moonet] EARLY CHEYENNE HABITAT 1029 



new earth which is to come over this old world and which is represented 

 as making a humming or rolling noise as it swiftly approaches. 



:i. X\ NISI > NASI STSIHl' 



Na'niso'niiBi'stsihi', 

 Na'niso uasl stsihi', 

 Hi'taa'ni mii'noyu'hii', 

 Hi'taa'ni ma noyu'hii', 

 Owa'ni tsi'nitai -wosi'hi', 

 Owa'ni tsi'nitai '-wosi'hi', 

 Tsi'nitai' -womai'-wosihi', 

 Tsi nitai'- womai'-wosihi'. 

 I'hani' i'hiwo'uhi', 

 I hlini' i'hiwo'uhi'. 



Translation 



My children, my children. 

 Here is the river of turtles, 

 Here is the river of turtles, 

 Where the various living things, 

 ^Yhere the various living things, 

 Are painted their different colors, 

 Are painted their different colors. 

 Our father says so, 

 Our father says so. 



This song has a very pretty tune. The Cheyenne claim to have lived 

 originally in the north on a stream known to them as the " River of 

 Turtles." Reverend 11. R. Voth, former missionary among the Cheyenne 

 and Arapaho, states that the Indians say that along the banks of this 

 stream were clays of different colors which they used tor paint. In a 

 letter of October 1, 1891, he says: " I have now in my possession some 

 red and some gray or drab paint that Black Coyote brought with him 

 from the north, which he claims came from that ancient Turtle river, 

 and which the Indians are now using to paint themselves. They say 

 there are more than two kinds of color at that river, or at least used to 

 be."' According to Clark {Indian Sign Language, page 90) the oldest 

 traditions of the Cheyenne locate their former home on the headwaters 

 of the Mississippi in ^Minnesota, about where Saint Paul now is. Other 

 facts corroborate this testimony, and the traditional "Turtle river" 

 would seem to be identical with the Saint Croix, which is thus described 

 by Coxe in 1741: 



A little higher up is the river Chabadeda, above which the Meschaeebe makes a 

 fine lake twenty miles loug and eight or ten broad. Nine or ten miles above that 

 lake, ou the east side, is a large fair river, called the river of Tortoises, after you 

 have entered a little way, which leads far into the country to the northeast, and is 

 navigable by the greatest boats forty miles. About the same distance farther up, 

 the Meschaeebe is precipitated from the rocks about fifty feet, but is so farnavigable 

 by considerable ships, as also beyond, excepting another fall, eighty or ninety miles 

 higher, by large vessels, unto its sources, which are in the country of the Sieux, not 



