THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY, 89 



sleeves of his sLirt and liis leggings, and all tlie way fringed with scalp locks. His 

 hair was very profuse, and flowing over his shoulders; and in his hand he held a 

 heautif ul Sioux pipe, which had just been presented to him by Mr. McKenzie, the tra- 

 der. This was one of the finest looking and most dignified men that I have met in 

 the Indian country, and, from the account given of him by the traders, a man of honor 

 and strictest integrity. — IMd. 



144. Tfs-se-w6o-na-tis ; She who Bathes her Knees; wife of the chief (No. 143) ; hei 

 hair in braid. Painted 1834. 



(Plate No. 116, page 2, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



The woman was comely and beautifully dressed ; her dress of the mountain sheep- 

 skins tastefully ornamented with quills and beads, and her hair plaited in large 

 braids that hung down her back. 



There is no finer race of men than these in North America, and were superior in 

 stature, excepting the Osages ; scarcely a man in the tribe, full grown, who is less than 

 six feet in height. The Shienncs are undoubtedly the richest in horses of any tribe 

 on the continent, living in a country, as they do, where the greatest herds of wild 

 horses are grazing on the prairies, which they catch in great numbers and vend to the 

 Sioux, Mandans, and other tribes, as well as to the fur traders. 



These people are the most desperate set of horsemen and warriors, having carried 

 on almost unceasing wars with the Pawnees and Blackfeet time out of mind. — Page 

 2, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years. 



ALGONKIN— CHEYENNES. 



Dr. D. G. Brinton writes of "Tlie Algonkin Stock" as follows: 



About the period 1500-1600 those related tribes whom we now know by the name 

 of Algonkins were at the height of their prosperity. They occupied the Atlantic 

 coast from the Savannah Eiver on the south to the Strait of Belle Isle on the north. 

 The whole of Newfoundland was in their possession; in Labrador they were neigh- 

 bors to the Eskimos; their northernmost branch, the Crees, dwelt along the southern 

 shores of Hudson Bay, and followed the streams which flow into it from the west, 

 until they met the Chipeways, closely akin to themselves, who roamed over the water- 

 shed of Lake Superior. The Blackfeet carried a remote dialect of their tongue quite 

 to the Rocky Mountains, while the fertile prairies of Illinois and Indiana were the 

 homes of the Miamis. The area of Ohio and Kentucky was very thinly peopled by a 

 few of their roving bands ; but east of the Alleghanies, in the valleys of the Delaware, 

 the Potomac, and the Hudson, over the barren hills of New England and Nova Scotia, 

 and throughout the swamps and forests of Virginia and the Carolinas, their osier 

 cabins and palisadoed strongholds, their maize fields and workshops of stone imple- 

 ments were numerously located. 



It is needless for my purpose to enumerate the many small tribes which made up 

 this great group. The more prominent were the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Abnakis 

 of Maine, the Pequots and Narragansets in New England, the Mohegans of the Hud- 

 son, the Lenape on the Delaware, the Nanticokes around Chesapeake Bay, the Pas- 

 cataway on the Potomac, and the Powhatans and Shawn ees further south, while 

 between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River were the Ottawas, the Illinois, the Pot- 

 tawatomies, the Kikapoos, Piankishaws, etc. 



The dialects of all these were related, and evidently at some distant day had been 

 derived from the same primitive tongue. Which of them had preserved the ancient 

 forms most closely it may be premature to decide positively, but the the tendency of 

 modem studies has been to assign that place to the Cree — the northernmost of all. 



We cannot erect a genealogical tree of these dialects. It is not probable that they 

 branched ofl", one after another, from a common stock. The ancient tribes each took 

 their several ways from a common center, and formed nuclei for subsequent develop- 



