When the author was questioning these
Indians he was obliged to proceed very cautiously in order to obtain
information of this character, which was not communicated till they
learned about his acquaintance with some of the myths. When several Dakota
delegations visited Washington he called on them and had little trouble in
learning the names of their gentes, their order in the camping circle,
&c., provided the interpreters were absent. During his visit to the Omaha,
from 1878 to 1880, he did not find them very reticent in furnishing him
with such information, though he was generally referred to the principal
chief of each gens as the best authority for the names in his own
division. But he found it very difficult to induce any of them to admit
that the gentes had subdivisions, which were probably the original gentes.
It was not till 1880, and after questioning many, that by the merest
accident he obtained the clew from the keeper of a sacred pipe.
The Iowa, who have these social divisions and personal names of mythic
significance, also have sacred songs, but these are in the Winnebago
language.
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