Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/79

 they lived at Lake Calhoun. Their principal chief was or "Sky-man;" another chief of this band was called,  "My Head Aches." John W. Bond says that the Mississippi generally closes in December early, and opens the latter part of March. The latter part of May and early in June is the usual seeding-time. They are thus considerably later than we are in Concord. "The summer here is very cool and pleasant, with a fine breeze at all times, blowing mostly from the west, southwest and south." In the Annals of the same Society for 1856, Professor Neill of Minnesota says:

"The discoverer of the stream of this name (Minnesota) was Le Sueur, and in the first map that delineates the stream, which was issued in France more than a century ago, it is marked as the 'Minisota.' This is a Dakota word, and means as above indicated, 'sky-colored.' All waterfalls in the Dakota tongue are called 'Ha-ha'—never 'Minne-ha-ha' (as Longfellow has it). The 'h' has a strong guttural sound. The word is applied because of the curling of the waters. The verb I-ha-ha primarily means to curl,