394 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



warm country, where the spring is everlasting, and every month is 

 May ; and as the year is always in its youth, so are the people, 

 and particularly the women are bright as stars, and never scold. 

 That in this happy climate there are deer, turkeys, elks, and 

 buffaloes innumerable, perpetually fat and gentle, while the trees 

 are loaded with delicious fruit quite throughout the four seasons.... 

 The left-hand path is very rugged and uneven, leading to a dark 

 and barren country, where it is always winter. The ground is the 

 whole year round cover'd with snow, and nothing is to be seen 

 upon the trees but icicles Here, after they [the wicked] have 

 been tormented a certain number of years, according to their 

 several degrees of guilt, they are again driven back into this 

 world, to try if they will mend their manners, and merit a place 

 the next time in the regions of bliss 1 ." 



A curious illustration of the universality of certain practices, 

 which from their very nature might be supposed restricted in 

 time and place, is afforded by the " fire dance " found flourishing 

 in an aggravated form amongst the Catawbas, as amongst the 

 ancient Sabines, the Fijians, and so many other peoples : "These 

 miserable wretches are strangely infatuated with illness of the 

 devil ; it caused no small horror in me to see one of them wrythe 

 his neck all on one side, foam at the mouth, stand barefoot upon 

 burning coal for near one hour, and then, recovering his senses, 

 leap out of the fire without hurt or sign of any 2 ." 



Although shorn of their Gulf and Atlantic territories, the 

 Siouans still occupied till lately a vast if somewhat fluctuating 

 domain in the heart of the continent, where the Dakota division 

 thought themselves strong enough to raise the standard of revolt 

 against the United States Government more than once in the 

 second half of the ipth century. Before their final reduction, 

 followed by the usual distribution amongst the Indian Territory, 

 Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, and other Agencies, these typical 

 prairie nomads roamed from the Saskatchewan basin south to 

 Arkansas, and from the Mississippi west to Montana and 

 Wyoming. A distinction, however, should be drawn between the 

 true predatory hordes banded together in the famous " Seven 



1 Quoted by Mooney, p. 48. 



2 Leclerer, ib. p. i\. 



