to be made the second day; and another payment, to other bands a little higher up, on the Yellow Medicine, a tributary of the Minnesota, a few days thereafter. In the afternoon the half-naked Indians performed a dance at the request of the Governor, for our amusement and their own benefit. Then we took leave of them, and of the officials who had come to treat with them. In the dance were thirty men dancing and twelve musicians with drums, while others struck their arrows against their bows. The dancers blew some flutes, and kept good time, moving their feet or their shoulders, sometimes one, sometimes both. They wear no shirts. Five bands of Indians came in, and were feasted on an ox cut into five parts, one for each band.
This was in the afternoon of the 20th of June. That night the steamer lay by, halfway between Redwood and Fort Ridgely, where Thoreau heard the whippoorwill, and his Illinois oracle told him it is the female that makes the note. On the 21st they reached New Ulm on the return voyage, just
[ 56 ]
