The Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1849-1855, 1849-08-30
COMMUNICATED.



Mr.. GooDHUE:-I am NOT fond of apollo
giving, but an apology is certainly due to
yourself and readers for the last article
which appeared in your paper on this sub
ject. When | wrote, intended to copy,
which accordingly did with considerable
alterations and omissions. The papers
were lying together Oh my table, when
an opportunity Of forw arding to you
occurred, aud in haste folded and sent you
the latter part of the first draft, the first
part of it having been written OF a separate
piece of paper. Owing to defects in the
manuscript thus sent, some parts OF what
you published are obscure, and others eX-
press a meaning which | did not intend
When speaking Of the medicine men i'll a
former state of existence, fly should OCCUR
immediately before food, and feir imAle-
diately after it, and the word charity near
the middle of the column, should he chasti-
ty. shall copy here what should have
been the first part of the communication, as
it is necessary TO the proper understanding
of what is already published:
1t has been often said that the Indians
worship two Great Spirits; one good and
the other evil. That this does not give ii
correct account of the religion Of the Siohx,
will appear from the following extract of a
letter written in their own language, about
seven years ago, by an Intelligent man, who
had been requested to give some account of
their religion. The translation is as liberal
as possible:
"They say that there are many gods and
that these are at first made one man with
his wife at the east, and they say some of
these are Unkteri dreadful beings, kind
of sea-nonsters;) and they say some of
them are men. Aud they often speak of
the spiders, which walk on water, and say
that these are men, and the many kinds of
serpents, they say are men who have assu-
med different form. And they speak Of
every thing which grows on the earth; both
the things which move, and the things which
move not, and they say that all these are
such, and they exhort each other to pray to
these very mueh.'
This extract, which gives the sayings of
the medicine men, or conf jurors among the
Sioux, shows that they are Pantheists.-
When asked what they worship, the COM
mon answer is, every thing; and mary of
them say they worship stones mere than
other things. They believe thar NOT only
the earth, sun, moon and stare, rivers, lakes
and hills, but animals, fowls. fish and in
sects' all trees, herbs and stones, and every
art,iicia' OBJECT, such as their guns, knives
and arrows, have each spirit capable of
ne'P'hS or hurting them, and are conse-
qoently proper objects Of worship. They
pray to all these, and to the spirits of their
deceased relatives, and to many other gods,
who so far as we know, have no existence
except IN the imagination of those who wor-
snip them. This should have been The first
part of the last article.
Most Of the medicine men among the
Dakotas say man has four souls. Some
OF them say he has five. At his decease
they say one OF these remains with or near
the body, one in a bundle containing some
OF the Clothes and hair of the deceased.
which the relatives carefully preserve, till
1t can be thrown away on the borders Of an
enemy's country by a war party, one goes
to the land of spirits, and one passes Into
some other body, it may he that of child, ,
Or some young animal, bird, fish, or insect,