La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

260 HENNEPIN AMONG THE SIOUX. [1680.threatening; for treatment like this was usuallyfollowed by the speedy immolation of the captive.Hennepin ascribes it to the effect of his invocations,that, being led into one of the lodges, among athrong of staring squaws and children, he and hiscompanions were seated on the ground, and presentedwith large dishes of birch-bark, containing amess of wild rice boiled with dried whortleberries,— a repast which he declares to have been the bestthat had fallen to his lot since the day of hiscaptivity. 11The Sioux, or Dacotah, as they call themselves, were a numerouspeople, separated into three great divisions, which wereagain subdivided into bands.Those among whom Hennepin wasa prisoner belonged to the division known as the Issanti, Issanyati,or, as he writes it, Issati, of which the principal band wasthe Meddewakantonwan. The other great divisions, the Yanktonsand the Tintonwans, or Tetons, lived west of the Mississippi,extending beyond the Missouri, and ranging as far as the RockyMountains. The Issanti cultivated the soil; but the extremewestern bands subsisted on the buffalo alone. The former hadtwo kinds of dwelling, — the teepee, or skin-lodge, and the barklodge.The teepee, which was used by all the Sioux, consistsof a covering of dressed buffalo-hide, stretched on a conicalstack of poles. The bark-lodge was peculiar to the EasternSioux; and examples of it might be seen, until within a fewyears, among the bands on the St. Peter's. In its general character,it was like the Huron and Iroquois houses, but was inferiorin construction. It had a ridge roof, framed of poles,extending from the posts which formed the sides ; and thewhole was covered with elm-bark. The lodges in the villagesto which Hennepin was conducted were probably of thiskind.The name Sioux is an abbreviation of Nadouessioux, an Ojibwaword, meaning " enemies." The Ojibwas used it to designate thw