The western water-shed of the Mississippi river was largely in the
possession of the Dakota or Sioux stock. Its various tribes extended in
an unbroken line from the Arkansas river on the south to the Saskatchewan
on the north, populating the whole of the Missouri valley as far up as
the Yellowstone. Their principal tribes in the south were the Quapaws,
Kansas and Osages; in the central region the Poncas, Omahas and Mandans;
to the north were the Sioux, Assiniboins and Crows; while about Green Bay
on Lake Michigan lived the Winnebagoes.
The opinion was formerly entertained that this great family moved to
the locations where they were first met from some western home; but the
researches of modern students have refuted this. Mr. Dorsey has shown by
an analysis of their most ancient traditions that they unanimously point
to an eastern origin, and that the central and southern bands did not
probably cross the Mississippi much before the fourteenth century.[114]
This is singularly supported by the discovery of Mr. Horatio Hale that
the Tuteloes of Virginia were a branch of the Dakotas; and further,
the investigations of Catlin among the Mandans resulted in showing
that this nation reached the Missouri valley by travelling down the
Ohio. They therefore formed a part of the great easterly migration of
the North Atlantic tribes which seem to have been going on for many
centuries before the discovery. In the extreme south, almost on the
gulf coast of Louisiana, lived some small bands of Dakotas, known as
Biloxis, Opelousas, Pascagoulas, etc. They were long supposed to speak an
independent tongue, and only of late years has their proper position been
defined.
Their frames are powerful, and the warriors of the Sioux have long
enjoyed a celebrity for their hardihood and daring. The massacre of
General Custer’s command, which they executed in 1876, was the severest
blow the army of the United States ever experienced at the hands of the
red man. With reference to cranial form they are dolichocephalic, sixteen
out of twenty-three skulls in the collection of the Academy[115] offering
a cephalic index under 80.
The northern Dakotas do not seem to have had the same system of gentes
which prevailed in most of the eastern tribes. Mr. Morgan was of the
opinion that it had existed, but had been lost; this, however, requires
further proof. There are many societies among them, but not of the nature
of clans. Their chiefs hold their position by hereditary descent in the
male line, though among the Winnebagoes the early traveller, Carver found
the anomaly of a woman presiding over the tribe. The central bands, the
Mandans and Minnetarees, recognized gentes with descent in the female
line; while among the Poncas and Omahas there were also gentes, but with
descent in the male line. The condition in this respect, of the members
of this family, as also of that of the Athabascan, seems to prove that
the gentile system is by no means a fixed stadium of even American
ancient society, but is variable, and present or absent as circumstances
may dictate.
A few members of this family, notably the Mandans, attained a respectable
degree of culture, becoming partly agricultural, and dwelling most of the
year in permanent abodes; but the majority of them preferred depending
on the bounties of nature, pursuing the herds of buffaloes over the
boundless pastures of the plains, or snaring the abundant fish in the
myriad streams which traversed their country.
The mythology of the Dakotas is concerned with the doings of giants in
whom we recognize personifications of the winds and storms. One of these
is Haokah, to whom the warrior sends up an invocation when about to
undertake some perilous exploit. The thunder is caused by huge birds who
flap their wings angrily and thus produce the portentous reverberations.
The waters are the home of Unktahe, a mighty spirit who lurks in their
depths. Indeed, to the Dakotas, and not to them alone, but to man in
their stage of thought, “All nature is alive with gods. Every mountain,
every tree is worshipped, and the commonest animals are the objects of
adoration.”[116]