Myths and Legends of the Sioux   By: Marie L. McLaughlin (1842-)

By Mrs. Marie L. Mclaughlin

In loving memory of my mother, MARY GRAHAM BUISSON, at whose knee most of the stories contained in this little volume were told to me, this book is affectionately dedicated

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication Foreword The Forgotten Ear of Corn The Little Mice The Pet Rabbit The Pet Donkey The Rabbit and the Elk The Rabbit and the Grouse Girls The Faithful Lovers The Artichoke and the Muskrat The Rabbit, and the Bear with the Flint Body Story of the Lost Wife The Raccoon and the Crawfish Legend of Standing Rock Story of the Peace Pipe A Bashful Courtship The Simpleton's Wisdom Little Brave and the Medicine Woman The Bound Children The Signs of Corn Story of the Rabbits How the Rabbit Lost His Tail Unktomi and the Arrowheads The Bear and the Rabbit Hunt Buffalo The Brave Who Went on the Warpath Alone and Won the Name of the Lone Warrior The Sioux Who Married the Crow Chief's Daughter The Boy and the Turtles The Hermit, or the Gift of Corn The Mysterious Butte The Wonderful Turtle The Man and the Oak Story of the Two Young Friends The Story of the Pet Crow The "Wasna" (Pemmican Man) and the Unktomi (Spider) The Resuscitation of the Only Daughter The Story of the Pet Crane White Plume Story of Pretty Feathered Forehead The Four Brothers or Inyanhoksila (Stone Boy) The Unktomi (Spider), Two Widows and the Red Plums

FOREWORD

In publishing these "Myths of the Sioux," I deem it proper to state that I am of one fourth Sioux blood. My maternal grandfather, Captain Duncan Graham, a Scotchman by birth, who had seen service in the British Army, was one of a party of Scotch Highlanders who in 1811 arrived in the British Northwest by way of York Factory, Hudson Bay, to found what was known as the Selkirk Colony, near Lake Winnipeg, now within the province of Manitoba, Canada. Soon after his arrival at Lake Winnipeg he proceeded up the Red River of the North and the western fork thereof to its source, and thence down the Minnesota River to Mendota, the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, where he located. My grandmother, Ha za ho ta win, was a full blood of the Medawakanton Band of the Sioux Tribe of Indians. My father, Joseph Buisson, born near Montreal, Canada, was connected with the American Fur Company, with headquarters at Mendota, Minnesota, which point was for many years the chief distributing depot of the American Fur Company, from which the Indian trade conducted by that company on the upper Mississippi was directed.

I was born December 8, 1842, at Wabasha, Minnesota, then Indian country, and resided thereat until fourteen years of age, when I was sent to school at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

I was married to Major James McLaughlin at Mendota, Minnesota, January 28, 1864, and resided in Minnesota until July 1, 1871, when I accompanied my husband to Devils Lake Agency, North Dakota, then Dakota Territory, where I remained ten years in most friendly relations with the Indians of that agency. My husband was Indian agent at Devils Lake Agency, and in 1881 was transferred to Standing Rock, on the Missouri River, then a very important agency, to take charge of the Sioux who had then but recently surrendered to the military authorities, and been brought by steamboat from various points on the upper Missouri, to be permanently located on the Standing Rock reservation.