Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/138

118 into them as many letters as possible. The first mention of a word of the Dakota or Sioux language in a European book is said to be one which Hennepin wrote in his Journal, on his being taken by a war-party on the Upper Mississippi. The savages were angry at seeing him read his breviary, and fiercely spoke a word which Hennepin writes Ouakanche! This word now appears in the Dakota vocabulary as Wakan-de, meaning magical, or supernatural. In the earliest intercourse between the Europeans and the Indians, a medium was established between them by meeting each other in speech and in sign-language, as we should say, half way. Father Lafitau has, with his usual intelligence, described the process as follows: —