t is said that, in the very early days, lying was a capital offense
among us. Believing that the deliberate liar is capable of committing
any crime behind the screen of cowardly untruth and double-dealing, the
destroyer of mutual confidence was summarily put to death, that the evil
might go no further.

Even the worst enemies of the Indian, those who accuse him of treachery,
blood-thirstiness, cruelty, and lust, have not denied his courage, but
in their minds it is a courage that is ignorant, brutal, and fantastic.
His own conception of bravery makes of it a high moral virtue, for to
him it consists not so much in aggressive self-assertion as in absolute
self-control. The truly brave man, we contend, yields neither to fear
nor anger, desire nor agony; he is at all times master of himself; his
courage rises to the heights of chivalry, patriotism, and real heroism.

"Let neither cold, hunger, nor pain, nor the fear of them, neither the
bristling teeth of danger nor the very jaws of death itself, prevent you
from doing a good deed," said an old chief to a scout who was about to
seek the buffalo in midwinter for the relief of a starving people. This
was his childlike conception of courage.

V. THE UNWRITTEN SCRIPTURES

A Living Book. The Sioux Story of Creation. The First
Battle. Another Version of the Flood. Our Animal Ancestry.

A missionary once undertook to instruct a group of Indians in the truths
of his holy religion. He told them of the creation of the earth in six
days, and of the fall of our first parents by eating an apple.

The courteous savages listened attentively, and, after thanking him, one
related in his turn a very ancient tradition concerning the origin of
the maize. But the missionary plainly showed his disgust and disbelief,
indignantly saying:--

"What I delivered to you were sacred truths, but this that you tell me
is mere fable and falsehood!"

"My brother," gravely replied the offended Indian, "it seems that you
have not been well grounded in the rules of civility. You saw that
we, who practice these rules, believed your stories; why, then, do you
refuse to credit ours?"

Every religion has its Holy Book, and ours was a mingling of history,
poetry, and prophecy, of precept and folk-lore, even such as the modern
reader finds within the covers of his Bible. This Bible of ours was our
whole literature, a living Book, sowed as precious seed by our wisest
sages, and springing anew i