it, on which it is placed, dressed in its best attire, painted, oiled, supplied with bow and quiver, shield, pipe and tobacco, and provision enough to last him a few days on the journey which it is believed is to be performed. A fresh buffalo skin is wrapped about the body, and tightly bound with thongs of raw hide. The feet are carefully turned towards the rising sun. Some hundreds of these bodies

may be seen reposing in this manner in this curious place, which the Indians call "the village of the dead."

When the scaffolds, on which the bodies rest, decay and fall to the ground, the nearest relations, having buried the rest of the bones, take the skulls, which are perfectly bleached and purified, and place them in circles, of a hundred or more, on the prairie, placed at equal distances apart, with the faces all looking to the centre, where they are religiously protected and preserved, in their precise positions, from year to year, as objects of religious and affectionate veneration.

There are several of these circles, of twenty or thirty feet in diameter, on which uniformly rest two buffalo skulls; and in the centre of the little mound is erected a "medicine pole," about twenty feet high, supporting many curious articles, which are supposed to have the power of guarding and protecting the sacred spot. To this strange place do these people resort, to hold conversations of affection and fond endearment with the dead. There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day when more or less of the women may not

be seen sitting by the skull of a child or husband, while they are embroidering a pair of moccasins, or engaged in other needlework; or, perhaps, one fallen asleep with her arms around the skull, forgetting herself for hours.

Living in permanent homes, during the period when they were not exposed to the contaminations of civilization, the Mandans acquired an agreeable gentleness and courtesy of manners, scarcely known to roving tribes, which all travellers have noticed. They are constantly called the "friendly and hospitable Mandans," "the gentlemanly Mandans," "the polite Mandans ;" and it is proverbial, says Mr. Vaughn, that they have always received the whites with graceful and dignified hospitality. The peculiar ease and elegance of their manners seem to indicate, indeed, some peculiarity of origin.

A stranger in the Mandan village is first struck with the different shades of complexion, and various colors of hair, which he sees in the crowd about him, and is at once almost disposed to exclaim that "these are not Indians!" There are a great many of the people whose complexions appear as light as half-breeds, and, among the women particularly, there are many whose skins are almost white, with the most pleasing symmetry and proportion of features; with hazel, gray, and blue eyes; mildness and sweetness of expression, and excessive modesty of demeanor, which render them exceedingly pleasing and beautiful.

They render no account themselves of this diversity of

complexion. Their traditions afford us no information of their having had any knowledge of white men before the visit of Lewis and Clarke to the village. Since that time there have been but very few visits of white men to this place, and surely not enough to have changed the complexions and customs of a nation.

The differences in the color of hair are as great as in complexions; for, in a numerous group of these people (and more particularly among the females, who never take pains to change its natural color, as the men often do), there may be seen every shade and color of hair, with the exception of red or auburn, which is not to be found, and it is a strange peculiarity that there are very many natives, of both sexes and of every age, from infancy to manhood and old age, with hair of a bright silvery gray, and, in some instances, almost perfectly white.

The stature of the Mandans is rather below the ordinary size of man, with beautiful symmetry of form and proportions, and wonderful suppleness and elasticity. They are pleasingly erect and graceful, both in their movements and attitudes, easy and polite in their manners, neat in their persons, and beautifully clad.

Like all the other tribes, the Mandans lead lives of idleness, and, of course, devote a great deal of time to their sports and amusements, of which they have a great variety. Of these dancing is one of the principal, and may be seen in a variety of forms, such as the buffalo dance, the scalp dance,

and a dozen other kinds of dances, all of which have their peculiar characters and meanings, or objects.

The principal occupations of the women consist in procuring wood and water, in cooking, dressing robes and other skins, drying meat and wild fruit, and raising Indian corn.

The Mandans raise a great deal of corn, and some pumpkins and squashes. This is all done by the women, who make their hoes of the shoulder-blade of the buffalo or the elk, and dig the ground over instead of ploughing it; a duty involving, of course, a vast deal of labor. They raise a small sort of corn, the ears of which are not much larger than a man's thumb. The green corn season is one of great festivity with them, and one of much importance. The greater part of their crop is eaten during these festivals, and the remainder is gathered and dried on the cob before it has ripened, and is packed away into holes in the ground, tightly closed at the top.

The annual religious ceremony of the Mandans is an occasion of much importance, in their estimation; and, like too many of the similar rites of Indian tribes, it is conducted with inhuman barbarities and cruelties, one of the objects of it being to conduct all the young men of the tribe through an ordeal of privation and torture, which, while it is supposed to harden their muscles and prepare them for extreme endurance, enables the chiefs, who are spectators to the scene, to decide upon their comparative bodily strength and ability to endure the extreme privations

and sufferings that fall to the lot of Indian warriors.

This

part of the ceremony is too shocking and revolting to be described to civilized ears.

The season of these ceremonies is fixed at the time when the willow is in full leaf; a reference to their traditional history of the flood, which, it is very evident from this and other features of the grand ceremony, they have in some way or other received, and are endeavoring to perpetuate, by vividly impressing it on the minds of the whole nation. This is not surprising, as in the vicinity of almost every Indian tribe there is some high mountain where they insist upon it the "big canoe " landed; but that these people should hold an annual celebration of the event, and the season should be decided by such circumstances as the full leaf of the willow, is truly remarkable. Their tradition is that "the twig that the bird brought home was a willow bough, and had full-grown leaves on it," and the bird to which they allude is the turtle dove, which is not to be destroyed or harmed by any one, and even their dogs are trained not to do it injury.

It would seem from these traditions that these people must have had some proximity to some part of the civilized world; or that missionaries or others have been formerly among them, inculcating the Christian religion and the Mosaic account of the flood, which is, in this and some other respects, decidedly different from the theory which most of the aborigines have regarding that event. This vague resemblance, how