448 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



Dakota might go to pray aud offer liis sacrifice. And smaller stones wore often 

 found, set up on end and properly painted, around wbioh lay eagles' feathers, 

 tobacco, and red cloth. Ouce I saw a small dog that had been recently sacrificed. 

 In all their incantations and dances, notably in the circle dance, the painted stone 

 is the god supplicated aud worshipped with fear aud trembling." 



§ 134. Long tells of a gigautic stone figure resembling a human being, 

 wbicli be found on tbe bank of Kickapoo Creek. Tbe Indians made 

 offerings to it of tobacco aud other objects.' 



II^YAI^ SA. 



§ 135. Rev. Horace C. Hovey says : ^ 



"It was the custom of the Dakotas to worship bowlders when in perplexity and 

 distress. Clearing a spot from grass aud brush they would roll a bowlder on iti 

 streak it with paint, deck it with feathers and iiowers, and then pray to it for needed 

 help or deliverance. Usually when such a stone had served its purpose its sacred- 

 ness was gone. But the peculiarity of the stone now described is that from gen- 

 eration to generation it was a shrine to which pilgrimages and offerings were made. 

 Its Indian name, ' Eyah Shah,' simply means the 'Red Rock,' aud is the same term 

 by which they designate catliuite, or the red pipe clay. The rock itself is not natu- 

 rally red, being merely a hard specimen of granite, symmetrical in shape, and about 

 5 feet long by 3 feet thick. The Indians also called it 'waukon' (mystery) and 

 speculated as to its origin. » • ♦ The particular clan that claimed this rude altar 

 was known as the Mcudewakantous. Although being but 2 miles below the village 

 of the Kaposias. it was to some extent resorted to by them likewise. - The hunting 

 ground of the clan was up the St. Croix, .and invariably before starting they would 

 lay an offering on Eyah Shah. Twice a year the clan would meet more formally, 

 when they would paint the stone with vermilion, or, as some say, with blood, then 

 trim it with flowers aud feathers, and dance around it before sunrise with chants 

 and prayers. Their last visit was in 1862, prior to the massacre that occurred in 

 August of that year. Since that date, the strijies were renewed three years ago. 

 I counted the stripes and found them twelve in nuuiber, each iibout 2 inches wide, 

 with intervening spaces from 2 to 6 inches wide. By the compass, Eyah Shah lies 

 exactly north and south. It is twelve paces from the main bank of the Mississippi, 

 at a point 6 miles below St. Paul. The north end is adorned by a rude representa- 

 tion of the sun with fifteen rays.'' 



§ 136. Bushotter writes thus: 



"Sometimes a stone, paiutedredall over, is laid within the lodge aud hair is offered 

 to it. In cases of sickness they pray to the stone, offering to it tobacco or various 

 kinds of good things, and they think that the stone hears them when they sacrifice to 

 it. As the steam arose when they made a fire on a stone, the Dakotas coucluded that 

 stones had life, the steam being their breath, and that it was impossible to kill them." 



MATO TIPI. 



§ 137. Eight miles from Fort Meade, S. Dakota, is Mato tipi. Grizzly 

 bear Lodge, known to the wliite people as Bear Butte. It can be seen 

 from a distance of a hundred miles. Of this landmark Bushotter 

 writes thus : 



"The Teton used to camp at a tiat-topped mountain, and pray to it. This moun- 



'ilinn Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. II, pt. 1. pp. 55. 



-Hovey ou "■Eyah Shah" iu Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc, vol. xxxiv. Buffalo Meeting, 1886. Salem, 

 1887, p. 332. Also iu Am. Autiq., Jau., 1887, pp. 35, 36. 



•Mr. Hovey appears ijjnoraut of the faet that the Kajjoza {" Kai>osias ") are a diviaiou of the ilde- 

 wakantonwan. The latter had six other division--* or ;ientos. 



