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Show A H 170 MEETING WITH THE YANKTONANS. beginning to unfold their buds. It is probable, however, that they had suffered by a fire in the prairie. After we had passed, alternately, prairies, with their hills, steep clay banks, and stripes of forest, we prosecuted our voyage till dusk, and lay to near a large willow thicket, on the eastern bank, when some musket shots were suddenly heard, the flashes of which were evidently seen. Mr. Me Kenzie immediately supposed that it was an Indian war party, which people, in general, avoid, as they do not much trust them. We consulted what was to be done. Many shots followed, which made a very loud report, it being the custom of the Indians to use a great deal of powder; and we soon perceived, among the dark thickets, the figures of the Indians in their white buffalo robes. As nobody knew the intentions of these people, we looked forward to the meeting with some anxiety. The Indians broke silence first, calling out that they were come with peaceable intentions, and wished to be taken on board. Ortubize, the interpreter, telling us that they were Sioux, of the branch of the Yanktonans, we conferred some time with them, while a kind of bridge of planks was thrown across to the shore. Twenty-three, for the most part tall men, came on board, and were made to sit down, in a row, on one side of the large cabin. They came from a camp of the Yanktonans, consisting of 300 tents, which was in the neighbourhood; they generally lived on the banks of the Chayenne, which falls into the Red River, near the Devil's Lake, and the sources of St. Peter's River. They had been hunting in the neighbourhood, and shot some buffaloes. The Yanktonans are represented as the most perfidious and dangerous of all the Sioux, and are stated frequently to have killed white men, especially Englishmen, in these parts. They generally come to the Missouri in the winter, but at this season it was a mere chance that we met with them. They were mostly robust, slender, well-shaped men, with long dishevelled hair, in which some wore feathers as indications of their exploits. The upper parts of their bodies were generally naked, merely covered with the buffalo's skin, or blanket; but their whole dress was plain and indifferent, as they only came out for a hunting excursion. The chief of these people was Tatanka-Kta (the dead buffalo), a man of middling stature, with a very dark brown, expressive countenance, and his hair bound together over the forehead in a thick knot; he was dressed in a uniform of red cloth, with blue facings and collar, and ornamented with silver trimmings, such as the traders are used to give, or to sell, to such chiefs as they desire to distinguish. In his hand he had the wing of an eagle for a fan. After we had smoked with these Yanktonans all round, the chief opened, before Mr. Me Kenzie, a bag, with old pemmican (dry meat powdered), by way of present, and then rose to make a speech. After shaking hands, successively, with all persons present, he said, with much gesticulation, and in short sentences, between which he appeared to be reflecting, " that the whole body of the 300 huts was under the principal chief, Jawitschahka; that his people had been formerly on good terms with the Mandans, but had been at variance with them for about a year, on account of the murder of a Sioux, and now wished to make peace again; that with this view |
