10 BCLLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



ber, though be is not the chief, who rejoices in the cognomen of Chitan 

 Wahkinyan, Anglicd, Thunderhawk. Neither is the troublesome warrior's 

 name among his fellows, viz, "Tatonka", translated as we habitually 

 render it, for it means simply " the buffalo''; but it is understood that in 

 order to distinguish his totem from the multitude of other bisons and 

 avoid confusion among their armorial bearings, he blazons it as upon its 

 haunches, in the heraldic position of sejant. He is also familiarly known 

 as Hunkashnee, "Can't Eun". This is not a complimentary epithet of 

 the " Stonewall'.' order, suggesting repugnance to retreat in battle, which, 

 indeed, would not, in Indian tactics, be meritorious, but refers to his 

 physical lameness, from a wound received in the leg when a young brave. 



The usual difficulty in estimating the numerical strength of any Indian 

 division is enhanced by the frequent confusion of expression between the 

 Dakota family and the Dakota Nation proper. The official return of 1871 

 of the Dakotas or Sioux on reservations was 42,998, and in the same re- 

 turn the Missouris, Omahas. Osages, Kansas, Ottoes, Assiniboins, Gros 

 Ventres or Minnetarees, and Crows, all of whom are included by eth- 

 nographers in the great Dakota family, are all enumerated separately 

 from the Sioux; but the Poncas, lowas, and Mandans, also so classed, 

 are not mentioned. Perhaps the Poncas were embraced in the return of 

 the Omahas, of which they are a branch, and as their present muster is 

 only 700, while the lowas have not for several years much exceeded 200, 

 or the Mandans 400, it appears that the official return in this instance 

 intended the figures before given to express the census on reservations 

 of the nation and not the family; and adding the bands in the United 

 States not on reservations and those in the British Possessions, the 

 Dakotas proper would amount to 50,000 souls. The report of the Com- 

 missioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, in quite a different classification 

 from the foregoing, arrives at nearly the same result, making the aggre- 

 gate of the several tribes of the Sioux specially mentioned in this paper 

 as about 50,000, exclusive of those in British America. When, how- 

 ever, it is suggested to receive cum grano sails any census of Indians made 

 before all the results of the Forty-fourth or "investigating" Congress 

 shall have been announced, the suspicious mind may detect an allusion 

 to that condiment as part of the ration stipulated by treaty and deliv-. 

 ered at the agencies, as upon the official returns is based the aggregate 

 of rations drawn by the Indian agents, and the latter have sometimes 

 been accused of taking a liberal view of the population under their 

 charge. 



The number of Dakotas at the beginning of the present century can- 

 not be even approximately stated; but their rapid decrease since then, 

 from whisky, the small-pox, and other gifts of civilization, is shown with 

 melancholy certainty in the almost entire extinction of some of their 

 tribes known to be powerful when the whites came into contact with 

 them; for instance, the Quappas, a mighty horde, which, migrating 

 from west of the Kocky Mountains, led the van of the irruption, and 



