Legends of the Northwest

Hanford Lennox Gordon

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Project Gutenberg's Legends of the Northwest, by Hanford Lennox GordonCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloadingor redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of thisfile. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can alsofind out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: Legends of the NorthwestAuthor: Hanford Lennox GordonRelease Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8122] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first postedon June 16, 2003]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE NORTHWEST ***Produced by Susan Skinner, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.LEGENDS OF THE NORTHWEST. BY H. L. GORDON, Author of Pauline.CONTAININGPRELUDE—THE MISSISSIPPI.THE FEAST OF THE VIRGINS, A LEGEND OF THE DAKOTAS.WINONA, A ...

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• Publié par: sheym
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 57
• Langue: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF THE NORTHWEST ***

Produced by Susan Skinner, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Title: Legends of the Northwest Author: Hanford Lennox Gordon Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8122] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 16, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English

**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

danl futhurt ,detraeh-nepre oy we Theson. eib dht rnaaeev ec eht s t fo retn Hhe tedwa) Haa-ybt yn( aclleh mof Slls nthot. A ht dle et ,kb ehccba ao, hndteunyec luitavet dotheir country. Th

brave. In their wars with other tribes they seldom slew women or children, and rarely sacrificed the lives of their prisoners. For many years their chiefs and head men successfully resisted the attempts to introduce spirituous liquors among them. More than a century ago an English trader was killed at Mendota, because he persisted, after repeated warnings by the chiefs, in dealing out mini-wakan (Devil-water) to the Dakota braves. With open arms and generous hospitality they welcomed the first white men to their land; and were ever faithful in their friendship, till years of wrong and robbery, and want and insult, drove them to desperation and to war. They were barbarians, and their warfare was barbarous, but not more barbarous than the warfare of our Saxon and Celtic ancestors. They were ignorant and superstitious, but their condition closely resembled the condition of our British forefathers at the beginning of the Christian era. Macaulay says of Britain, "Her inhabitants, when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands." And again, "While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Arles and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of Bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden." The day of the Dakotas is done. The degenerate remnants of that once powerful and warlike people still linger around the forts and agencies of the Northwest, or chase the caribou and the bison on the banks of the Sascatchewan, but the Dakotas of old are no more. The brilliant defeat of Custer, by Sitting Bull and his braves, was their last grand rally against the resistless march of the sons of the Saxons and the Celts. The plow-shares of a superior race are fast leveling the sacred mounds of their dead. But yesterday, the shores of our lakes, and our rivers, were dotted with their tepees. Their light canoes glided over our waters, and their hunters chased the deer and the buffalo on the sites of our cities. To-day, they are not. Let us do justice to their memory, for there was much that was noble in their natures. In the following Dakota Legends I have endeavored to faithfully represent many of the customs and superstitions, and some of the traditions, of that people. I have taken very little "poetic license" with their traditions; none, whatever, with their customs and superstitions. In my studies for these Legends I have been greatly aided by Rev. S. R. Riggs, author of the Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota language, "Tah-Koo Wah-Kan," &c., and for many years a missionary among the Dakotas. He has patiently answered my numerous inquiries and given me valuable information. I am also indebted to Gen. H. H. Sibley, one of the earliest American traders among them, and to Rev. S. W. Pond, of Shakopee, one of the first Protestant missionaries to these people, and himself the author of poetical versions of some of their principal legends; to Mrs. Eastman's "Dacotah." and last, but not least, to the Rev. E. D. Neill, whose admirable "History of Minnesota" so fully and faithfully presents almost all that is known of the history, traditions, customs, manners and superstitions of the Dakotas. In Winona  on Hexameter verse. With what success, I leave to those who are better ableI have "tried my hand" to judge than I. If I have failed, I have but added another failure to the numerous vain attempts to naturalize Hexameter verse in the English language. The Earl of Derby, in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, calls it "That pestilent heresy of the so-called English Hexameter; a metre wholly repugnant to the genius of our language; which can only be pressed into the service by a violation of every rule of prosody." Lord Kames, in his "Elements of Criticism." says, "Many attempts have been made to introduce Hexameter verse into the living languages, but without success. The English language, I am inclined to think, is not susceptible of this melody, and my reasons are these: First, the polysyllables in Latin and Greek are finely diversified by long and short syllables, a circumstance that qualifies them for the melody of Hexameter verse: ours are extremely ill qualified for that service, because they super-abound in short syllables. Secondly, the bulk of our monosyllables are arbitrary with regard to length, which is an unlucky circumstance in Hexameter. * * * In Latin and Greek Hexameter invariable sounds direct and ascertain the melody. English Hexameter would be destitute of melody, unless by artful pronunciation; because of necessity the bulk of its sounds must be arbitrary. The pronunciation is easy in a simple movement of alternate long and short syllables; but would be perplexing and unpleasant in the diversified movement of Hexameter verse " . Beautiful as is the Evangeline to scan, and often grate harshly onof Longfellow, his Hexameter lines are sometimes hard the ear. He is frequently forced to divide a word by the central or pivotal pause of the line, and sometimes to make a pause in the sense where the rhythm forbids it. Take for example some of the opening lines of Evangeline :  "This is the forest prime|val. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,  Bearded with moss, and in gar|ments green, indistinct in the twilight.  Loud from its rocky cav|erns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean  Speaks, and in accents discon|solate answers the wail of the forest.  Lay in the fruitful val|ley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward." Again, in order to comply with the Greek and Latin rule of beginning each line with a long syllable, he is compelled to emphasize words contrary to the sense. Examples: In the shores of the Basin of Minas _Some_what apart from the vil|lage, and nearer the Basinthe Acadian land, on of Minas. But a celestial bright|ness—a more etherial beauty. And retreating sun the sign of the scorpion enters.the In -doors, warmed by the wide-|mouthed fireplace idly the farmer, Four times the sun had ris|en and set; and now on the fifth day, "Greek and Latin Hexameter lines, as to time, are all of the same length, being equivalent to the time taken in pronouncing twelve long syllables, or twenty-four short ones. An Hexameter line may consist of seventeen syllables, and when regular and not Spondiac, it never has fewer than thirteen: whence it follows that where the syllables are many, the

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H. L. GORDON. MINNEAPOLIS. June 1, 1881.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE MISSISSIPPI AT FORT SNELLING]

.

PRELUDE. THEMISSISSIPPI.

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