Note II-24 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: ST. PAUL TO LEECH LAKE, SEPTEMBER 22D, 1805-JANUARY 31ST, 1806.

There is no such French word as "killeur," which Pike elsewhere renders "killieu," and which appears in the text of 1807 as "killien" and "killein." On consulting the F. text, I. p. 95, I find that the editor says, "Plutôt tueur rouge, car le mot killeur n'est pas françois; c'est sans doute un barbarisme échappé à M. Pike." The son of this chief Pike calls "Fils de Killeur Rouge": see Mar. 5th and 8th, 1806, beyond. There is a Canadian French word pilleur, pillager, and the Leech Lake Chippewas were known as Pilleurs or Pillagers; but this Killeur was a Sioux chief of the Gens des Feuilles or Leaf Indians, now called Wahpetonwans: see L. and C., ed. 1893, p. 100. Pike translates Killeur by "Eagle"; and this clew to the meaning of the word is carried on by Beltrami, II. p. 207, who has a chief called "Ki-han or Red Quilliou"; ibid., p. 224, he speaks of "a bird which the Canadians call killiou, and the Indians Wamendi-hi"; ibid., p. 307, he says "a plume of killow," making an English word of it. Forsyth has "the killiew (thus named from a species of eagle)," in Minn. Hist. Col., III. 1874, p. 154. So killeur, etc., is simply a French way of spelling a certain Indian name of the eagle, whose feathers are used for ornament. I once noted this word in the form khoya. Riggs' Dak. Dict., 1852, has "Ḣu-yá, n., the common eagle" (the dotted h a deep surd guttural).