Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1

"Legends of the Happy Hunting-Grounds", (commencing at p. 225 of volume first) being in my estimation by far the most interesting and valuable in the volume, deserve a more elaborate commentary with a view to the authenticating them. They are all of them genuine, but there is but one of them that belongs, as has been supposed in the tradition, exclusively to the tribe of whom it is related. Thus "Akkeewaisee, the Aged", which is supposed to describe the heaven of the people called the Dahcotahs, describes also that of many other tribes. Keating assigns the belief to the Dahcotahs. (See his Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Petre's river, London.