SIOUX INDIANS. 



8? 



pally on the plains in the chase of the buffaloe. 

 Their language is very guttural and difficult, 

 and superstitious ceremonies and customs pre- 

 vail amongst them which are similar to those 

 observed by the Tartars. The Sioux, like the 

 Tartars, sometimes offer water as a symbol of 

 peace and safety to a stranger, or of pardon to 

 an offender, which strongly corroborates the 

 idea that they were originally from Asia. Some 

 time ago I was informed by an officer, who had 

 numbers of them under his influence in the 

 American war, that a Sioux Indian was doomed 

 to die for an offence which he had committed, 

 and taking his station before the tribe, and 

 drawing his blanket over his face, in expectation 

 of the fatal shot, the Chief stepped forward and 

 presented some water to him, as a token of par- 

 don, when he was permitted again to join the 

 party. They consider it also as a very bad omen 

 in common with the Tartars, to cut a stick that 

 has been burnt by fire, and with them they 

 consign every thing to destruction, though it 

 be their canoe, as polluted, if it be sprinkled 

 with the water of animals. And it is a remark- 

 able fact, that the laws of separation and un- 

 cleanness, being forty days for a male child and 

 eighty for a female, observed by these Indians, 

 exactly correspond with the Levitical law im- 



