50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 77 
Long on July 16, 1817, wrote: “ Passed a Sioux village on our right 
containing fourteen cabins. The name of the chief is the Petit Cor- 
beau, or Little Raven ... One of their cabins is furnished with 
loop holes, and is situated so near the water that the opposite side of 
the river is within musket-shot range from the building . . . The 
cabins are a kind of stockade buildings, and of a better appearance 
than any Indian dwellings I have before met with.” (Long, 
(1), p. 31.) 
One of the most interesting accounts of the villages just mentioned 
is contained in the journal of a traveler who visited them in 1849, the 
year the Territory of Minnesota was created. On May 16 of that 
year he “passed Wapasha’s Prairie . . . a beautiful prairie in Min- 
nesota, about nine miles long and three miles wide, occupied by 
the chief Wapasha (or Red-Leaf) and his band of Sioux, whose 
bark lodges are seen at the upper end of the prairie.” (Seymour, (1), 
p. 75.) And later in the day, after leaving Lake Pepin, “an Indian 
village, called Red Wing, inhabited by a tribe of Sioux is seen on the 
Minnesota shore. It appears to contain about one dozen bark lodges, 
and half as many conical lodges, covered with buffalo skins; also, a 
log or frame house, occupied by a missionary. Indian children were 
seen running, in frolicsome mood, over the green prairie, and Indian 
females were paddling their canoes along the shore. This village is 
near the mouth of Cannon River.” On the following day, May 17, 
1849, Seymour passed the village of Kaposia, occupied by the chief 
Little Crow, or Little Raven. It stood on the west bank of the river 
about 5 miles below the then small town of St. Paul. The Indian vil- 
lage at that time consisted of about 40 lodges, having a population of 
some 300. A few days later he went to the village, and regarding 
the visit wrote: “ During the time I visited them, the Indians were 
living in skin lodges, such as they use during os winter, and when 
traveling. These are formed of long, slender poles, sie in the 
ground, in a circle of about eight feet in diameter, and united at the 
top, and covered with the raw hide of the buffalo, having the hair 
scraped off. They are in the form of a cone, and can be distinguished 
from those of the Winnebagos and other Indians as far as they can 
be seen. During the summer they live in bark houses, which are 
more spacious, and when seen from a distance, resemble, in form 
and appearance, the log cabins of the whites. When passing in sight 
of the village, a few days afterward, I noticed that they had removed 
their skin lodges, and erected their bark houses. The population of 
this village, as I before remarked, is from 250 to 300 souls.” He en- 
tered one of the small skin-covered lodges. “An iron kettle, sus- — 
pended in the center, over a fire, forms the principal cooking utensil. 
Blankets spread around on the ground, were used as seats and beds.” 
