252 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



Tradition of the Sioux. — " Before the creation, of man, tlie Great Spirit (whose tracks 

 are yet to be seen on the stones, at the red pipe, iu the form of the tracki? of a large 

 bird) used to slay the baft'aloes and eat them on the ledf^e of the red rocks, on the 

 top of the C6teau des Prairies, and their blood, running onto the rocks, turned them 

 red. One day when a large snake had crawled into the nest of the bird to eat his 

 eggs, one of the eggs hatched out in a clap of thunder, and the Great Spirit catch- 

 ing hold of a i)iece of the pipestone to throw at the snake, molded it into a man. 

 This man's feet grew fast in the ground where he stood for many ages, like a great 

 tree, and therefore he grew very old; he was older than a hundred men at the pres- 

 ent day; and at last another tree grew wp by the side of him, when a large snake 

 ate them both off at the roots, and they wandered off together ; from these have 

 sprung all the people that now inhabit the earth." 



The above tradition I found amongst the Upper Missouri Sioux, but which, when j 

 related to that part of the great tribe of Sioux who inhabit the Upper Mississippi, they 

 seemed to know nothing about it. The reason for this may have been, perhaps, as is 

 often the case, owing to the fraud or excessive ignorance of the interpreter, on Avhom 

 we are often entirely dependent in this country; or it is more probably owing to the 

 very vague and numerous fables which may often be found, cherished, and told by 

 differenfc bands or families in the same tribe, and relative to the same event. 



I shall, in the future, give you traditions of this kind, which will be found to be 

 very strange and amusing ; establishing the fact at the same time that theories re- 

 specting their origin, creation of the world, &c., are by no means uniform through- 

 out the different tribes, nor even through an individual tribe ; and that very 

 many of these theories are but the vagaries, or the ingenious system of their medi- 

 cine or mystery men, conjured up and taught to their own respective parts of a tribe 

 for the purpose of gaining an extraordinary influence over the minds and actions of 

 the remainder of the tribe, whose superstitious minds, under the supernatural con- 

 trol and dread of these self-made magicians, are held in a state of mysterious vassalage. 



Amongst the Sioux of the Mississippi, and who live in the region of the red pipe- 

 stone quarry, I found the* following and not less strange tradition on the same sub- 

 ject : " Many ages after the red men were made, when all the different tribes were at 

 war, the Great Spirit sent runners and called them all together at the ' red pipe.' 

 He stood on the top of the rocks, and the red people were assembled in infinite num- 

 bers on the plains below. He took out of the rock a piece of the red stone, and 

 made a large pipe, and smoked it over them all ; told them that it was part of their 

 flesh; that though they were at war, they must meet at this place as friends; 

 that it belonged to them all; that they must make their calumets from it, and 

 smoke them to him whenever they wished to appease him or get his good-will. The 

 smoke from his big pipe rolled over them all, and be disappeared in its cloud ; at the 

 last whiff of his pipe a blaze of fire rolled over the rocks, and melted their surface ; 

 at that moment two squaws went in a blaze of fire under the two medicine rocks, 

 where they remain to this day, and must be consulted and propitiated whenever the 

 pipestone is to be taken away." 



The following speech of a Mandan, which was made to me in the Mandan village 

 four years since, after I had painted his picture, I have copied from my note-book as 

 corroborative of the same facts : 



" My brother, you have made my picture, and I like it much. My friends tell 

 me they can see the eyes move, and it must be very good — it must be partly alive. I 

 am glad it is done — though many of my people are afraid. I am a young man, but 

 my heart is strong. I have jumped on to the medicine-rock — I have placed my arrow 

 on it, and no Mandan can take it away.* The red stone is slippery, but my foot was 



* The medicine (or leaping) rock is a part of the precipice -vvhicli has become severed from the main 

 part, standing about seven or eight feet from the -wall, just equal in height, and about seven feet in 

 diameter. 



It stands like an immense column of thirty-five feet high, iiiul highly polished on its top and sides. It 



