1922] SKINNER, THE SAUK AND lOWAY INDIANS 7 



been thus introduced to the Fox and so to the Sauk. At any rate, the 

 surrounding Algonkian tribes declare that it was not their custom to 

 torture captives until the Sauk began to do so. 



Thus the Sauk were gradually thrust southward and westward by 

 the power of their enemies, the final act in the drama being the Black 

 Hawk war. Although there can be little doubt but that Black Hawk, 

 deserted by Keokuk, and betrayed by his Winnebago and Potawatomi 

 allies, would have been eventually defeated by American troops, the 

 massacre of a party of defenseless Menomini at their camp on an island 

 in the Mississippi near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, precipitated the 

 end. Menomini tradition, which seems well backed by contemporary 

 historical data, says that runners were at once dispatched to all their 

 important settlements, the partizans took down their sacred war bun- 

 dles, and the tribe, hitherto neutral, sent out all its available warriors, 

 with the American troops, or under their own leaders. Simultaneously 

 the "Santee" Dakota, with whom the Menomini held a long and cher- 

 ished friendship, were also called upon by the Menomini, and, incident- 

 ally, by the white authorities, for help. Black Hawk, who had hitherto 

 waged war with some success, was rapidly overwhelmed, and, in the 

 end, all the Sauk followed the pioneers of the tribe across the Missis- 

 sippi, never to return. 



The change in environment from the shores of the Great Lakes to 

 the plains was indeed a profound one, but no more so than the accom- 

 panying change of culture must have been. On the lake shore the Sauk 

 must have been fishers and followers of the sea. They were doubtless 

 expert canoemen and great utilizers of birch bark. One of their ancient 

 gentes is named Ketcikumi, or Great Sea, and their traditions are rife 

 with allusions to a maritime existence — for their old lake shore life was 

 no less, as can be appreciated by those only who have examined the 

 wind swept sand dune archeological sites of the tribes dwelling along 

 the lakes. On the borders of the plains they came into contact with the 

 buffalo and with people of a buffalo hunting culture. Bison hide took 

 the place of bark, though in some cases the forms of the utensils which 

 they made, for example, the rawhide trunks, remained the same. The 

 bull boat supplanted the canoe, and the buffalo hunt took the place of 

 the gathering of the wild rice. Some of their hunts led the Sauk even 

 to the confines of Colorado. 



Whereas the Sauk had formerly associated chiefly with the Central 

 Algonkian Menomini and Potawatomi, the northern Algonkian Ojib- 

 way, and the Siouan Winnebago, now their new neighbors were the 



