University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXVI.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TRIBE OF THE MANITARIES, OR GROS VENTRES.

The name, Manitaries, by which this tribe is now generally known, was given by the
Mandans, and signifies, "those who came over the water." The French give them the singular
designation of Gros Ventres, which is no more appropriate to them than to any other of the Indian
tribes: the Anglo-Americans also frequently use this name. This people was formerly a part of
the nation of the Crows, from which it is said they separated, in consequence of a dispute about a
buffalo that had been killed, and removed to the Missouri. They are near neighbours, and have
been for many years allies of the Mandans. They have long resided in three villages on the
Knife River, two on the left bank, and the third, which is much the largest, on the right bank.
Much confusion and misunderstanding have been occasioned by the variety of names given to these
villages by the inhabitants, as well as by other tribes. At present the Manitaries live constantly
in their villages, and do not roam about as they formerly did, when, like the Pawnees and other
nations, they went in pursuit of the herds of buffaloes as soon as their fields were sown, returned
in the autumn for the harvest, after which they again went into the prairie. In these wanderings
they made use of leather tents, some of which are still standing by the side of their permanent
dwellings. The more considerable part of the nation, the Crows, are still exclusively a people of
hunters, who cultivate no kind of useful plants: even tobacco is now seldom planted, because they
prefer that which they obtain from the traders. They still, however, preserve their own species
of this plant for the purpose I have before mentioned.

The Manitaries do not much differ in their personal appearance from the Mandans; but it
strikes a stranger that they are, in general, taller. Most of them are well-formed and stout; many
are very tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular; the latter may, indeed, be said of the greater proportion
of the men. Their noses are more or less arched, and sometimes quite straight. I also
met with several whose countenances perfectly resembled those of the Botocudos. The women

are much like the Mandans; many are tall and stout, but most of them are short and corpulent.
There are some pretty faces among them, which, according to the Indian standard of beauty, may
be called handsome. As they have long lived in close connexion with the Mandans, the two
nations have adopted the same costume, though there is, at the same time, a greater attention to
neatness and adornment among the Manitaries than their neighbours. Their necklaces of bears'
claws, for which they often give a high price, are very large and well finished: they often contain
forty claws, are attached to each shoulder, and form a semicircle across the breast. Their
lock of hair on the temples is often long and curiously entwined with ornaments, and fringed at
the point with small red feathers, or strips of ermine. They wear their hair in long flat braids,
hanging down upon the back like the Mandans; sometimes it is plastered over with clay, and not
unfrequently lengthened by gluing false locks to it. The flat ornament in the shape of the rule
hanging from the back, which I have mentioned in speaking of the Mandans, is often very tastefully
ornamented with porcupine quills, set in neat patterns. They seldom wear leather shirts,
like the Crows and Blackfeet, but, generally speaking, have nothing under the buffalo
robe: frequently their arms and whole body are variously painted. Their leggins do not differ
from those of the Mandans. The breechcloth generally consists of a piece of white woollen cloth
with dark blue stripes. Their leather shoes are ornamented in various ways, sometimes with a
long stripe, or a rosette of dyed porcupine quills. The girdle is of leather, into which the knife
and sheath are stuck at the back. They often wear narrow bright steel bracelets at the wrists,
which they purchase from the Company. Much taste and extravagance are lavished on the buffalo
robe, the main article of their attire. The style in which they are painted is similar to that of the
Mandans, and very high prices are paid for these robes. Many of the men are tatooed, especially
on one side of the body only, for instance, the right half of the breast, and the right arm, sometimes
down to the wrist; nay, the old chief, Addih-Hiddish, had the whole of his right hand
tatooed in stripes. (See his portrait, which is a striking resemblance, Plate XXIV.) They paint
their body in the same manner as the Mandans.

The Manitari villages are similarly arranged as those of the Mandans, except that they have
no ark placed in the central space, and the figure of Ochkih-Hadda is not there. In the principal
village, however, is the figure of a woman placed on a long pole, doubtless representing the grandmother,
who presented them with the pots, of which I shall speak more hereafter. A bundle of
brushwood is hung on this pole, to which are attached the leathern dress and leggins of a woman.
The head is made of wormwood, and has a cap with feathers. The interior of their huts is
arranged as among the Mandans: like them the Manitaries go, in winter, into the forests on both
banks of the Missouri, where they find fuel, and, at the same time, protection against the
inclement weather. Their winter villages are in the thickest of the forest, and the huts are built
near to each other, promiscuously, and without any attempt at order or regularity. (See Plate

XXVI.) They have about 250 or 300 horses in their three villages, and a considerable number
of dogs.

When a Manitari invites his friends to a feast which is especially devoted to the table, each
guest brings a dish, which is filled, and which he is expected to empty; if he is unable to do this, he
passes it on to his neighbour, and, as a sort of reward, gives him some tobacco. If his neighbour
accepts it, he undertakes thereby the often not pleasant task of emptying the dish. At a war
feast each guest is obliged to eat whatever is placed before him. When a child is to be named
they proceed as follows: the father firsts sets out on a buffalo hunt, and returns with a good
deal of game. He loads himself with ten or twelve large pieces of meat, at the top of which he
places the child. Stooping and panting under the burden, he proceeds to the hut of the medicine
man who is to give the name, and to whom he delivers the meat as a present or fee.

Like the Mandans, the Manitaries have their bands, or unions, which are distinguished by
their songs, dances, and badges. Of these bands there are eleven among the men and three
among the women.

Besides these bands, they have two distant dances:—1st. The dance of the old men, which is
executed only by those who are far advanced in years, and no longer take the field. 2nd. The
scalp dance; this is danced by the women, who carry the scalps upon poles. (Plate XXVII.)
In their hands they likewise bear guns, hatchets, clubs, &c. Some among the men beat the drum
and rattle the schischikue; the warriors, meanwhile, sitting in a row, and beating time with
their feet.

Their games, too, are like those of the Mandans, for if there were any with which they were
not originally acquainted they have since adopted them. These people likewise set a high value
on the hide of a white buffalo cow, for which they often give fifteen horses, guns, cloth, blankets,
robes, and other articles of considerable value.[1] The owner having proclaimed, from the top of
his hut, to the whole assembled village, that he has obtained such a robe, keeps it for about four
years. The members of the family sometimes wear it on state occasions, and narrow strips are cut
off and used as ornaments, especially as head bands. When this time is elapsed the hide is offered
to one of the divinities, a medicine man being hired to perform the necessary ceremonies. During

the four years, valuable articles of all kinds, such as those before-mentioned, have been collected
and are kept in readiness. A hut is built, to be used as a sudatory (as will be related below).
A large quantity of food is distributed among the spectators; a bundle of brushwood is
fastened to the top of a long pole, and the beautiful white hide is wrapped round it. It is
then set up in some spot chosen by the owner, and there left to rot. The medicine man who
performs the ceremonies receives, for his trouble, the valuables which have been mentioned—
sometimes 150 robes, and other things, part of which he distributes among the persons present.
Sometimes they ride, with the white hide, into the prairie, spread on the ground a blue or red
blanket, and lay the hide upon it. If it is intended to offer a horse at the same time, they
bind his feet together, put a muzzle on his mouth, and leave all together in this situation. If
another Indian were to steal the horse, they would say he is a fool for robbing the lord of life.
Other mysteries (medicines) and superstitions of the Manitaries are so interwoven with their early
traditions and legends, that it is necessary to premise something on the subject.

Formerly there existed water only, and no earth: a large bird, with a red eye, dived. The
man who does not die, or the lord of life (Ehsicka-Wahaddish, literally the first man), who lives
in the Rocky Mountains, had made all, and sent the great bird to fetch up earth. Another being,
worthy of veneration, is the old woman whom they call grandmother, and who roams about all
over the earth. She, too, has some share in the creation, though an inferior one, for she created
the sand-rat and the toad. She gave the Manitaries a couple of pots, which they still preserve as
a sacred treasure, and employ as medicines, or charms, on certain occasions. She directed the
ancestors of these Indians to preserve the pots, and to remember the great waters, from which
all animals came cheerful, or, as my old narrator expressed it, dancing. The red-shouldered
oriole (Psaracolius phoeniceus) came, at that time, out of the water, as well as all the other birds
which still sing on the banks of the rivers. The Manitaries, therefore, look on all these birds as
medicine for their plantations of maize, and attend to their song. At the time when these birds
sing, they were directed by the old woman to fill these pots with water, to be merry, to dance
and bathe, in order to put them in mind of the great flood. When their fields are threatened
with a great drought they are to celebrate a medicine feast with the old grandmother's pots, in
order to beg for rain: this is, properly, the destination of the pots. The medicine men are still
paid, on such occasions, to sing for four days together in the huts, while the pots remain filled
with water.

The sun, or, as they call it, "the sun of the day," is likewise considered as a great medicine.
They do not know what it really is, but that it serves to sustain and to warm the earth.
When they are about to undertake some enterprise, they make offerings to it, as well as to the
moon, which they call "the sun of the night." The morning star, Venus, they consider the child
of the moon, and account it likewise a special medicine. They affirm that it was originally a

Manitari, and is the grandson of the old woman who never dies. The "great bear" is said to be an
ermine, the several stars of that constellation indicating, in their opinion, the burrow, the head,
the feet, and the tail of that animal. They likewise call the "milky way" the ashy way; and, like
the Mandans, believe that thunder is occasioned by the flapping of the wings of the large bird,
which causes rain, and that the lightning is the glance of his eye, in search of prey. The rainbow
is called by the Manitaries "the cap of the water," or "the cap of the rain." Once, say they,
an Indian caught, in the autumn, a red bird, which mocked him; this gave offence to the man,
who bound the feet of his prisoner together with a fish line, and then let him fly. The bird of
prey saw a hare and pounced upon it, but the hare crept into the skull of a buffalo which was
lying in the prairie, and as the line, hanging from the claws of the bird, formed a semicircle, they
imagine that the rainbow is still thus caused.

The old chief, Addih-Haddish, gave me the following account of the situation of men after
death:—There are two villages, one large and the other smaller, whither the Manitaries go when
they die. The wicked, or cowardly, go to the small village; the good, or brave, to the larger
one. A party of Manitaries once went to war, and one of their number, a chief, was killed by
the enemy; he was buried and his grave covered with large trunks of trees. After his death he
went to the large village, from whence a great many men came to meet him and to escort
him into it. He was alarmed when he saw them coming towards him, and turned back, wounded
as he was. A white man had given him, in that country, a paper, by means of which he was
enabled to return to his own village on earth, and live there many years; but my informant
was quite unable to tell me the contents of this paper. After this, when he played at what
they call billiards, he rubbed his hands with the talisman, and nobody could ever win a game
from him; he was always called by his fellows "the dead man."

When the Manitaries were created by the first man they formed one nation with the Crows.
A medicine woman among them had three sons, each of whom built a village. The eldest went,
with his people, down the Missouri, and it is not known what became of them. The second went
to the mountains, and founded the village now inhabited by the Crows. The third established
the tribe now called Manitaries by the Mandans, which tribe subsequently erected the three
villages now existing. At that time their total number was only 1000 men.

The Manitaries are as superstitious, and have as much faith in their medicines, or charms, as
the Mandans. Among these medicines are included every kind of wolf and fox, especially the
former; and, therefore, when they go to war, they always wear the stripe off the back of a wolf's
skin, with the tail hanging down over their shoulders. They make a slit in the skin, through
which they put their head, so that the skin of the wolf's head hangs down upon their breast.
Buffaloes' heads are likewise medicine. In one of their villages they preserve the neck bones of a
buffalo, as the Crows also are said to do; and this is done with a view to prevent the buffalo herds

from removing to too great a distance from them. At times they perform the following ceremony
with these bones: they take a potsherd with live coals, throw sweet-smelling grass upon it, and
fumigate the bones with the smoke. They have medicine stones and medicine trees, like the
Mandans, and offer to the heavenly powers at such places red cloth, red paint, and other things.
Like the Mandans, too, they also offer articles of value, wail, moan, do penance to conciliate their
favour, and to ask their aid to obtain certain wishes and objects. Say relates that the wolf
chief of the Manitaries sat for five days together on an isolated rock, without taking any food. This
was done on the Prairie Hill, to which the Mandans also resort in similar cases. They hold out
till their strength fails them, and creep by night into a neighbouring cave, where they sleep and
dream. Among the original traditions of this people is that of the two children, which Say
relates. A party going to war saw two children sitting on two isolated hills, who vanished when
they endeavoured to approach them. These two hills, which are near together, are called the
Children's Hills; they are not on Knife River, as Say says, but on Heart River. The women go
to one of these hills to do penance and lament when they desire to have children.

Mr. Say relates another tradition very correctly, of a boy who lived and grew in the belly of a
buffalo. They also assert that the bones of the buffaloes in the prairie sometimes come to life again.
Say likewise describes the corn dance, or rather the corn feast, for the consecration of the crops.
They adopted it from the Mandans, and now celebrate it in the same manner. The great medicine
feast for attracting the herds of buffaloes will be described in the next chapter, as well as some of
the incantations of the women. They likewise celebrate the Okippe (which they call Akupehri),
but with several deviations. Thus, instead of the so-called ark, a kind of high pole, with a fork on
the summit, is planted in the centre of the open circle. When the partisans of the war parties intend
to go on some enterprise in May or June, the preparations are combined with the Okippe of several
young men, who wish to obtain the rank of the brave, or men. A large medicine lodge is erected,
open above, with a division in the middle, in which the candidates take their places. Two pits are
usually dug in the middle for the partisans, who lie in them four days and four nights, with only a
piece of leather about the waist. The first partisan usually chooses the second, who undergoes
the ceremony with him. There are always young people enough ready to submit their bodies to
torture, in order to display their courage and firm resolve. They fast four days and nights, which
leaves them faint and weak. Many of them begin the tortures on the third day; but the fourth
day is that properly set apart for them. To the forked pole of the medicine lodge is fastened a
long piece of buffalo hide, with the head hanging down, and to this a strap is fastened. An
old man is then chosen, who is to see to the torturing of the candidates, which is executed precisely
in the same manner as among the Mandans. The sufferers often faint; they are then taken
by the hands, lifted up, and encouraged, and they begin afresh. When they have dragged about
the buffalo skull long enough, hanging to their flesh and skin, a large circle is formed, as among

the Mandans, in which they are made to run round till they drop down exhausted, when they
are taken to the medicine lodge. The medicine man receives from one of the spectators the knife
with which the operation is to be performed. He has called out to "have compassion with him,
and to give him a knife," on which one of the persons standing round throws one at his feet. The
partisan is bound to build the medicine lodge. During the ceremony the spectators eat and smoke;
the candidates take nothing, and, like the partisans, are covered all over with white clay. The
latter, when they dance during the ceremony, remain near their pits, and then move on the same
spot, holding in their hands their medicines, a buffalo's tail, a feather, or the like. None but the
candidates dance, and the only music is striking a dried buffalo's hide with willow rods. There
have been instances of fathers subjecting their children, only six or seven years of age, to these
tortures. We ourselves saw one suspended by the muscles of the back, after having been compelled
to fast four days. No application whatever is subsequently made for the cure of the wounds,
which leave large swollen weals, and are much more conspicuous among the Manitaries than the
Mandans. Most of the Manitaries have three or four of these weals, in parallel semicircular
lines, almost an inch thick, which cover the entire breast. Similar transverse and longitudinal
lines, arising from the same cause, are seen upon the arms, nay, the whole length of the limb is
often disfigured by them. The medicine stone has already been mentioned, when treating of the
Mandans. Lewis and Clarke also speak of it, saying that "the Manitaries have a stone of a
similar kind;" but this is not quite correct, for it is the self-same stone to which the two people
have recourse, and make use of similar ceremonies with it.

Another very remarkable institution of the Manitaries is the sudatory. When a man
intends to undertake anything, and to implore by medicine the aid of the higher powers, he builds
a small sudatory of twigs, which is covered all over with buffalo hides. Before the entrance is a
straight path, forty feet long and one broad, from which the turf is taken off and piled up in a
heap at one end opposite the hut. Near this heap a fire is kindled, in which large stones are
made red hot. Two rows of shoes, sometimes thirty or forty pair, are placed along the path.
As soon as the stones are hot, they are borne into the hut, where a hearth has been dug, on which
the hot stones are laid. The whole population sit as spectators on either side of the path, where
are placed a number of dishes with provisions, such as boiled maize, beans, meat, &c. An old
medicine man is appointed to conduct the ceremonies. He walks from the heap of turf over the
shoes, taking care always to set his feet upon them, to the sudatory. The young man, for whom
the ceremony is performed, stands with only his breechcloth at the entrance of the sudatory,
where for some time he wails and laments. The medicine man comes out of the hut, with a
knife or arrow head, and cuts off a joint of his finger, which he throws away, as an offering to the
lord of life, or to some other object of superstition, in which the young man has placed his confidence.
After this operation the magician takes a willow twig, goes to the dishes containing

the provisions, dips the twig in each, and throws a portion of the contents in the direction of the
four cardinal points, for the lord of life, the fire, and the divers supernatural powers, of which
he makes open proclamation. The provisions are then distributed among the men, women, and
children who are present. The older men go into the sudatory, the women carefully cover it,
and water is sprinkled with bunches of wormwood, from vessels standing ready without upon
the hot stones, which throws the persons present into a profuse perspiration; the men, meanwhile,
all singing at once to the rattling of the schischikué. When they are satisfied they call
to the women on the outside to remove the hides. After this, a buffalo head, with the snout
foremost, is carried over the row of shoes to the heap of turfs, where it is placed in the same
direction. The ceremony is now complete. The robes with which the hut was covered, often
sixty or eighty in number, are given by the young man to the magician for his trouble, who distributes
some of them among the spectators. The persons who have submitted to the operation
put on their robes, and remain in the open air till their bodies are dry, this medicine being
generally performed in the summer. In the winter they prepare such steam baths in their own
huts, but at that season they are not medicine, and the men and women assemble together. The
grand ceremony just described is instituted especially when they wish to ask success for a military
expedition, or for some other important enterprise. They then purchase a red blanket or a
piece of blue cloth, which they offer to the divinity, hanging it on a pole behind the sudatory,
where it is left to be destroyed by the wind and weather.

The Manitaries likewise make offerings at times to the great serpent which lives in the Missouri,
by placing in the river poles, to which robes or coloured blankets are attached. This practice is
founded on a story like that which is current among the Mandans, but with some differences.
A war party was on its way to the Upper Missouri to meet the enemy: when they had proceeded
a considerable distance two young men turned back, and found, at a certain spot, a large serpent
coiled up. After looking at the animal for some time, one of them kindled a fire, in which they
burnt the serpent. The man who had made the fire took up the remains, smelt them, and
affirmed that the smell was so inviting, he could not refrain from eating a part, and, though his
comrade dissuaded him, he ate a small portion of the roasted flesh. In the evening, when they
were going to lie down to rest for the night, he took off his shoes, and, to his great astonishment,
found that his feet were striped like the serpent which they had killed. He told his friend, and said,
"This is delightful; when I go home, I will pull off my shoes, and everybody will look at my feet."
On the following day his legs were striped up to the knees. He said, laughing, "This is admirable;
I shall no longer have occasion to mark my exploits by stripes, for nature herself furnishes
me with them." On the third day he was striped up to his hips. They slept on the evening of
that day, and on the fourth day he was completely converted into a serpent. "Be not afraid of
me," said he to his friend, "I have neither arms nor legs, and cannot move from the spot; carry me

to the river." His friend dragged him to the Missouri, being unable to carry him on account of
his length and weight. The serpent immediately swam, dived below the surface, and called to
his friend, who was mourning on the bank, "Weep not, my friend; be comforted and go home
in peace; four things, however, I must beg of you to bring me; first, bring me a white wolf;
secondly, a polecat; thirdly, another painted red; and fourthly, a black pipe." His friend went
home, and after some time returned with the objects required, and lamented a whole day on the
bank of the river. The serpent then appeared: "It is well that you have kept your word," said
he; "you will go to war and kill as many enemies as you have brought objects to me. But first
come here and lament, for I am medicine for all futurity." The Indian went out the same day
and killed an enemy; but the serpent had previously told him that its head would be at the
old Mandan village, and its tail reach to the mouth of the Yellow Stone River; that with one ear
it would be able to hear to the distance of the Maison du Chien, a hill in the prairie two days'
journey from the north bank of the Missouri, and with the other to the Crête Côte, likewise two
days' journey from the other bank. The friend went four times to war, and each time killed an
enemy. The Manitaries, who firmly believe this story, still go to the river when the fancy strikes
them, and set up an offering. They relate that a man once went to the river to see the serpent;
he lamented for a long time, at length it appeared, on which he called it his father. But the
serpent said, "You are not my son; I have only one son, whose name is —, he who has no
arms; but you are the son of him who shall be chief of the village to which I have destined him.
When you ride out to hunt the buffalo you will kill your enemies, and some of your people
will likewise be killed."

In cases of difficult parturition, which, however, seldom occur, they are accustomed to give
the medicine man one, two, or even four horses. He comes to the hut of the lying-in woman,
smokes with her husband, then takes a fox or wolf skin cap, and strokes the woman with it
on the back, or some other part of the body, singing, and rattling the schischikué. Often he
touches or rubs her with a tortoise shell, as the Botocudos in Brazil do, often merely with a feather.

Like the Mandans they sometimes keep owls in their huts, which they consider as soothsayers,
and whose notes they pretend to understand. This is the large grey owl, without doubt
the Strix Virginiana. The war eagle (Aquila chrysactos) is likewise kept alive for the sake of
the tail feathers, which they so highly prize. Some individuals among them have strange superstitious
ideas and practices; thus, a certain man smokes very slowly, no person is allowed to
speak nor to move a single limb of his body, except to take hold of the pipe. Neither women,
children, nor dogs, are suffered to remain in the hut while he is smoking, and some one is always
stationed to keep the door. If, however, there are exactly seven persons present to smoke, all
these precautionary measures are done away with, and they may smoke as quickly as they please.

When he clears his pipe and shakes the ashes into the fire, it blazes up, doubtless because he
puts some gunpowder, or similar combustible, into the pipe. When any person has a painful or
a diseased place, the same man puts his pipe upon it and smokes. On these occasions he does
not swallow the smoke, as is the Indian custom, but affirms that he can extract the disorder by
his smoking, which he pretends to seize with his hand, and to throw into the fire.

The division of the year into months is not very dissimilar from that of the Mandans, though
I have never been able to obtain two accounts which precisely correspond. But little is to be
said of the hunting and war of the Manitaries which has not been already related of the Mandans.
They are reported as being very skilful in making the cabri parks, which, in the month of April,
they can do in half a day, though they have not made any such for some time past. The skin of
the cabri is used for shoes.

The Manitaries are at present friendly towards the Whites in the vicinity of the Missouri;
but, if a white man happens to encounter one of their war parties in the prairie, he is generally
plundered. In the north, on the Red River, they often act in a hostile manner to the Whites
and Half-breeds residing there. Their enemies properly so called are the Blackfeet, the Assiniboins,
the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Arikkaras, the Shiennes or Chayennes, the Crees, and the
Arrapahos; their allies are the Mandans and the Crows.

All these Indians treat the bodies of their slain enemies in the most barbarous manner.
Charbonneau remembers that the Manitaries, for several months, kept the body of an Assiniboin,
who was killed in the winter, which they daily used as a mark to shoot at. Mutilation is very
common among them. Want of feeling towards their prisoners is common to all uncivilized
people; the nations of hunters especially do not regard the tortures of living creatures; and the
Brazilian savage does not in this respect differ from the North American, and the Gaucho in the
south of this continent, or, indeed, from man in a state of nature in every part of the habitable
globe.

The Manitaries appear to have but a very slight acquaintance with medicine; they mostly
have recourse to the drum, the schischikué, and the singing of the medicine men, for the cure of
diseases. As a remedy for wounds they burn scented grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum), hold their
hands in the smoke, and then, at some distance, over the wound, after which they lay tallow upon
it. The cure of some men who recovered after being scalped, and many large scars on the bodies
of these Indians, are proofs of the natural vigour of their constitutions. The medicine men have
a particular song, without words, which is employed as the last resource to recover a person at
the point of death. The magician alone then sings, accompanied by his schischikué.

The Manitaries always lay their dead upon stages or scaffolds. As the lord of life is displeased
when they quarrel and kill each other, those who do so are buried in the earth, that they

may be no longer seen. In this case a buffalo's head is laid upon the grave, in order that the
buffalo herds may not keep away, for, if they were to smell the wicked, they might remove and
never return. The good are laid upon stages, that they may be seen by the lord of life.

The language of the Manitaries is very different from that of the Mandans, and is far more
difficult to pronounce correctly. Like that, it has many gutturals, especially the ch, as in Dutch
and German. The difficulty of the pronunciation lies chiefly in the accent. What may in
German be expressed in a few words, requires several; a proof of the poverty of the language.
Lewis and Clarke say—"the dialect of the Mandans differs widely from those of the Arikkaras and
Manitaries; but their long residence near each other has insensibly blended their manners, and
occasioned some approximation in language, especially in objects of daily occurrence." This is
correct, for I was assured by both nations that, when they first lived together, their languages were
totally different, and respectively unintelligible to each other.