ent to
Heaven, where he has prepared a place for all who love him; for me and
mine, I trust, and for you too, if you are careful to please him by
serving him yourself, and by endeavoring to induce your friends to give
up their foolish and wicked superstitions, and to worship the true God
who made all things."

CHAPTER II.

The Dahcotahs believe in the existence of a Great Spirit, but they have
very confused ideas of his attributes. Those who have lived near the
missionaries, say that the Great Spirit lived forever, but their own
minds would never have conceived such an idea. Some say that the Great
Spirit has a wife.

They say that this being created all things but thunder and wild rice;
and that he gave the earth and all animals to them, and that their
feasts and customs were the laws by which they are to be governed. But
they do not fear the anger of this deity after death.

Thunder is said to be a large bird; the name that they give to thunder
is the generic term for all animals that fly. Near the source of the St.
Peters is a place called Thunder-tracks--where the footprints of the
thunder-bird are seen in the rocks, twenty-five miles apart.

The Dahcotahs believe in an evil spirit as well as a good, but they do
not consider these spirits as opposed to each other; they do not think
that they are tempted to do wrong by this evil spirit; their own hearts
are bad. It would be impossible to put any limit to the number of
spirits in whom the Dahcotahs believe; every object in nature is full of
them. They attribute death as much to the power of these subordinate
spirits as to the Great Spirit; but most frequently they suppose death
to have been occasioned by a spell having been cast upon them by
some enemy.

The sun and moon are worshipped as emblems of their deity.

Sacrifice is a religious ceremony among them; but no missionary has yet
been able to find any reference to the one great Atonement made for sin;
none of their customs or traditions authorize any such connection. They
sacrifice to all the spirits; but they have a stone, painted red, which
they call Grandfather, and on or near this, they place their most
valuable articles, their buffalo robes, dogs, and even horses; and on
one occasion a father killed a child as a kind of sacrifice. They
frequently inflict severe bruises or cuts upon their bodies, thinking
thus to propitiate their gods.

The belief in an evil spirit is said by some not to be a p