Showing posts with label Mandan. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Description of the Tribes that Comprise the Dakota Sioux

Description of the Tribes that Comprise the Dakota Sioux.

The western water-shed of the Mississippi river was largely in the possession of the Dakota or Sioux stock. Its various tribes extended in an unbroken line from the Arkansas river on the south to the Saskatchewan on the north, populating the whole of the Missouri valley as far up as the Yellowstone. Their principal tribes in the south were the Quapaws, Kansas and Osages; in the central region the Poncas, Omahas and Mandans; to the north were the Sioux, Assiniboins and Crows; while about Green Bay on Lake Michigan lived the Winnebagoes.

The opinion was formerly entertained that this great family moved to the locations where they were first met from some western home; but the researches of modern students have refuted this. Mr. Dorsey has shown by an analysis of their most ancient traditions that they unanimously point to an eastern origin, and that the central and southern bands did not probably cross the Mississippi much before the fourteenth century. This is singularly supported by the discovery of Mr. Horatio Hale that the Tuteloes of Virginia were a branch of the Dakotas; and further, the investigations of Catlin among the Mandans resulted in showing that this nation reached the Missouri valley by travelling down the Ohio. They therefore formed a part of the great easterly migration of the North Atlantic tribes which seem to have been going on for many centuries before the
discovery. In the extreme south, almost on the gulf coast of Louisiana, lived some small bands of Dakotas, known as Biloxis, Opelousas, Pascagoulas, etc. They were long supposed to speak an independent tongue, and only of late years has their proper position been defined.

Their frames are powerful, and the warriors of the Sioux have long enjoyed a celebrity for their hardihood and daring. The massacre of General Custer’s command, which they executed in 1876, was the severest blow the army of the United States ever experienced at the hands of the red man. With reference to cranial form they are dolichocephalic, sixteen out of twenty-three skulls in the collection of the Academy offering a cephalic index under 80.

The northern Dakotas do not seem to have had the same system of gentes which prevailed in most of the eastern tribes. Mr. Morgan was of the opinion that it had existed, but had been lost; this, however, requires further proof. There are many societies among them, but not of the nature of clans. Their chiefs hold their position by hereditary descent in the male line, though among the Winnebagoes the early traveller, Carver found the anomaly of a woman presiding over the tribe. The central bands, the Mandans and Minnetarees, recognized gentes with descent in the female line; while among the Poncas and Omahas there were also gentes, but with descent in the male line. The condition in this respect, of the members of this family, as also of that of the Athabascan, seems to prove that the gentile
system is by no means a fixed stadium of even American ancient society, but is variable, and present or absent as circumstances may dictate.

A few members of this family, notably the Mandans, attained a respectable degree of culture, becoming partly agricultural, and dwelling most of the year in permanent abodes; but the majority of them preferred depending on the bounties of nature, pursuing the herds of buffaloes over the boundless pastures of the plains, or snaring the abundant fish in the myriad streams which traversed their country.

The mythology of the Dakotas is concerned with the doings of giants in whom we recognize personifications of the winds and storms. One of these is Haokah, to whom the warrior sends up an invocation when about to undertake some perilous exploit. The thunder is caused by huge birds who flap their wings angrily and thus produce the portentous reverberations. The waters are the home of Unktahe, a mighty spirit who lurks in their depths. Indeed, to the Dakotas, and not to them alone, but to man in their stage of thought, “All nature is alive with gods. Every mountain, every tree is worshipped, and the commonest animals are the objects of adoration.”

DAKOTA LINGUISTIC STOCK.

Arkansas, on lower Arkansas river.
Assiniboins, on Saskatchewan and Assiniboin rivers.
Biloxis, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
Crows, on Yellowstone river.
Iowas, on the Iowa river.
Kansas, on the Kansas river.
Mandans, on the middle Missouri river.
Minetarees, on the Yellowstone river.
Ogallalas, sub-tribe of Sioux.
Omahas, on the Elkhorn river.
Osages, on Arkansas and Osage rivers.
Ottoes, on the Platte river.
Poncas, on the middle Missouri river.
Quapaws, on lower Arkansas river.
Sioux, on upper Mississippi and affluents.
Tetons, sub-tribe of Sioux.
Tuteloes, on upper Roanoke river, Va.
Winnebagoes, western shore of Lake Michigan.
Yanktons, on upper Iowa river.

Friday, June 21, 2019

Sioux Indians Creation Myth

Siouan Cosmology

The Mandan tribes of the Sioux possess a type of creation-myth which is common to several American peoples. They suppose that their nation lived in a subterranean village near a vast lake. Hard by the roots of a great grape-vine penetrated from the earth above, and, clambering up these, several of them got a sight of the upper world, which they found to be rich and well stocked with both animal and vegetable food. Those of them who had seen the new-found world above returned to their home bringing such glowing accounts of its wealth and pleasantness that the others resolved to forsake their dreary underground dwelling for the delights of the sunny sphere above. The entire population set out, and started to climb up the roots of the vine, but no more than half the tribe had ascended when the plant broke owing to the weight of a corpulent woman. The Mandans imagine that after death they will return to the underground world in which they originally dwelt, the worthy reaching the village by way of the lake, the bad having to abandon the passage by reason of the weight of their sins.

The Minnetarees believed that their original ancestor emerged from the waters of a lake bearing in his hand an ear of corn, and the Mandans possessed a myth very similar to that of the Muskhogees concerning the origin of the world.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Native American Indian Houses Photo Gallery

Native American Ojibwa Indian house made of mats and bark

Native American Ojibwa Indians matt house or lodge.

Native American Kansa Sioux Indian bark lodge or house

Native American Mandan Sioux Earthen Lodge

Native American Indian houses of the Northwest.

Shoshoni Indian Tipi made of skins

Thursday, April 7, 2016

About George Catlin And His Work Painting the Plains Indians

George Catlin painting a Mandan Indian chief

A famous man in America fifty years ago was George Catlin. He was born at Wyoming, Pennsylvania, in 1796, and lived to a good old age, dying in 1872. His father wished him to be a lawyer, and he studied for that profession and began its practice in Philadelphia. He was, however, fond of excitement and adventure, and found it hard to stick to his business. He was fond of painting, though he considered it only an amusement. While he was living in Philadelphia a party of Indians from the “Far West” spent some days in that city on their way to Washington. Catlin saw them, and was delighted with their fine forms and noble bearing. He determined to give up law practice and to devote his life to painting Indians, resolving to form a collection of portraits which should show, after they were gone, how they looked and how they lived.

He made his first journey to the Indian country for this purpose in 1832. For the next eight years he devoted himself to the work. He traveled many thousands of miles by canoe and horse, among tribes some of which were still quite wild. His life was full of excitement, difficulty, and danger. He made paintings everywhere: paintings of the scenery, of herds of buffalo, of hunting life, Indian games, celebrations of ceremonies, portraits—everything that would illustrate the life and the country of the Indian.

Portrait of George Catlin.

Among the tribes he visited were the Mandans, who lived along the Missouri River. Some of his best pictures were painted among them. He there witnessed the whole of their sun-dance ceremony, and painted four remarkable pictures of it. These represent the young men fasting in the dance lodge, the buffalo dance outside, the torture in the lodge, the almost equally horrible treatment of the dancers outside after the torture. Although a terrible picture, we have copied the painting showing the torture in the lodge (see next chapter) as an example of his work. Other pictures by him are the ball-player (see and the chief in war dress

Mandan Indian O-Kee-Pa self torture ceremony. "Immediately under the little frame or scaffold … on the floor of the lodge was placed a knife, and by the side of it a bundle of splints or skewers, which were kept in readiness for the infliction of the cruelties directly to be explained. There were seen also, in this stage of the affair, a number of cords of rawhide hanging down from the top of the lodge, and passing through its roof, with which the young men were to be suspended by the splints passed through their flesh, and drawn up by men placed on the top of the lodge for the purpose" (Letters and Notes, vol. 1, pp. 158–64, pl. 66).

Sometimes the Indians did not wish to be painted. They thought it would bring bad luck or shorten life. At one Sioux village the head chief was painted before any one knew it. When the picture was done, some of the headmen were invited to look at it. Then all the village wanted to see it, and it was hung outside the tent. This caused much excitement. Catlin says the medicine men “took a decided and noisy stand against the operations of my brush; haranguing the populace and predicting bad luck and premature death to all who submitted to so strange and unaccountable an operation! My business for some days was entirely at a stand for want of sitters; for the doctors were opposing me with all their force; and the women and children were crying with their hands over their mouths, making most pitiful and doleful laments.”

At another town up the Missouri River, near the Yellowstone, there was a still greater excitement over one of Catlin's pictures. About six hundred Sioux families were gathered at a trading post from the several different sub-tribes of that great people. There had been some trouble over his painting, and the medicine men threatened that those who were painted would die or have great misfortune. An Uncpapa Sioux chief named Little Bear offered to be painted. He was a noble, fine-looking fellow, with a strong face which Catlin painted in profile. The picture was almost finished when a chief of a different band, a surly, bad-tempered man whom no one liked, came in. His name was Shonko, “The Dog.” After looking at the picture some time, he at last said in an insolent way, “Little Bear is but half a man.” The two men had some words, when finally The Dog said, “Ask the painter, he can tell you; he knows you are but half a man—he has painted but one half your face, and knows the other half is good for nothing.” Again they bandied words back and forth, Little Bear plainly coming out ahead in the quarrel. The Dog hurried from the room in a great rage. Little Bear knew he was in danger; he hurried home, and loaded his gun to be prepared. He then threw himself on his face, praying to Wakanda for help and protection. His wife, fearing that he was bent on mischief, secretly removed the ball from his gun. At that moment the insolent voice of The Dog was heard. “If Little Bear is a whole man, let him come out and prove it; it is The Dog that speaks.” Little Bear seized his gun and started to the door. His wife screamed as she realized what she had done. It was too late; the two men had fired, and Little Bear fell mortally wounded in that side of his face which had not been painted in the portrait. The Dog fled.

The death of Little Bear called for vengeance. Such an excitement arose that Catlin soon left, going further up the river. The warriors of the two bands organized war-parties, the one to protect, the other to destroy, The Dog. The Dog's brother was killed. He was an excellent man, and his death was greatly mourned. The Dog kept out of reach. Councils were held. When the matter was discussed, some things were said which show the Indian ideas regarding portraits. One man said:

“He [Catlin] was the death of Little Bear! He made only one side of his face; he would not make the other; the side he made was alive, the other was dead, and Shonko shot it off.”Another said: “Father, this medicine man [Catlin] has done us much harm. You told our chiefs and warriors they must be painted—you said he was a good man and we believed you! you thought so, my father, but you see what he has done! he looks at our chiefs and our women and then makes them alive! In this way he has taken our chief away, and he can trouble their spirits when they are dead! they will be unhappy.” On his return voyage Catlin had to be cautious, and avoided the Uncpapa encampment. Some months later The Dog was overtaken and killed.

Catlin's pictures varied much in quality. Some were fine; others were poor. Often he made the outlines and striking features wonderfully well.

Catlin was among the Mandans in 1832. Thirty-three years later Washington Matthews was in the Upper Missouri country. He had with him a copy of Catlin's book with line pictures of more than three hundred of his paintings. The Indians had completely forgotten Catlin and his visit, but were much interested in his pictures.

The news soon spread that the white man had a book containing the “faces of their fathers.” Many went up to Fort Stevenson to see them. They recognized many of the portraits and expressed great emotion. That is, the women did, weeping readily on seeing them. The men seemed little moved. One day there came from the Mandan town, sixteen miles away, the chief, Rushing Eagle, son of Four Bears, who had been a favorite of Catlin's. Catlin painted him several times (see opposite page 1). When the son saw his father's picture, though he gazed at it long and steadily, he showed no emotion. Dr. Matthews was called away on some errand, and told the chief that he would be away some time and left him alone with the book. He was obliged, however, to return for something, and was surprised to find Rushing Eagle weeping and earnestly addressing his father's portrait.

Catlin not only painted hundreds of pictures among many tribes; he also secured many fine Indian objects—dress, weapons, scalps, objects used in games, painted blankets, etc. With his pictures and curiosities, which had cost him so much time, labor, and danger, he traveled through the United States.

He exhibited in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and many less important cities, and everywhere attracted crowds. He went to Europe and exhibited in France, Belgium, and England. Every one spoke of him. He was the guest of kings and prominent men everywhere. Louis Philippe, King of France, was so much interested in his work that he proposed to buy the pictures and curiosities for the French nation. But just then came the Revolution which dethroned him, and the sale fell through. Many of Catlin's pictures and some of his curiosities are still in existence, and the greater part of these are in the United States National Museum at Washington.

Friday, May 22, 2015

Offering of the Mandan Indians

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Mandan Sioux Indian Tribe Chief Artwork

Art by Charles Bodmer

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

The Mandan Sioux Buffalo Dance

The Mandans, a Dakota tribe, each year celebrate as their principal festival the Buffalo Dance, a feast which marks the return of the buffalo-hunting season. Eight men wearing buffalo-skins on their backs, and painted black, red, or white, imitate the actions of buffaloes. Each of them holds a rattle in his right hand and a slender rod six feet long in his left, and carries a bunch of green willow boughs on his back. The ceremony is held at the season of the year when the willow is in full leaf. The dancers take up their positions at four different points of a canoe to represent the four cardinal points of the compass. Two men dressed as grizzly bears stand beside the canoe, growling and threatening to spring upon any one who interferes with the ceremony. The bystanders throw them pieces of food, which are at once pounced upon by two other men, and carried off by them to the prairie. During the ceremony the old men of the tribe beat upon sacks, chanting prayers for the success of the buffalo-hunt. On the fourth day a man enters the camp in the guise of an evil spirit, and is driven from the vicinity with stones and cursehe elucidation of this ceremony may perhaps be as follows: From some one of the four points of the compass the buffalo must come; therefore all are requested to send goodly supplies. The men dressed as bears symbolize the wild beasts which might deflect the progress of the herds of buffalo toward the territory of the tribe, and therefore must be placated. The demon who visits the camp after the ceremony is, of course, famine.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Mandan Sioux Indian Burial Circles and Mounds

George Catlin describes what he calls the “Golgothas” of the Mandans:

There are several of these golgothas, or circles of twenty or thirty feet in diameter, and in the center of each ring or circle is a little mound of three feet high, on which uniformly rest two buffalo skulls (a male and female), and in the center of the little mound is erected “a medicine pole,” of about twenty feet high, supporting many curious articles of mystery and superstition, which they suppose have the power of guarding and protecting this sacred arrangement.

Here, then, to this strange place do these people again resort to evince their further affections for the dead, not in groans and lamentations, however, for several years have cured the anguish, but fond affection and endearments are here renewed, and conversations are here held and cherished with the dead. Each one of these skulls is placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been pulled and placed under it. The wife knows, by some mark or resemblance, the skull of her husband or her child which lies in this group, and there seldom passes a day that she does not visit it with a dish of the best-cooked food that her wigwam affords, which she sets before the skull at night, and returns for the dish in the morning. As soon as it is discovered that the sage on which the skull rests is beginning to decay, the woman cuts a fresh bunch and places the skull carefully upon it, removing that which was under it.

Independent of the above-named duties, which draw the women to this spot, they visit it from inclination, and linger upon it to hold converse and company with the dead. There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in the most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back.

Mandan Sioux Indian Box-Scaffold Burials

The following account of scaffold burial among the Gros Ventres and Mandans of Dakota is furnished by E. H. Alden, United States Indian agent at Fort Berthold:

The Gros Ventres and Mandans never bury in the ground, but always on a scaffold, made of four posts about eight feet high, on which the box is placed, or, if no box is used, the body wrapped in red or blue cloth if able, or, if not, a blanket of cheapest white cloth, the tools and weapons being placed directly under the body, and there they remain forever, no Indian ever daring to touch one of them. It would be bad medicine to touch the dead or anything so placed belonging to him. Should the body by any means fall to the ground, it is never touched or replaced on the scaffold. As soon as one dies he is immediately buried, sometimes within an hour, and the friends begin howling and wailing as the process of interment goes on, and continue mourning day and night around the grave, without food sometimes three or four days. Those who mourn are always paid for it in some way by the other friends of the deceased, and those who mourn the longest are paid the most. They also show their grief and affection for the dead by a fearful cutting of their own bodies, sometimes only in part, and sometimes all over their whole flesh, and this sometimes continues for weeks. Their hair, which is worn in long braids, is also cut off to show their mourning. They seem proud of their mutilations. A young man who had just buried his mother came in boasting of, and showing his mangled legs.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Mandan Sioux Indian Photos, Pictures and Images

Mandan Sioux Indian Photoa and Pictures

Mandan Sioux skull circle as part of their ancestral worship

Mandan Sioux Indian Boy

Mandan Sioux Indian Woman's Dress Clothes

Mandan Sioux Indian Princess

Mandan Sioux Indian Chief with Headress

Mandan Sioux Indian Village

Mandan Sioux Indian Games

Mandan Sioux Indian Warrior

Mandan Sioux Indian Earth Lodges or Hidastas

The Mandan Sioux Indian Village does the Buffalo Dance

Mandan Sioux Indian Chief Shahaka

Mandan Sioux Indians on the North Dakota Reservation

Sunday, May 27, 2012

About Mandan Indian Houses

The Mandans and Minnetarees of the Upper Missouri constructed a timber-framed house, superior in design and in mechanical execution to those of the Indians north of New Mexico. In 1862 I saw the remains of the old Mandan village shortly after its abandonment by the Arickarees, its last occupants. The houses, nearly all of which were of the same model, were falling into decay—for the village was then deserted of inhabitants, but some of them were still perfect, and the plan of their structure easily made out. The above ground-plan of the village was taken from the work of Prince Maximilian, and the remaining illustrations are from sketches and measurements of the author. It was situated upon a bluff on the west side of the Missouri, and at a bend in the river which formed an obtuse angle, and covered about six acres of land. The village was surrounded with a stockade made of timbers set vertically in the ground, and about ten feet high, but then in a dilapidated state.

[Illustration: Fig. 16.—Mandan Village Plot.]

The houses were circular in external form, the walls being about five feet high, and sloping inward and upward from the ground, upon which rested an inclined roof, both the exterior wall and the roof being plastered over with earth a foot and a half thick. For this reason they have usually been called "dirt lodges."

Mandan House.

These houses are about forty feet in diameter, with the floor sunk a foot or more below the surface of the ground, six feet high on the inside at the line of the wall and from twelve to fifteen feet high at the center. Twelve posts, six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the ground, at equal distances, in the circumference of a circle, and rising about six feet above the level of the floor. String-pieces resting in forks cut in the ends of these posts, form a polygon at the base and also upon the ground floor. Against these an equal number of braces are sunk in the ground about four feet distant, which slanting upward, are adjusted by means of depressions cut in the ends, so as to hold both the posts and the stringers firmly in their places. Slabs of wood are then set in the spaces between the braces at the same inclination, and resting against the stringers, which when completed surrounded the lodge with a wooden wall. Four round posts, each six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the ground near the center of the floor, in the angles of a square, ten feet apart, and rising from ten to fifteen feet above the ground floor. These again are connected by stringers resting in forks at their tops, upon which and the external wall the rafters rest.

The engraving exhibits a cross-section, as described. Poles three or four inches in diameter are placed as rafters from the external wall to the string-pieces above the central parts, and near enough together to give the requisite strength to support thee earth covering placed upon the roof. These poles were first covered over with willow matting, upon which prairie grass was overspread, and over all a deep covering of earth. An opening was left in the center, about four feet in diameter, for the exit of the smoke and for the admission of light. The interior was spacious and tolerably well lighted, although the opening in the roof and a single doorway were the only apertures through which light could penetrate. There was but one entrance, protected by what has been called the Eskimo doorway; that is, by a passage some five feet wide, ten or twelve feet long, and about six feet high, constructed with split timbers, roofed with poles, and covered with earth. Buffalo-robes suspended at the outer and inner entrances supplied the place of doors. Each house was comparted by screens of willow matting or unhaired skins suspended from the rafters, with spaces between for storage. These slightly-constructed apartments opened towards the central fire like stalls, thus defining an open central area around the fire-pit, which was the gathering place of the inmates of the lodge. This fire-pit was about five feet in diameter, a foot deep, and encircled with flat stones set up edgewise. A hard, smooth, earthen floor completed the interior. Such a lodge would accommodate five or six families, embracing thirty or forty persons. It was a communal house, in accordance with the usages and institutions of the American aborigines, and growing naturally out of their mode of life. I counted forty-eight houses, winch would average forty feet in diameter, all constructed upon this plan besides several rectangular log houses of later erection and of the American type.

[Illustration: Fig. 19.—Mandan house.]

These houses, of which a representation is given in Fig. 19, were thickly studded together to economize the space within the stockade, so that in walking through the village you passed along some circular foot-paths. There was no street, and it was impossible to see in any direction except for short distances. In the center there was an open space, where their religious rites and festivals were observed. [Footnote: The war post, which stood in the center, and a number of stone and bone implements I brought away with me, as mementoes of the place. They are now in my collection.]

Not the least interesting fact connected with these creditable structures was the quantity of materials required for their erection and the amount of labor required for their transportation for long distances down the river, and to fashion them, with the aid of fire and stone implements, into such comfortable dwellings. The trees are here confined to the bottom lands between the banks of the river, the river being bordered for miles by open prairies, and the trees growing in patches at long distances apart. To cut the timber without metallic implements, and to transport it without animal power, indicate a degree of persevering industry highly creditable to a people who, at this stage of progress, are averse to labor on the part of the males. Habitual male industry makes its first appearance in the next or the Middle Status of barbarism. The men here did the heavy work.

In the spaces between the lodges were their drying-scaffolds (Fig. 20), one for each lodge, which were nearly as conspicuous in the distance as the houses themselves. They were about twenty feet long, twelve feet wide, and seven feet high to the flooring, made of posts set upright, with cross-pieces resting in forks. Other poles were then placed longitudinally, upon which was a flooring of willow mats. These scaffolds, mounted with ladders (Fig. 21), were used for drying their skins, and also their maize, meat, and vegetables.

The Indians knew the use of the ladder, and some of them made an excellent article before the discovery of America. When Coronado visited and captured the seven so-called cities of Cibola in 1540-1542, he found the people living in seven or eight large joint-tenement houses, each capable of holding about a thousand persons. These houses were without entrances from the ground, but they mounted to the first terrace by means of ladders, and so to each successive story above. "The ladders which they have for their houses," Coronado says in his relation, "are all in a manner movable and portable as ours be." [Footnote: Hakluyt, Coll. of Voyages, London ed., 1812, vol. 5, p. 498.]

The ladders at the Mandan village were made of two limbs growing nearly parallel and severed below the junction, as shown in the figure, and set with the forked end upon the ground, and the ends against the scaffold. Depressions were sunk in the rails to receive the rounds, which were secured by rawhide strings. They were usually from ten to twelve feet long, and one or two at each scaffold.

Situated thus picturesquely on a bluff, at an angle of the river, with houses of this peculiar model and with such an array of scaffolds rising up among them, the village was strikingly conspicuous for some distance both above and below on the river, and presented a remarkable appearance.

Afterwards, at the present Minnetaree and Mandan village about sixty-five miles above on the east side of the Missouri, and also at the new Arickaree village on the west side, and quite near it, I had an opportunity to see houses precisely similar to those described in actual occupation by the Indians, with their interior arrangements and their mode of life.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Lewis and Clark Describe the Hospitality of the Mandan Indians

Lewis and Clarke refer to the usages of the tribes of the Missouri, which were precisely the same as those of the Iroquois. "It is the custom of all the nations on the Missouri," they remark, "to offer every white man food and refreshments when he first enters their tents". [Footnote: Travels, etc., London edition, 1814, p. 649.]

This was simply applying their rules of hospitality among themselves to their white visitors.

About 1837-1838 George Catlin wintered at the Mandan Village, on the Upper Missouri. He was an accurate and intelligent observer, and his work on the "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians" is a valuable contribution to American ethnography. The principal Mandan village, which then contained fifty houses and fifteen hundred people, was surrounded with a palisade. It was well situated for game, but they did not depend exclusively upon this source of subsistence. They cultivated maize, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco in garden beds, and gathered wild berries and a species of turnip on the prairies. "Buffalo meat, however," says Mr. Catlin, "is the great staple and staff of life in this country, and seldom, if ever, fails to afford them an abundant means of subsistence."

* * * * *

"During the summer and fall months they use the meat fresh, and cook it in a great variety of ways—by roasting, broiling, boiling, stewing, smoking, &c., and, by boiling the ribs and joints with the marrow in them, make a delicious soup, which is universally used and in vast quantities. The Mandans, I find, have no regular or stated times for their meals, but generally eat about twice in the twenty-four hours. The pot is always boiling over the fire, and any one who is hungry, either from the household or from any other part of the village, has a right to order it taken off and to fall too, eating as he pleases. Such is an unvarying custom among the North American Indians, and I very much doubt whether the civilized world have in their institutions any system which can properly be called more humane and charitable. Every man, woman, or child in Indian communities is allowed to enter any one's lodge, and even that of the chief of the nation, and eat when they are hungry, provided misfortune or necessity has drawn them to it. Even so can the poorest and most worthless drone of the nation, if he is too lazy to hunt or to supply himself; he can walk into any lodge, and every one will share with him as long as there is anything to eat. He, however, who thus begs when he is able to hunt, pays dear for his meat, for he is stigmatized with the disgraceful epithet of poltroon and beggar." [Footnote: Manners and Customs of the North American Indians, Hazard's edition, 1857, i, 200.] Mr. Catlin puts the case rather strongly when he turns the free hospitality of the household into a right of the guest to entertainment independently of their consent. It serves to show that the provisions of the household, which as he elsewhere states, consisted of from twenty to forty persons, were used in common, and that each household shared their provisions in the exercise of hospitality with any inhabitant of the village who came to the house hungry, and with strangers from other tribes as well. Moreover, he speaks of this hospitality as universal amongst the Indian tribes. It is an important statement, because few men in the early period of intercourse with the western tribes have traveled so extensively among them.