SOURCE OP ST. Peter's river. 38.9 



tained a party of sixty warriors who marched out with him. 

 They proposed to the aggressor's friends to compromise 

 the matter, by delivering over two of their party to the pa- 

 rent, so that he might offer them as propitiatory victims to 

 the spirits of his four departed kinsmen. This offer having 

 been rejected, a battle was fought, in which the seducer lost 

 twenty of his party ; his opponents lost but five. It would 

 be needless to go through the long list of engagements 

 fought, or to relate how each party, as often as it was van- 

 quished, swore revenge against its enemies, and recruited 

 itself among its friends. Suffice it to say, that the breach 

 widened ; the nation was divided ; a long and bloody 

 civil war ensued ; the aggressor and his friends withdrew 

 to the north, ceased to pay any allegiance to the confederacy, 

 and formed a new nation, to which the term Hoha, which 

 means revolted, was applied by the Sioux. The Chippe- 

 was, who call the Dacota nation Boines, distinguished the 

 insurgents by the term of Assini Boines, which, accord- 

 ing to some interpreters, means revolted Boines, but which, 

 by the greater number, is supposed to be derived from the 

 Chippewa word Assin, which signifies stone. Ever since 

 this band has been known under the name of Assiniboin, 

 or of Stone Indians. Whence the Chippewa derived this 

 last appellation, we know not ; but we believe we have 

 been told, that it was from the frequent use of stones, as a 

 weapon of defence by the Hohas. Henry describes the 

 instrument and the manner of using it. 



The Dacotas have no tradition of having ever emigrated, 

 from any other place, to the spot upon which they now re- 

 side ; they believe that they were created by the Supreme 

 Being on the lands which they at present occupy. Of the 

 origin of white men they have no idea, having never re- 

 flected upon the subject; they have preserved a faint tra- 



