124 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. country bordering on the river, which bears their name, and is the western branch of the Red River of Lake Winnipek.* It is probable from its situation north of the Yanktons, that this was their original seat. Mackenzie estimates their aggre- gate number in both places at about five thousand souls, which may be underrated. According to Renville's account, they would amount, to twenty-eight thousand. Lewis and Clarke estimate them at sixteen hundred warriors, or rather more than six thousand souls. Another tribe, called Shyennes or Cheyennes, were at no very remote period seated on the left bank of the Red River of Lake Winnipek, and have left their name to one of its tributary streams. Carver reckoned them as one of the Sioux tribes ; and Mackenzie informs us that they were driven away by the Sioux. They now live on the head waters of the river Shyenne, a southwestern tributary of the Missouri. The names of the chiefs who signed the treaty, concluded with them in 1825 by the United States, are pure Dahcota of the Yankton dialect, as will be seen amongst the appended vocab- ularies. It had been thence concluded that they certainly were a Sioux tribe. I have been however assured, by a well- informed person who trades with them, that they speak a distinct language, for which there is no European interpreter ; that the treaty was carried on, through the medium of some of the Sioux ; and that the Indian names subscribed to the treaty are translations into the Sioux language of the Shyenne names of the chiefs. They are estimated by Lewis and Clarke at sixteen hundred, and by the War Department at two thou- sand souls. We have only two vocabularies of the Dahcota dialects. That of the Yanktons was obtained by Dr. Say. That of the eastern Dahcotas of the Mississippi has been principally extract- ed from one transmitted by General Cass to the War Depart- ment, and partly from those of Mr. Keating and Major Long. It is probable that the dialects of the Tetons and of the Assini- boins, though similar, differ from both. A few words of that of the Assiniboins, supplied by Umfreville, will be found amongst the supplementary vocabularies.
- The source of Mouse River, a southern tributary of the Assini-
boin, is within one mile of the main Missouri River, about one hundred miles above the Mandan village. The slightest variation in the na- ture and elevation of the intervening ground would have thrown all the waters of the upper Missouri into Lake Winnipek and Hudson's Bay.
