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Show THE MANITARIES----THEIR LANGUAGE. 405 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. |