Near Lac qui parle, is living an old Dahcotah woman of a singular appearance. Her face is very black, and her hair singed and faded-looking. She was asked by a stranger to account for her singular appearance. "I dreamed of the Giant," she said; "and I was frightened when I woke; and I told my husband that I would give a dance to the Giant to propitiate him; but my husband said that I was not able to go through the Giant's dance; that I would only fail, and bring disgrace upon him and all my family. The Giant was very angry with me, and punished me by burning my face black, and my hair as you see it." Her husband might well fear that she would not be able to perform this dance. It would be impossible to give any idea of the number of the gods of the Dahcotahs. All nature is animated with them; every mountain, every tree, is worshipped, as among the Greeks of old, and again, like the Egyptians, the commonest animals are the objects of their adoration. May the time soon come when they will acknowledge but one God, the Creator of the Earth and Heaven, the Sovereign of the universe! STORMS IN LIFE AND NATURE; OR, UNKTAHE AND THE THUNDER BIRD "Ever," says Checkered Cloud, "will Unktahe, the god of the waters, and Wahkeon, (Thunder,) do battle against each other. Sometimes the thunder birds are conquerors--often the god of the waters chases his enemies back to the distant clouds." Many times, too, will the daughters of the nation go into the pathless prairies to weep; it is their custom; and while there is sickness, and want, and death, so long will they leave the haunts of men to weep where none but the Great Spirit may witness their tears. It is only, they believe, in the City of spirits, that the sorrows of Dahcotah women will cease--there, will their tears be dried forever. Many winters have passed away since Harpstenah brought the dead body of her husband to his native village to be buried; my authority is the "medicine woman," whose lodge, for many years, was to be seen on the banks of Lake Calhoun. This village is now deserted. The remains of a few houses are to be seen, and the broken ground in which were planted the poles of their teepees. Silence reigns where the merry laugh of the villagers often met in chorus. The scene of the feast and dance is now covered with long grass, but "desolation saddens all its green." CHAPTER I.