then. When a boy the mail was carried on horseback between Williamsport, twenty miles east, and Bellefonte, thirty miles west; now there is a railroad on each side of the river, and also a canal on one side. It was a winter's job to tramp out the grain with horses, taking a week to thresh and clean from 80 to 100 bushels of wheat. The first thresher in that country was built by one of the best farmers, and by hard work they could thresh 90 bushels in a day, and clean it the next day. Harvests were cut by the old-fashioned cradle, and mowing done with the scythe; often the old-fashioned Dutch scythe, which was sharpened by hammering instead of on a grindstone. Perhaps I should except the machinery of the whisky bottle, without which it was thought the harvest could not be cut. The first harvest of my father's cut without whisky, my brother and I told him if he would not have any whisky we would cut the harvest. We did it, and the bottle was never necessary after that. I need not speak of how these things are now done. Our school books were Webster's Spelling Book, the New Testament next, and at times the Old Testament, then Scotch Lessons, and afterwards Murray's English Reader. I think as good scholars were then made as they make now with all the change of books. We could not buy ruled paper, but ruled our paper with a hammered lead pencil. I never attended Sabbath school except as a teacher, as there were none in that part of the country. But if I may return to the early history of the Indians, near fifty years ago, the contrast is almost as great. I then saw a man riding a horseback, and his wife walking and carrying a load, and the little girls also carrying something, and boys, if there were any, carrying a bow and arrows. Before I left the Iowas, I saw the wife on the horse, and the man walking. The same may be said of the Omahas. Now it is quite common to see the man and his wife riding together in a wagon. Then, the women packed their wood, often three miles, on their backs -that was in summer; now it is hauled in wagons, the men generally doing the work when able. Then, when not on the hunt, they were, when sober, either playing ball or cards, or some other games; now they are engaged in farming. True, they keep up their dances, i. e. the heathen part, but generally take the Sabbath for them, as they pretend they work on other days, but they also work on the Sabbath. The members of the church attend meeting, and often others; and I have often gone from Decatur to the Mission through storm, when most

of the whites thought it too stormy to attend church, and found a house full of attentive listeners. The Omahas are on their farms, and a large portion of the potatoes and corn brought in to Decatur comes from the Reserve. They raise a good deal of wheat, many of them breaking each year about five acres of fresh prairie to add to their farms. The prairie breaking that I have seen I think is far ahead of what the whites do. One Indian told me that a white man offered him a half dollar an acre more than he was willing to give a white man, because he did it so much better. Some of them have built houses, purchasing the pine lumber and hiring Indian carpenters to do the work. And I must say that the houses put up by the Indians are better and more substantial than those put up for them by Agent Painter. The Omahas are also increasing in numbers, and are a sober people. I have seen but one drunken Omaha in over fifteen years, and he could talk English. Although a large part of them keep up their old superstitious habits, they always listen to me when I visit them at their homes, and seem often to be interested. Occasionally, some one may make some objections, but a few kind words overcome their objections, and they listen to the truth. Last Sabbath I stopped at White Horse's, and found the door shut and no answer to my knocking. I passed on a couple of hundred yards, and was talking to some Winnebagos, who were stopping there, when his wife came and inquired what I wanted, and when I told her I was teaching the Indians, she said her husband wanted me to go back and teach them. They were in another part of the house. There are over sixty members in the church now, besides a number have died and some in triumph of faith. It is over thirty years since I left the Iowas, and they have greatly diminished, as have the Otoes and Sacs. Whisky has been their ruin. The Pawnees, too, have greatly diminished, less than one-third what they were fifty years ago, perhaps not a fourth or even a fifth of their number. So have the Poncas. According to their history, when they first came to the Niobrara they encamped in three circles instead of one, on account of one circle requiring so much space-numbering not less than three thousand souls. The Omahas encamped in two circles. The Poncas were hunters while the Omahas cultivated some patches. The tradition is that the Omahas, Poncas, Iowas, and Otoes came from the south-east, from below St. Louis, and crossed the Mississippi near that; while

the Quapaw, tradition is, that they were also with them, but separated there, they going south or below (their way of expressing south), while the others went up or north-up signifying north, as the streams flowed from that direction. They traveled on till they reached the Vermillion. There they made a village, and after a time kept on north on the other side of the Missouri river, till they went some distance up that stream, and then crossed it and came down on this side, the Otoes and Iowas going before. When they reached the Ne-o-brara (the correct way of spelling it), the Poncas staid there, and the others came on down, and the others eventually went still further down, while the Omahas stayed at Omaha creek, and, at times, on the Elkhorn or at the Blackbird Hills, and eventually at Bellevue. They think it must have been as much as 300 years ago. When they first came to this country there were some other Indians roaming over it, but not Sioux. They did not hear of the Sioux for a long time. There were some battles among them; and the Omahas raised some vegetables, as corn and beans, and the Poncas traded meat for corn, etc.. with the Omahas.

There is no doubt that the Osages, Kansas or Kaws, Quapaws, Omahas, Poncas, Otoes, Iowas, Winnebagoes, and the different bands of Sioux were formerly one people, and to these might be added the Mandans and Hedatse, and perhaps others, as their language shows, the Osage being the most guttural and the others as named less so, yet they need an interpreter to talk together, except the Iowas and Otoes, and Omahas and Poncas, and Osages and Kaws. The Chippewas, Pottawattomies, Kickapoos, Sauks (Sacs) and Foxes, Weas, Peorias, Peankeshaws, Kaskaskias, and, I think, Shawnees, show a common origin. No resemblance between the languages of this latter class and the former. The Pawnee is again different; but a mountain tribe, I think the Crees, show a resemblance; and a tribe far in the north, above the Yellowstone, in language resemble the Sacs. The Missourians were slaves to the Osages, but ran off and came to the Otoes, and became mingled with them, and have nearly lost their own language, only a few old people speaking it; but while they speak the Otoe, it is with a peculiar manner, showing it is not their native tongue, speaking very slowly, as if they were not yet familiar with it to speak it as the Otoes. The Pawnees seem to have come originally from the south-west, near Mexico.

The Indians do not worship idols as many heathen, that is carved idols or images, but are idolaters in the true sense of the word, but the idol is more in the mind and they apply the name of God to many things or ideas-different gods for different things. Wakanda in Omaha, Ponca, etc. Wakanta in Iowa, Otoe, and so forth. Waka-tangka in Sioux, which really is the great or war god, Tangka, Sioux, tangga, Omaha, tanra, Iowa, signifying great. Waka is snake in Iowa and Otoe, and uda is good in Omaha, perhaps good snake, as pe is good in Iowa, and peskunya is bad, or not good, while uda is good in Omaha, but pe-azhe in Omaha is not good, showing the pe retained in the negative. Great Spirit is introduced, I have no doubt by the whites, as the only idea of spirit is the spirit of a person. Moleto or moneto is the name of God in the Sac and kindred languages, and a Sac interpreter told me it meant big snake. Is there in this something handed down from the fall? I have discovered I think traces of the creation and flood among the Iowas. It is quite a long story. The Chippeways invented a system of writing and taught some Kickapoos, and a few Sacs learned it from them, but it must have been formed from the English, as the letters resemble the English considerably though the sounds are different, using sixteen letters, four of which are vowels. The Sac language is as musical as the Greek. The Winnebagoes use a term for God signfying the maker of the earth, but also the same nearly as the Iowas. There is a tradition that a part of the Iowas left the tribe and went off to hunt sinews and never returned, and lost their language, and that the lost ones are the Winnebagoes. But perhaps I have given you enough, or too much. If in any thing I have not been full enough, if you will ask questions I will try to answer them. I have printed down just such things as came into my mind, and as you will see not in very regular order, but you may get some ideas from this hasty sketch that will suit you. I do not write a plain hand unless I write slowly, and in the caligraph I sometimes get in a hurry. I often think of you and remember your kindness. Remember me kindly to your family. Yours truly,

WM. HAMILTON.

I wrote without referring to the circular, and since looking at it find there are some things I can answer, as sources of streams, but may

not be able for a week or so. Though poor and often without a cent I would be ashamed to ask pay of you for contributing what I can.

May 26th, 1884.

Yours truly,

ΤΟΥ

WM. HAMILTON,

INDIAN NAMES AND THEIR MEANING.

The following interesting paper concerning Indian names and their significance was furnished for this report by "Father Hamilton," long a missionary and teacher among our Western Indians.

NAMES DERIVED FROM THE INDIAN LANGUAGES.*

The name of the Kansas river is doubtless derived from the Kansas Indians, who lived on that stream. They were often called Kaws, and the river in an early day was called the Kaw river. The Iowas called the Indians Kantha, which means swift. Their own (the Kansas Indians) mode of pronouncing that word would be Ka-za, and this they called themselves, but whether they had another name I am unable to say. Most Indians speak of themselves by a different name from that by which they are known by the surrounding tribes. It is sometimes said that Kansas means a good place to dig potatoes. This is a mistake. The Iowas called the river To-pe-o-kæ, which signifies a good place to dig potatoes, from to, pota toe, pe good, and o-ke to dig. The name is preserved in the town Topeka, as near as the whites get in pronouncing Indian names. Wolf river is simply a translation of the Iowa name for that stream, Shun-ta-Nesh-nang-a. Musquito creek took its name from the quantity of musquitoes that troubled some who encamped on it. Its Indian name, eneshae, signifies a ripple. The Platte, is as you are aware, a French word signifying broad, and is a translation of the Indian name signifying the same thing, Ne-brath-kæ or Ne-prath-kæ in Iowa and Ne-brath-kæ in Omaha, or as some speak it, Ne-bras-ka. I formerly thought that as the government interpreter could not sound th, but used s where it occurred, we were indebted to that fact for calling our state Nebraska, and think so still, though if it was derived from the Omaha, it would be Nebrathka or Nebraska according to some of their own people. The

*Æ as a in fate; a as a in far.