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[ This stone from which the Dakotas have made their pipes for ages, is esteemed "wakân"—sacred. They call it I-yân-ska, probably from "íya," to speak, and "ska," white, truthful, peaceful,—hence, peace-pipe, herald of peace, pledge of truth, etc. In the cabinet at Albany, N.Y., there is a very ancient pipe of this material which the Iroquois obtained from the Dakotas. Charlevoix speaks of this pipe-stone in his History of New France. LeSueur refers to the Yanktons as the village of the Dakotas at the Red-Stone Quarry, See Neill's Hist. Minn., p. 514.]
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[ "Ho" is an exclamation of approval-yea, yes, bravo.]
25 ([return])
[ Buying is the honorable way of taking a wife among the Dakotas. The proposed husband usually gives a horse or its, value in other articles to the father or natural guardian of the woman selected—sometimes against her will. See note 75.]
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[ The Dakotas believe that the Aurora Borealis is an evil omen and the threatening of an evil spirit, (perhaps Wazíya, the Winter-god—some say a witch, or a very ugly old woman). When the lights appear, danger threatens, and the warriors shoot at, and often slay, the evil spirit, but it rises from the dead again.]
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[ Se-só-kah—The Robin.]