“The Great Spirit at an ancient period here called the Indian nations together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the North, the South, the East, and the West, and told them that this stone was red,—­that it was their flesh,—­that they must use it for their pipes of peace,—­that it belonged to them all, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be raised on its ground.  At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet (Tso-mec-cos-tee aud Tso-me-cos-te-won-dee), answering to the invocations of the high-priests or medicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place.”

Hark you, Bear! you are a coward.

This anecdote is from Heckewelder.  In his account of the Indian Nations, he describes an Indian hunter as addressing a bear in nearly these words.  “I was present,” he says, “at the delivery of this curious invective; when the hunter had despatched the bear, I asked him how he thought that poor animal could understand what he said to it.  ‘O,’ said he in answer, ’the bear understood me very well; did you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding him?"’—­Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol.  I. p. 240.

Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!

Heckewelder, in a letter published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol.  IV. p. 260, speaks of this tradition as prevalent among the Mohicans and Delawares.

“Their reports,” he says, “run thus:  that among all animals that had been formerly in this country, this was the most ferocious; that it was much larger than the largest of the common bears, and remarkably long-bodied; all over (except a spot of hair on its back of a white color) naked. . . . .

“The history of this animal used to be a subject of conversation among the Indians, especially when in the woods a hunting.  I have also heard them say to their children when crying:  ’Hush! the naked bear will hear you, be upon you, and devour you,’”

Where the Falls of Minnehaha, etc.

“The scenery about Fort Snelling is rich in beauty.  The Falls of St. Anthony are familiar to travellers, and to readers of Indian sketches.  Between the fort and these falls are the ‘Little Falls,’ forty feet in height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi.  The Indians called them Mine-hah-hah, or ‘laughing waters.’” —­ Mrs. EASTMAN’S Dacotah, or Legends of the Sioux, Introd., p. ii.

Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo.

A description of the Grand Sable, or great sand-dunes of Lake Superior, is given in Foster and Whitney’s Report on the Geology of the Lake Superior Land District, Part ii. p. 131.