Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Its geology and mineralogy will be noticed in my official reports. It will be sufficient here to say that the stratification, at and below St. Anthony's Falls, consists wholly of formations of sandstones and limestones, horizontally deposited, whose relative positions and ages are chiefly inferable from the evidences of organic life, in the shape of petrifactions, which they embrace. The lowest of this series of rocks is a white sandstone, consisting of transparent, loosely cohering grains, special allusion to which is made by Carver, in his travels in 1766, and which may be received as testimony, were there no other, that this too much discredited author had actually visited this region.

      I have mentioned the interest excited by our Chippewas finding the bark letter, or pictographic memorial at the deserted Sioux encampment above Sac River. It turned out, as we were informed, that this Aboriginal missive was a reply to a similar proposition transmitted from Sandy Lake, by the Chippewas. The very person, indeed, who inscribed the Chippewa bark message, was one of the ten persons who had accompanied us from that lake. Gov. Cass, on learning this fact, requested him to draw a duplicate of it on a roll of bark. He executed this task immediately. We thus had before us the proposition in this symbolic character, which is called ke ke win by the Chippewas, and its answer. By this mode of communication two nations of the most diverse language found no difficulty in understanding each other. [91]

      On the second day after our arrival, the Indians consummated their intentions, as signified by the bark letter, and the Sandy-Lake delegation assembled with the Sioux at the old quarters of the military, now occupied as an Indian agency, and smoked the pipe of peace. There were present at this pacification, besides the chiefs Shacopee and Babasikundiba, and minor chieftains, His Excellency Gov. Cass, Col. Leavenworth, and sundry officers of the garrison and the expedition. The ceremonies were conducted under the auspices of the U. S. Indian Agent, Mr. Taliaferro. Every attention was given to make these ceremonies impressive, by a compliance with the Aboriginal customs on these occasions, and it is hoped not without leaving permanent effects on their minds.

      The pipe employed by the native diplomatists, in these negotiations, is invested with a symbolic and sacred character, as if the fumes of the weed were offered, in the nature of frankincense, to the Deity. The genuflections with which it is presented, more than the words expressed, countenance this idea. The bowl of the pipe used on this occasion consisted of the well-known red pipe-stone, called opwagonite, [92] so long known in Indian history as being brought from the Coteau des Prairies. It is furnished with a wooden stem two or three feet long, and two and a half inches broad, shaved down thin so as to resemble a spatula. It is then painted with certain blue or green clays, and ornamented with braids of richly dyed porcupine quills, or the holcus fragrans, and the tuft feathers of the male duck or red-headed woodpecker. These state pipes are usually presented by the speakers as memorials of the speeches, and laid aside by the officials having charge of Indian affairs. Col. Leavenworth presented us with some of these carefully ornamented diplomatic testimonials.

      I obtained from the Sioux some very carefully moulded pyramidal-shaped pieces of the blue and green clays from the valley of the St. Peter's, which they employ in painting their pipe-stems and persons. The coloring matter of these appears to be carbonate of copper. It is brought from the Blue Earth River. I also obtained from the Indians very small and carefully tied leathern bags of the red oxide of iron, which they obtain in the state of a dry, powdery mass, on the prairies near the Big Stone. The Indians brought me, from the same region, crystals of salt, scraped up from the margin of certain waters on the prairies, of a dark cast, mixed with impurities. The tendency of these crystals to assume a cubic form was quite distinct. The most interesting development, in the mineralogical way, consisted of small lumps of native copper, which I obtained on an eminence on the banks of the Mississippi, directly opposite the influx of the St. Peter's. They occupy, geologically, a diluvial position, being at the bottom of the prairie-drift stratum, and immediately above the superior limestone.

      In the luxurious kitchen gardens of Camp Leavenworth, great depredations have been made by a small quadruped of a burrowing character, called gopher. By patient watching, gun in hand, one of these was killed, and its skin preserved and prepared. The animal is ten inches long to the termination of the tail, with a body very much the size and color of a large wharf-rat. It has five prominent claws, and two broad cutting teeth, but its most striking peculiarity is a duplicature of the cheek, which permits it to carry earth to the mouth of its burrow. It has been called the pouched rat. Sir Francis Drake found a similar animal in his visit to the Gulf of California, in 1587. The distribution of this species, of which this seems to be the northern limit, is very wide through Atlantic America, and it is known to be destructive to vegetation throughout Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. I had, two years ago, been led to notice its ravages in Missouri and Arkansas. But the animal called gopher, in the southern country, is a burrowing tortoise, and the name is improperly applied to this species, which is the Pseudostoma pinetorum.

      A peculiar species of squirrel was observed in this vicinity, which is also found to be a destructive visitor to the military gardens. In appearance, this species resembles the common striped squirrel, but it has a more elongated body, and shorter legs. The body has six black stripes, with the same number of intervening lines of spots, on a reddish-brown skin. This Minnesota squirrel has, since the return of the Expedition, been named, by the late Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, sciurus tredeceum.

      The River St. Peter's is called, by the Dacotas, Watepa Minnesota. The prefixed term watepa, is their word for river; minni is the name for water. The term sota has been variously explained. The Canadian French, who have proved themselves most apt translators of Indian phrases, render it by the word brouille, or blear; or, if we regard this as derivative from the verb brouiller, mixed, or mottled—a condition of the waters of this river, whenever the Mississippi is in flood, and consequently at a higher elevation when it rushes into the mouth of the St. Peter's, producing that addled aspect of the water, to which the Dacotas, it is believed, apply the term sota.

      The scenery around St. Peter's is of the most sylvan and delightful character. About six miles west of the cantonment there are several beautiful lakes, in the prairies. The largest of these is about four miles in circumference, and is called Calhoun Lake, in compliment to the Secretary of War. Its waters are stored with bass and other varieties of fish. There are several pure springs of sparkling water, issuing from the picturesque cliffs which face the Mississippi at this place. I visited one about a mile from the cantonment, which deposits a yellow sulphurous flocculent mass along its course. On the prairies is found the holcus fragrans, which is braided by the Indian females, and employed in some instances to decorate their deer-skin clothing. This aromatic grass retains its scent in the dried state. Along the waters of the St. Peter's is found the acer negundo, the inner bark of which, mixed with the common nettle, is employed by the natives in the state of a strong decoction, as a cure for the lues venerea.

      Mr. Carver having described certain antiquities near the foot of Lake Pepin, in 1766, inquiries were made after objects of this kind in the vicinity. I was informed that traces of such remains existed in the valley of the St. Peter's, but can say nothing concerning them from actual inspection. [93]

      Of the Dacotas, or Sioux, for which St. Peter's forms the central point, some anecdotes have been related which denote that they are, on certain occasions, actuated by exalted motives. It is related that the chief Little Crow, going out to the confines of the Chippewa Territory, to examine his beaver-traps, discovered an individual of that tribe in the act of taking a beaver from the trap. As he was himself unperceived, the tribes being at war, and the offence an extreme one, a summary punishment would have been justified by Indian law. But the Sioux chief decided differently: "Take no alarm," said he, approaching the offender: "I come to present you the trap, of which I see you stand in need. Take my gun, also, as I see you have none of your own, and return to the land of your countrymen; and linger not here, lest some of my young men should discover your footsteps."

      A still more striking and characteristic incident is related of a chief called the Red Thunder. Col. Wm. Dixon, a Scotchman of family, who made his influence felt in the late war of 1812 as a leader of the Sioux and a merchant among them, married the sister of this notable chief. So daring were the acts of Red Thunder, that he had put the Chippewa nation