INDIANS OF RED RIVER OF THE NORTH. 371 



ing paste. And tlie amount of this one of these '' sons of the forest" 

 will eat, will cause even an anatomist to wonder at the distensibility of 

 the human stomach. 



Until 18G1 those about this locality — chiefly Sissetons — lived entirely 

 by hunting and fishing. About this time some of them were furnished 

 corn and potatoes by their agent, and they commenced to cultivate the 

 soil, but shortly afterward, from causes not relevant to mention here, 

 the Dakota outbreak occurred. The Sisseton and Wahpeton bands 

 were im])licated with the others, and the distrust and animosities this 

 has necessarily engendered have much delayed their civilization. 



The men are rather over medium height, are well made, and many of 

 them are intelligent-looking, some even handsome. The type of their 

 heads, with their " low defective forehead," the vertical occiput, the 

 prominent vertex, and great interparietal diameter, hardly need men. 

 tion, though it is deserving of remark that the "low defective forehead" 

 js not so characteristic of the crania of the Sisseton band as of some of 

 the other bands of the Dakota Nation. Their shades of color show con- 

 siderable variation ; many of them on the parts of the body not habitu- 

 ally exposed are not darker than many brunettes with us, while others 

 in the same band are of a deep bronze or even coppery brown color. 

 As a rule their hands and feet are small and delicately formed, and as 

 a people they are remarkably free from deformities. Their hard " strug- 

 gle for existence" probably acts on the principle of " natural selection" 

 to keep up the best and hardiest of the stock, while the weaklings and 

 the deformed die off. I have seen but one deformed Indian during my 

 stay here. He was a Wahpeton with a simple case of " hair lip," which 

 its owner refused to allow me to operate upon. They are enthusiastic 

 and excitable gamblers, and will stake their ponies and even their wives 

 on a game of " moccasin." The females are short in stature and broad 

 and more ungainly than the males ; they possess great strength and 

 great power of physical endurance, as is commonly the case among 

 uncivilized tribes, where the women are the drudges and slaves of the 

 males. I am inclined to the belief that the females arrive at the age of 

 Ijuberty before the age usual among civilized females. I have seen one 

 Sisseton girl who was the mother of a healthy child — which she was 

 nursing — when but thirteen years of age, and two or three who were 

 mothers before they had quite attained the ago of fourteen ; though 

 this precocity may be caused by the promiscuous intercourse of the 

 sexes in their rude manner of life. Writers have spoken of the dreary 

 existence of Dakota women, and nothing that has been said can draw 

 too exaggerated a picture of the never-ending drudgery of their lives, 

 uncheered even by the hope of happiness in the spirit land ; therefore 

 suicide is very common among them ; even for trivial causes a Dakota 

 woman will cut a thong of bulfalo hide and hang herself. A case came 

 under my observation a few weeks since where the wife of one of the 



