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

1680.] THE SIOUX. 261This soothed his fears ;but, as he allayed his famishedappetite, he listened with anxious interest tothe vehement jargon of the chiefs and warriors, whowere disputing among themselves to whom the threecaptives should respectively belong; for it seemsthat, as far as related to them, the question of distributionhad not yet been definitely settled. Thedebate ended in the assigning ofHennepin to his oldenemy Aquipaguetin, who, however, far from persistingin his evil designs, adopted him on the spot ashis son. The three companions must now part company.Du Gay, not yet quite reassured of his safety,hastened to confess himself to Hennepin ; but Accauproved refractory, and refused the offices of religion,which did not prevent the friarfrom embracing themboth, as he says, with an extreme tenderness. Tiredas he was, he was forced to set out with his selfstyledfather to his village, which was fortunatelypeople, and occasionally also the Iroquois, being at deadly warwith both.Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, for many years a missionary among theIssanti Sioux, says that this division consists of four distinct bands.They ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi to the UnitedStates in 1837, and lived on the St. Peter's till driven thence in consequenceof the massacres of 1862, 1863. The Yankton Sioux consistof two bands, which are again subdivided. The Assiniboins, orHohays, are an offshoot from the Yanktons, with whom they arenow at war. The Tintonwan, or Teton Sioux, forming the mostwestern division and the largest, comprise seven bands, and areamong the bravest and fiercest tenants of the prairie.The earliest French writers estimate the total number of theSioux at forty thousand ; but this is little better than conjecture,Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five thousand.