[J] mountain antelope.
In the golden-hued _Wazu-pe-wee_--
the moon when the wild-rice is gathered;
When the leaves on the tall sugar-tree
are as red as the breast of the robin,
And the red-oaks that border the lea
are aflame with the fire of the sunset,
From the wide, waving fields of wild-rice--
from the meadows of _Psin-ta-wak-pa-dan_,[K]
Where the geese and the mallards rejoice,
and grow fat on the bountiful harvest,
Came the hunters with saddles of moose
and the flesh of the bear and the bison,
And the women in birch-bark canoes
well laden with rice from the meadows.
[K] Little Rice River. It bears the name of Rice Creek to-day and
empties into the Mississippi from the east, a few miles above
Minneapolis.
With the tall, dusky hunters, behold,
came a marvelous man or a spirit,
White-faced and so wrinkled and old,
and clad in the robe of the raven.
Unsteady his steps were and slow,
and he walked with a staff in his right hand,
And white as the first-falling snow
were the thin locks that lay on his shoulders.
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