The History of Minnesota and Tales of the FrontierFlandrau, Charles E. (Charles Eugene)
History
The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier
Flandrau, Charles E. (Charles Eugene)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Minnesota; Minnesota -- History
It was supposed that when the scalp was taken while the leaves were on
the trees, it was danced over until they fell, and then buried, and when
taken in winter it was buried when the leaves came in the spring, but I
never was quite sure about this. I wanted one very much once, and a
party of us went in the night just back of St. Peter, where we supposed
they had been buried, and dug for them, and to our horror struck the
toes of a dead Indian. That cured my desire in this direction.
BRED IN THE BONE.
In the early days of what is now Minnesota there were two families of
missionaries living among the Sioux of the Mississippi, who, like many
of their profession, devoted their whole lives to spreading the gospel
of Christ among the savages. They were those of Dr. Williamson and the
Rev. Stephen R. Riggs, both of whom had lived with these Indians long
before I came among them. When I first became connected with these
Indians I found the missionaries comfortably installed at the Yellow
Medicine agency, with quite a village around them. They had dwelling
houses, and a commodious schoolhouse, where they took Indian children at
a very early age, with a view of civilizing and Christianizing them.
They had also a very pretty church, with a steeple on it, and a bell in
the steeple, and all the other buildings necessary for the complete and
efficient operation of their laudable undertaking. They were full of
zeal and enthusiasm in the cause, and had progressed to a point where it
looked to an outsider as if success was only a question of a short time,
if it was not already an accomplished fact. The Bible had been
translated into the Sioux language, and they had hymn books and
catechisms in the same language. They had learned to speak Sioux
thoroughly, and could preach and sing in that language. Many is the time
I have attended church at the little meeting house, and heard the simple
old Presbyterian hymns sung to the tunes that have resounded for
generations through the meeting houses of New England. It was a most
solemn and impressive spectacle, in the heart of the Indian country, to
see a Christian church filled with devout worshippers all in the costume
of savagery, and to listen to the oft-told story of the Saviour who died
that man might live. Such a scene carries with it a much more convincing
proof of the universality of the Christian religion than a church full
of fashionably dressed people in a great city. It suggests its limitless
application to all the human race, even if dwelling in the remotest part
of the earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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