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This was now a composite village, including parts of every gens of the Mendewahkantons, but there were other villages of the same tribe scattered over a large area. When Dick and Albert reached the northern end of the village they saw a great number of Indian ponies, six or seven hundred perhaps, grazing in a wide grassy space and guarded by half-grown Indian boys.
All the chiefs, led by Bright Sun, went directly to the lodge of the Akitcita, and the other warriors were taken into the lodges of their friends, the Mendewahkantons. Then the women ran to the lodges and returned with the best food that the village could furnish. It was given to the guests, and also many pounds of choice tobacco. Dick and Albert had made no mistake in their surmise.
Nor have I the remotest idea now where I am." "You are in a village of the tribe of the Mendewahkanton Sioux, of the clan Queyata-oto-we," replied Bright Sun gravely, "the clan and tribe to which I belong. The Mendewahkantons are one of the first tribes of the Seven Fireplaces, or the Great Sioux Nation.
The tribe of the Mendewahkantons a leading one of the Seven Fireplaces or Council Fires of the great Sioux nation was subdivided into seven gentes or clans; the Kiyukas, or Breakers, so called because they disregarded the general marriage law and married outside their own clan; the Que-mini-tea, or Mountain Wood and Water people; the Kap'oja, or Light Travelers; the Maxa-yuta-cui, the People who Eat no Grease; the Queyata-oto-we, or the People of the Village Back from the River; the Oyata Citca, the Bad Nation, and the Tita-otowe, the People of the Village on the Prairie.
It might have seemed to the ordinary observer that there was looseness and disorder about the camp, but Dick was experienced enough to know that all the Mendewahkantons were posted in the circle according to their clans, and that the delegates were distributed with them in places of honor.
All the clans of the Mendewahkantons, for instance, were represented on the reservations, but all of them were represented here, too. It was a great war that was now going on, they said, and they had taken many white scalps, but they intimated that those they had taken were few in comparison with the number they would take. Dick asked them of their present purpose, but here they grew wary.
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