garments clean, not always so clean as they might, and it would have been strange if they had not become so accustomed to soiled garments as not to be very much shocked at the sight of them. Huddled together in little tents a great portion of the year, without soap or other conveniences for washing, having no change of clothing, and often compelled to wear the same garments by night and by day, they could not present a neat and tidy appearance. The question is not whether they were clean, but whether they were as cleanly as they well could be under such circumstances, that is, as cleanly as they could be and support themselves by hunting.

I have heard a white woman, who was intimately acquainted with the habits of the Indian women, say that she did not believe any white woman, situated as they were, would keep herself as clean as most of them did. That filthy and squalid appearance which Indians often presented to the eyes of a white man, was a necessity of their manner of life, unavoidable so long as they lived by the chase.

It would be as reasonable to declaim against the smut on the face of a coal miner, as against the dirty appearance of Indians. If they wore any garments, they must wear soiled ones. They were too poor to own, and were unable to carry on their journeys, such clothing, bedding, and washing apparatus, as were necessary to secure personal cleanliness.

The overloaded women could not carry a washtub in their removals, and considered even a wash-basin an incumbrance; so, instead of using one, they drew the water into their mouths and

spirted it out into their hands and thus washed their hands and faces. This was a heathenish fashion, but better than none. In fact there was no place in the little crowded tent in which to use a wash-basin, and we could hardly expect even a Dakota to wash. outdoors in the winter.

When I accompanied a winter hunting party, this matter of washing was rather embarrassing after the lakes and streams were frozen over. I was notified, by the mistress of the house, that all washing at the common watering place was strictly interdicted. There was no washbowl or basin, and, if I washed in any dish or kettle, it would be perpetually polluted and could never again be used for cooking purposes, for these filthy Indians have some very strict notions. I did not like to go to a distance of twenty or thirty rods and cut a hole through the ice every time I wished to wash myself, neither did I fancy their mode of washing. Therefore I washed in the snow, and doubtless they inferred from it that I was whimsical, more whimsical than wise. In the meantime my clothing could not be washed in the snow, so I stood it as well as I could, and threw my under-garments into the last fire kindled on my way home. The Indians could not afford to purify their raiment by fire, and probably I should not have done so had I not at that time been somewhat of a novice.

In reading vivid accounts of the filthy and disgusting appearance of Indians, I can hardly help wishing that the writers were compelled to take a nearer view of them and live with them, faring as they do, through just one winter's campaign. I should like to see which came out the cleaner in the spring, the white man or the Indian.

When the white lady looked on the soiled blanket and greasy coat of the Indian woman, she was shocked at her filthy appearance, as she well might be. She pronounced her a filthy wretch. and yet very likely that filthy creature had been into the cold water. of some lake or river up to her waist once a month all winter, to wash herself and her clothing. For this purpose, they went into deep springs when they could find them; but if they could get at the water in no other way, they cut holes through the ice. They went in with their clothes on, and built fires on the shore by which they stood and dried themselves and their garments. These ablutions were performed in the coldest winter weather, when it made.

one shiver to think of it. Is it fair for those who have their warm rooms and warm baths, to stigmatize these heroic women as filthy wretches?

In the summer all but the aged bathed often, and they also washed their garments in the lakes and streams.

SWIMMING.

In swimming, the Dakota men used their feet and legs much in the manner of frogs, as white people ordinarily do, but they did not strike with both hands at a time. They used their hands. alternately, and, while striking with one, raised the other out of the water and reached forward. Their alternate use of the hands gave their heads and shoulders a rolling motion, as they turned first on one side, then on the other. They could not swim quite so rapidly as if they had used both hands at once, but could swim farther, as in our usual way the arms tire sooner than the lower limbs. In their mode of swimming they struck but half as many blows with their hands, as with their feet, one arm resting while the other was in use; and, by lifting their hands out of the water, they avoided the resistance ordinarily encountered in moving them forward.

The women, who in everything they did had a fashion of their own, differing from that of the men, used their arms as white people commonly do, but their feet they held near together, and, raising them alternately out of the water, propelled themselves by striking backward with the top of the foot against the water. These blows with the feet they struck in rapid succession, and when many of them were swimming together they made more noise than the paddle wheels of a steamboat.

DISEASES.

The Dakotas do not seem to possess remarkably strong constitutions, as compared with white people; but it is not easy to draw a comparison of this kind between nations differing so much in their condition and mode of life. It is difficult to know how much of their sickness and disease was owing to debility of constitution, and how large a portion of it should be attributed to hardship, exposure, unwholesome diet, etc.

One who only saw a company of Dakotas and observed their healthy, robust look, especially that of the women, was likely to form an erroneous opinion concerning their general health and strength of constitution. These hardy looking men and women were only a remnant who had outlived a multitude of their companions, as a few of the strongest trees may be left standing in a forest through which a hurricane has passed.

Among civilized people, the lives of the feeble, sickly, and helpless, may be long preserved by proper care and attention, but such persons cannot long endure the vicissitudes of savage life. The reason why the Dakotas did not increase faster was not because so few were born, but because so many died. I kept for a time the record of births in one village, and am confident that the number was greater than is common among an equal number of white people. This would be natural, for almost every marriageable woman lived with a husband, and they all rejoiced in the increase of their families. The Indian women were at least as prolific as the generality of women, and when married to white men, and living in comfortable circumstances, they generally raised large families of children; but death was always busy thinning out the Indian families, and when they arrived at middle age only a few of them were left. Some were killed by their enemies and others died of starvation, but these were few compared with those who died of diseases. By far the larger part died in infancy and childhood. Parents tried to take good care of their children, but they could not always protect them from the inclemency of the weather; often they had no suitable food for them at weaning time, or when they were sick; and many of them were carried off by the diseases to which children are everywhere liable.

In the spring of 1847, about thirty children died of the whooping-cough at Shakopee, most of them infants, and constituting not far from one-twentieth of the population.

Except the diseases incident to infancy and childhood, the Dakotas suffered more perhaps from scrofula and consumption than from any other diseases. About the year 1850, bilious diseases prevailed to an alarming extent all along the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, and many of the Indians died from the effects of the epidemic complaints. About 1834, a great portion of the Wabashaw band died of smallpox, and that disease has since