At odd hours during an active and busy life I have dallied with the
Muses. I found in them, in earlier years, rest from toil and drudgery
and, later, relief from physical suffering.
Broken by over-work and compelled to abandon the practice of my
profession--the law, I wrote _Pauline_ after I had been given up to die
by my physicians. It proved to be a better 'medicine' for me than all
the quackeries of the quacks. It diverted my mind from myself and,
perhaps, saved my life. When published, its reception by the best
journals of this country and England was so flattering and, at the same
time, the criticisms of some were so just, that I have been induced to
carefully revise the poem and to publish my re-touched _Pauline_ in this
volume. I hope and believe I have greatly improved it. Several of the
minor poems have been published heretofore in journals and magazines;
others of equal or greater age flap their wings herein for the first
time; a few peeped from the shell but yesterday.
I am aware that this volume contains several poems that a certain class
of critics will condemn, but they are my "chicks" and I will gather them
under my wings.
"None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears."--_Cowper._
Much of my life has been spent in the Northwest--on the frontier of
civilization, and I became personally acquainted with many of the chiefs
and braves of the Dakota and Ojibway (Chippewa) Indians. I have written
of them largely from my own personal knowledge, and endeavored, above
all things, to be accurate, and to present them true to the life.
For several years I devoted my leisure hours to the study of the
language, history, traditions, customs and superstitions of the Dakotas.
These Indians are now commonly called the "_Sioux_"--a name given them
by the early French traders and _voyageurs_. "Dakota" signifies
_alliance_ or _confederation_. Many separate bands, all having a common
origin and speaking a common tongue, were united under this name. See
"_Tah-Koo Wah-Kan,_" or "_The Gospel Among the Dakotas,_" by Stephen R.
Riggs, pp. 1 to 6 inc.
They were but yesterday the occupants and owners of the fair forests and
fertile prairies of Minnesota--a brave, hospitable and generous
people--barbarians, indeed, but noble in their barbarism. They may be
fitly called the Iroquois of the West. In form and features, in language
and traditions, they are distinct from all other Indian tribes. When
first visited by white men, and for many years afterwards, the Falls of
St. Anthony (by them called the _Ha Ha_) was the center of their
country. They cultivated corn and tobacco, and hunted the elk, the
beaver and the bison. They were open-hearted, truthful and brave. In
their wars with other tribes they seldom slew women or children, and
rarely sacrificed the lives of their prisoners.
For many years their chiefs and head men successfully resisted the
attempts to introduce spirituous liquors among them. More than a century
ago an English trader was killed at Mendota, near the present city of
St. Paul, because he persisted, after repeated warnings by the chiefs,
in dealing out _mini wakan_ (Devil-water) to the Dakota braves.
With open arms and generous hospitality they welcomed the first white
men to their land, and were ever faithful in their friendship, till
years of wrong and robbery, and want and insult, drove them to
desperation and to war. They were barbarians, and their warfare was
barbarous, but not more barbarous than the warfare of our Saxon, Celtic
and Norman ancestors. They were ignorant and superstitious. Their
condition closely resembled the condition of our British forefathers at
the beginning of the Christian era. Macaulay says of Britain: "Her
inhabitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were
little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands." And again:
"While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries and
Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops, adored
the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the
Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing
savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden."
The days of the Dakotas are done. The degenerate remnants of that once
powerful and warlike people still linger around the forts and agencies
of the Northwest, or chase the caribou and the elk on the banks of the
Saskatchewan, but the Dakotas of old are no more. The brilliant defeat
of Custer, by Sitting Bull and his braves, was their last grand rally
against the resistless march of the sons of the Saxons. The plow-shares
of a superior race are fast leveling the sacred mounds of their dead.
But yesterday, the shores of our lakes and our rivers were dotted with
their _teepees,_ their light canoes glided over our waters, and their
hunters chased the deer and the buffalo on the sites of our cities.
To-day, they are not. Let us do justice to their memory, for there was
much that was noble in their natures.
In the Dakota Legends, I have endeavored to faithfully present many of
the customs and superstitions, and some of the traditions, of that
people. I have taken very little 'poetic license' with their traditions;
none, whatever, with their customs and superstitions. In my studies for
these Legends I was greatly aided by the Rev. S.R. Riggs, author of the
_"Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language" "Tah-Koo Wah-Kan,"_
&c., and for many years a missionary among the Dakotas. He patiently
answered my numerous inquiries and gave me valuable information. I am
also indebted to the late Gen. H.H. Sibley, one of the earliest
American traders among them, and to Rev. S.W. Pond, of Shakopee, one of
the first Protestant missionaries to these people, and himself the
author of poetical versions of some of their principal legends; to Mrs.
Eastman's _"Dacotah,"_ and last, but not least, to the Rev. E.D. Neill,
whose admirable _"History of Minnesota"_ so fully and faithfully
presents almost all that is known of the history, traditions, customs,
manners and superstitions of the Dakotas.
In _Winona_ I have "tried my hand" on a new hexameter verse. With what
success, I leave to those who are better able to judge than I. If I have
failed, I have but added another failure to the numerous attempts to
naturalize hexameter verse in the English language.
It will be observed that I have slightly changed the length and the
rhythm of the old hexameter line; but it is still hexameter, and, I
think, improved.
I have not written for profit nor published for fame. Fame is a coy
goddess that rarely bestows her favors on him who seeks her--a phantom
that many pursue and but few overtake.
She delights to hover for a time, like a ghost, over the graves of dead
men who know not and care not: to the living she is a veritable _Ignis
Fatuus_. But every man owes something to his fellowmen, and I owe much.
If my friends find half the pleasure in reading these poems that I have
found in writing them, I shall have paid my debt and achieved success.