SOURCE OP ST. PETER's RIVER. 229 



obtained at Chicago; being asked how long the pains of la- 

 bour endured among women, he said they varied, sometimes 

 four days, at other times two days or less, and in some cases 

 scarcely long enough to give a man time to smoke a pipe. 



We shall close this protracted account of Wennebea's 

 information, with an anecdote which appears to us to con- 

 nect itself with a point of some interest in our history ; it 

 was related to us spontaneously by Wennebea, and having 

 been written down in his own words, shows the strain of 

 ideas, of which he was susceptible. 



" You know," said he, " that we always carry medicine 

 bags about us, and that in tliese we place the highest con- 

 fidence ; that we take them when we go to war ; that wc 

 administer of their contents to our relations when sick, 

 &c. The great veneration in which wc hold them, arises 

 from our deeming them indispensable to obtain success 

 against our enemies. They have been transmitted to us 

 by our forefathers, who received them at the hands of the 

 Great Master of Life himself. We never venture upon a 

 warlike undertaking unless, by their means, our chiefs 

 should have previously had visions, advising them to do so. 

 When we are near to our enemies, they impart to us the 

 faculty of beholding, in the heavens, great fires passing from 

 one cloud to another. If these fires be numerous, long- 

 continued, and extensive, it is a sure sign to us that in the 

 part of the heavens where we behold them, there are ene- 

 mies ; that they are powerful and numerous, and that we 

 must avoid them. If, on the contrary, they be few, faint 

 and not frequent, then it is a token that our enemies are 

 weak, and that we may attack them with a certainty of 

 success. These are not visions, but realities ; we do not 

 dream that we see these fires, but we actually behold them 

 in the heavens ; for this reason do w^e value our medicine bags 



