Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/88

58 HISTOBY OF GOODHUE COUNTY is still begging.' And not until the 15th, after a stay of ten days, did he leave for home, to Forsyth's great relief. But in the mean- time old "Wabash, he of one eye, whose big village was near the present site of Winona, had arrived, and a week later old Red Wing himself, with twenty followers, from their village, where the City of Red W 7 ing now stands, had come. 'This is another begging expedition,' writes Major Forsyth. Lake Pepin was 'crossed with ease' on the 18th, and the next morning Major Forsyth had 'a little talk' with Chief Red AVing at his village. 'I gave him some goods. He was much pleased with his pres- ents. His son (whom the major encountered at Prairie du Chien) is exactly what I took him to be— a trifling, begging, discontented fellow.' This clay, after making twenty-four miles, the expedi- tion encamped at the mouth of the St. Croix, which is described as a 'large river.' On the evening of the 20th a landing was made at Medicine Wood, probably near Gray Cloud Island. Medicine AVooel takes its name from a large beech tree, which kind of wood the Sioux are unacquainted with, supposing that the Great Spirit plaeed it there as a genius to protect or punish them according to their deserts. This is the first and perhaps the only recorded instance of the existence of a beech tree in Minnesota, and it might therefore properly have a 'medicine' character, that term being Sioux for supernatural or deeply mysterious." Henry R. Schoolcraft in 1820 accompanied the Cass expedi- tion as mineralogist and historian, and that part of the journey relating to Red Wing will be found in the work entitled Minne- sota in Three Centuries, Vol. 1, page 353: "The next day they passed the mouth of the St. Croix, and at noon arrived at the village of Talangamane (for Tatankamani, his Dakota name, meaning Walking Buffalo), or the Red Wing, consisting of four large lodges and several other smaller, built of logs like those of Little Crows. Of this chief, Red Wing, and his band, Schoolcraft wrote: 'Talangamane is now considered the first of his nation, which honor, it is said, he enjoys both on account of his superior age and sagacity. He appears to be about sixty, and bears all the marks of that age. Very few of his people were at home, being engaged in hunting and fishing. We observed several fine cornfields near the village, but they subsist chiefly by taking stur- geon in the neighboring lake, and by hunting deer. The buffalo is also occasionally killed, but they are obliged to go two days' journey west of the Mississippi before this animal is found in plenty.' " Major Long Again, in 1823, called at Red Wing, and I quote from the same authority as above: "On the evening of June 30. Major Long arrived at the village of the chief Red AVing, then called Shakea; and in the next forenoon the boat party arrived