Note 46 — Chapter VIII · North American Indians.—Diversity of Languages.—The Iroquois.—Dialects.—Descent of Iroquois chiefs through the female line.—Pagan Indians.—Belief in a Great Spirit.—Ceremonies.—Dakotas.—Superstitions.—Dreams.—Fasts.—Sun worship.—Medicine men.—Customs of mourning by widows.—Supernatural influences.—Lightning.—Transmigration.—Worship of Spirit rocks.—Serpent worship.—Human sacrifices.—Burial customs.—Method of curing sickness by steam.—Note upon analogies between the customs of the Indians, Maoris, and the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
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I should here mention that, when I was at Boston, I was much assisted in making investigations into certain characteristics of the North American Indians by Mr. Francis Parkman, whose researches upon all subjects relating to the condition of the aboriginal tribes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have placed him in the first rank of the historians of that period.
Mr. Parkman was personally well acquainted with the Dakotas, amongst whom he had dwelt for nearly two years.
He, on several occasions arranged, in the kindest manner, that I should meet those who were interested in the native races. Upon one of these occasions I met Mr. E. G. Squier, whose original surveys of the ancient earthworks in Ohio were published by the Smithsonian Institution.
The introductions given to me by Mr. Parkman to the distinguished archæologists, Mr. Lewis Morgan and Professor Daniel Wilson, were also most useful.