] INDIAN CONGRESS AT OMAHA 141
The men wear their hair turned up from the forehead, some- what after the manner of the Crows. Their color is not the cop- pery brown of the eastern Indians, but rather the creamy yellow sometimes seen among the Pueblos, which might be described as Mongolian were not that term so liable to misconstruction. In temper they are good-natured and fond of pleasantry, here again resembling the Pueblos rather than the sterner warriors of the plains. They formerly occupied the tangle of rough mountains at the extreme head of Missouri river, subsisting more by roots and berries than by hunting, as they were cut off from the buffalo country by their powerful enemies, the Blackfeet. They had houses of bark and reeds, as well as the skin tipi. In 1841 the heroic De Smct began among them that work which continues to be the most successful in the history of our Indian missions. In 1855 they were gathered on a reservation, where the con- federated tribes now number about 2000, besides about 670 Spokan and 500 Cceur d'Alene on the Colville reservation in Washington.
The HocWnka-ra, or Winnebago, formerly having their terri- tory in southern Wisconsin about the lake that bears their name, were represented by a considerable delegation under a sub-chief. Black-hawk. They speak an archaic and strongly marked Siouan language, but had their alliances with the Algon- qutan tribes rather than with their own kindred to the westward. In dress and physical characteristics also they resemble the east- ern Indians, wearing the turban, the beaded garter, and the short breechcloth, and having the compact heavy build of the agricul- tural tribes of the timber region. Living remote from the buffalo country, they subsisted principally on corn, wild rice, fish, and small game. Their houses, still in common occupancy on their reservation, are of the wigwam type, of woven rush mats upon a framework of poles, much resembling the wigwams of their former neighbors, the Sauk. Friendly, but conservative, they have a rare mass of ethnologic lore which yet remains to be studied.
�� �
