On the Coteau des Prairies (side of the prairies) in Minnesota, pipe-stone, a smooth clay, from which hundreds of Indians have cut their pipes, forms a wall two miles long and thirty feet high. In front of the wall lie five big bowlders dropped there by the glaciers. Under these bowlders lies the spirit of a squaw, which must be propitiated before the stone is cut. This quarry was neutral ground for all the tribes. Here knives were sheathed and tomahawks belted. To this place came the Great Spirit to kill and eat the buffalo of the prairies. The thunder bird had her nest here and the clashing of the iron wings of her young brood created the storms. Once upon a time, when a snake crawled into the nest to steal the young thunderers, Manitou, the Great Spirit, seized a piece of pipe stone and pressing it into the form of a man, hurled it at the snake. The clay man missed the snake and struck the ground. He turned to stone and there he stood for a thousand years. He grew to manhood’s stature and in time another shape, that of a woman, grew beside him. One day the red pair wandered away over the plains. From this pair sprang all the red people.
From St. Paul to Fargo not a stalk of corn was to be seen, but there was field after field of fine wheat. This part of Minnesota is much more thickly settled than immediately around St. Paul and Minneapolis. Morehead in Minnesota and Fargo, across the line in Dakota, are thriving towns. The country here looks like Illinois. The lay of the land is the same and groves and houses dot the landscape. Here dwelt the Dakota tribes from which the states of Dakota and Minnesota take their names. Here came Hiawatha and his bride, Minnehaha, whom he won at St. Paul when the tribe was visiting that country, for Minnehaha was a Dakota girl, you remember.
Hiawatha’s fight with his father began on the upper Mississippi and the bowlders found there were their missiles. Hiawatha fought against him for many long days before peace was declared between them.
The evil Peace Father had slain one of Hiawatha’s relatives. He engaged him in combat all the hot day long. They battled to no purpose, but the next day a woodpecker flew overhead and cried out, “Your enemy has but one vulnerable point; shoot at his scalp-lock.” Hiawatha did this and the Peace Father fell dead. Taking some of the blood on his finger the victor touched the woodpecker on the head and the red mark is seen on every woodpecker to this day.