THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 253 



telle — it did not slip. My brother, this pipe which I give to you I brought from a 

 high mountain ; it is toward the rising,- sun — many were the pipes that wo brought 

 from there, and we brought them away iu peace. Wo left our totems or marks on the 

 rocks— we cut them deep in the stones, and they are there now. The Great Spirit 

 told all nations to meet there in peace, and all nations hid the war-club and the toma- 

 hawk. The Dah-co-tahs, who are our enemies, are very strong — they have taken up 

 the tomahawk, and the blood of our warriors has run on the rocks. My friend, we 

 want to visit our medicines; our pipes are old and worn out. My friend, I wish you 

 to speak to our Great Father about this." 



The chief of the Punchas, on the Upper Missouri, also made the following allusion 

 to this place, in a speech which he made to me on the occasion of presenting me a 

 a very handsome pipe, about four years since : 



"My friend, this pipe, which I wish you to accept, was dug from the ground, and 

 cut and polished as you now see it by my hands. I wish you to keep it, and when 

 you smoke through it, recollect that this red stone is a part of our ilesh. This is one 

 of the last things we can ever give away. Our enemies, the Sioux, have raised the 

 red flag of blood over the pipestone quarry, and our medicines there are trodden under 

 foot by them. The Sioux are many, and we cannot go to the mountain of the red pix>e. 

 We have seen all nations smoking together at that place, but, my brother, it is not so 

 now."* 



Such are a few of the stories relating to this curious place, and many others might 

 be given which I haA r e procured, though they amount to nearly the same thing, Avith 

 equal contradictions and equal absurdities. — G. C. 



338. Sault de Sainte Marie ; Indians catching whitefish, in the rapids at the out- 

 let of Lake Superior, by dipping their scoop-nets. Painted in 183G. 

 (Plate No. 266, page 162, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 

 I mentioned that the Chippeways living in the vicinity of the Sault live entirely 

 on fish ; and it is almost literally true also that the French and English and Ameri- 

 cans who reside about there live on fish, which are caught in the greatest abundance 

 in the rapids at that place, and are, perhaps, one of the greatest luxuries of the 

 world. The whitefish, which is in appearance much like a salmon, though smaller, 

 is the luxury I am speaking of, and is caught in immense quantities by the scoop- 

 nets of the Indians and Frenchmen amongst the foaming and dashing waters of the 



requires a daring effort to leap on to its top from the main wall and back again, and many a heart has 

 sighed for the honor of the feat without daring to make the attempt. Some few have tried it with 

 success, and left their arrows standing in its crevice, several of winch are seen there at this time; 

 others have leapt the chasni and fallen from the slippery surface on which they could not hold, and 

 Buffered -instant death upon the craggy rocks below. Every youngmau in the nation is ambitious to per- 

 form this feat; and those who have successfully done it are allowed to boast of it all their lives. In 

 the sketch already exhibited there will bo seen a view of the "leaping rock"; and in the middle of 

 the picture a mound, of a conical form, of ten feet high, which was erected over the body of a distin- 

 guished young man who was killed by making this daring effort about two years before I was 

 there, and whose sad fate was related to me by a Sioux chief, who was father of the young man, and 

 was visiting the red jiipestone quarry, with thirty others of his tribe, when we were there, and cried 

 over the grave, as he related the story to Mr. Wood and myself, of his son's death. 



*On my return from the pipestone quarry one of the old chiefs of the Sacs, on seeing some speci- 

 mens of the stone which I brought with me from that place, observed as follows : 



"My friend, when I was young I used to go with our young men to the mountain of the red pipe, 

 and dig out pieces for our pipes. We do not go now ; and our red pipes, as you see, are few. The 

 Dah-co-tahs have spilled the blood of red men on that place, and the Great Spirit is offended. The 

 white traders have told them to draw their bows upon us when we go there ; they have offered us 

 many of the pipes for sale, but we do not want to smoke them, for we know that the Great Spirit is 

 offended. My mark is on the rocks in many places, but I shall never see them again. They lie where 

 the Great Spirit sees them, for his eye is over that place. He sees everything that is there." 



Ke-o-kuck, chief of the Sacs and Foxes, when I asked him whether he had ever been there, replied : 



"No ; I have never seen it. It is in our enemies' country. I wish it was in ours. I would sell it to 

 the whites for a great many boxes of money."~G. C, 



