Swift and silent in the gloaming on the waste of waters blue,
Speeding downward to the foaming, shot Wanata's birch canoe.
In it stood Anpetu-sapa--in her arms her sleeping child;
Like a wailing Norse-land _drapa_ [CO] rose her death-song weird and wild:
[CK] _A-pe_--leaf,--_duta_--Scarlet,--Scarlet leaf
[CL] Stars, the Dakotas say, are the faces of the departed watching over
their friends and relatives on earth.
[CM] The Dakotas called the Jesuit priests "Black Robes," from the color
of their vestments.
[CN] _Wee-tah Wah-stay_--Beautiful Island,--the Dakota name for Nicollet
Island, just above the Falls.
[CO] _Drapa_, a Norse funeral wail in which the virtues of the deceased
are recounted.
[Illustration: ANPETU-SAPA]
_Mihihna_,[CP] _Mihihna_, my heart is stone;
The light is gone from my longing eyes;
The wounded loon in the lake alone
Her death-song sings to the moon and dies.
_Mihihna, Mihihna_, the path is long,
The burden is heavy and hard to bear;
I sink--I die, and my dying song
Is a song of joy to the false one's ear.
_Mihihna, Mihihna_, my young heart flew
Far away with my brave to the bison-chase;
To the battle it went with my warrior true,
And never returned till I saw his face.
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