THE RED MEN OF IOWA.

We have seen the Iowas, once an important branch of the great Dakota family, occupying in prosperity one of the finest regions west of the Mississippi, but afterward reduced by pestilence and war from the condition of a proud and independent tribe to a mere remnant. At war for a century or more with nations of a kindred blood, the Sioux on the north, and the Osages on the south, they still maintained the struggle, and held their beautiful valleys and magnificent hunting-grounds, although two disastrous visitations of pestilence had swept away hundreds of their warriors. Then came upon them the proud and haughty invader of Algonquin blood with a scourge worse than the pestilence, and in the battle, or rather massacre, which we have described, the Iowas ceased, as an independent tribe, to occupy any of the territory now known to the white man by their name. The retributions of fate and history apply to savage tribes as well as to civilized nations, and

Like all the other Indian tribes, the Iowas believed in the Great Spirit that created and rules all things. It was a tradition among them that a long time ago it rained thirty or forty days, and that all the people and animals were drowned. The Great Spirit then made another man and woman out of red clay, and from them the Indians are descended. They do not know what became of the white people in the flood, but suppose they may have been saved in a great canoe. The Great Spirit told the first man and woman all these things, but many things have been forgotten.

The Iowas offered a kind of religious adoration to certain animals, reptiles and birds. There is a species of small hawk that they never killed, except to obtain certain portions of its body to use with their sacred medicines. This bird is very difficult to kill, as it flies high and long on the wing, going to the highest mountains to visit the spirits of the blessed. They had among them their "snake doctors," who regarded certain kinds of serpents, particularly the rattlesnake, with veneration. If they found one of these reptiles they usually stopped and talked with it, making it an offering, or present, such as tobacco or some other article that might be convenient. They claimed that in this way they made and preserved peace between the snakes and the Indians.

One of their ideas was that the stars were living creatures like men. Their tradition was, that long ago a child, when very young, looked up and saw a certain star in the heavens, which he regarded more than all the others. As