Wampum has been made by machinery since 1670 and sold to the Indians. Old belts and strings of beads, so slowly made by hand, are very valuable. The white and colored glass beads now used are worth but little compared with the wampum of early days. Arranged from Powell’s Report to the Bureau of Ethnology. INDIAN TRAITS Almost unconsciously, even as our own eyes and other senses are trained to help us in city or country life, the Indians are adding to their education in the things which will make life and labor easier to them. Their reading of weather signs is very accurate, and possibly their rain-makers are simply experts in these signs. Their method of lying in ambush in war times calls out all their hidden powers in every line. They can decoy their foe by imitating bird calls or animals; they can make themselves into stump-like figures and almost defy a close inspection. If injured, they rarely show pain, though the torture of the broken limb or the bullet may be intense. Indian boys are taught by both parents from early childhood to bear their pain silently. It comes as a good lesson, when in manhood a groan might show an enemy where they were hidden. Their long trails or paths over mountains, through thick forests, across treeless plains, with no compass but the North Star, have made them watchful of every earthly means of finding their way. They will tell you that trees are greener on the south side than on the north, and that there are plants whose leaves point due north. Flocks of birds sometimes help to guide them. They seem to have almost an instinct in finding their way home. An Indian’s natural pride is as great as a king’s. To him his nation is the greatest one on earth. No Indian must allow that the white is greater in numbers or strength. A number of years ago a Mandan chief named Ietan visited the city of Washington in company with others. On his return, at the council which was called in his honor, he told of boats he had seen that were one hundred and fifty feet long; of great houses filled with white people; of great cities and long railroad trails. The Indians will have nothing but absolute truth at these councils. They must not deceive each other. The council declared that Ietan was telling false tales to frighten the Mandans. No canoe could be built so large as he had said. No such number of white people could live in a land where there were no buffalo. Houses such as he had told about would be blown down by the great winds. Ietan was proven to have basely deceived the council. He was condemned to death for making the white man stronger and greater than the red man. Ietan told them he was ready and willing to suffer the penalty, but when they were older they would know that his words were not false. He was punished as the council decreed. Perhaps they are wise enough now to read the signs made by the iron trails across the Dakota prairies, and their children know that what Ietan said was true.