Note 66 — Chapter II · The Sioux or Dakotahs.

The reader who cares to consult my studies upon the subject of Fetichism in Africa, where it is and ever has been the national creed, is referred to “The Lake Regions of Central Africa,” chap. xix. The modes of belief, and the manners and customs of savage and barbarous races are so similar, that a knowledge of the African is an excellent introduction to that of the American.

[67] This gourd or calabash is the produce of the Cucurbita lagenaria, or calabash vine. In Spanish, Central, and Southern America, Cuba and the West Indies, they use the large round fruit of the Crescentia cujete.