INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY. Bywol 
with other nations on the Upper Missouri, for medical purposes, the principal of which, 
together with their manner of application, will be alluded to elsewhere. 
The animals inhabiting the Dakota country, and hunted more or less by them for cloth- 
ing, food, or for the purposes of barter, are buffalo, elk, black- and white-tailed deer, big- 
horn, antelope, wolves of several kinds, red and gray foxes, a few beaver and otter, grizzly 
bear, badger, skunk, porcupine, rabbits, muskrats, and a few panthers in the mountainous 
parts. Of all those just mentioned the buffalo is most numerous and most necessary to 
their support. Every part of this animal is eaten by the Indians except the horns, hoofs, 
and hair, even the skin being made to sustain life in times of great scarcity. The skin is 
used to make their lodges and clothes, the sinews for bowstrings, the horns to contain 
powder, and the bones are wrought into various domestic implements, or pounded up and 
boiled to extract the fatty matter. In the proper season, from the beginning of October 
until the 1st of March, the skins are dressed with the hair remaining on them, and are 
either worn by themselves or exchanged with the traders. 
In the year 1833, that part of the Dakota nation residing on the Missouri and its 
tributaries, and trading there, was divided as follows: 
Se-éang’-éos, Brulees, Burnt-Thighs, 500 lodges. 
g O-ga-la/-las, pte 300 « 
Be Min-ne-kay’-zu, those who plant by the water, Pall) 
ak Siha-sa’-pas, Blackfeet-Dakotas, 220 « 
= ) Wo-he-nom'-pa, Two-Kettle-Dakotas, 100 « 
= Hunk’-pa-pas, 150 <« 
L-ta’-zip-éo, Sunsarcs, Without-Bows, 100 =“ 
3 Lower-Yanctons, 300 
ES Pa-bak’-sa, Téte-Coupées, Cut-Heads, 250“ 
a Wa-ge’-ku-te, Gens des Pin, the Pine-Band, 100.“ 
s Band, name not obtained. a & 
Ss T-say-tis, 3) & 
. 
These 2360 lodges, averaging five souls to a lodge, would make a total of 11,800 souls. 
The above estimate may be relied upon as correct at that time. ‘The nomadic Dakotas 
have slowly but steadily increased in numbers since that time, and in 1857, Lieut. 
Warren estimated that the same bands mentioned above numbered 3000 lodges and 
24,000 souls. From various causes, as the introduction of contagious diseases, and other 
calamities, some of the bands have diminished in numbers, while others have greatly in- 
creased, and it is believed that at the present time the Missouri Dakotas are in the agere- 
gate more numerous than at any former period. 
These bands at that time (1833), occupied separate districts, though they could if they 
chose, hunt unmolested by each other, in any portion of the common territory. But 
being generally intermarried, and connected by societies of dances and clans, they usually 
