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Show THE MANDAN VILLAGE----STAGES FOR THE DEAD. 173 some old Indian women assisted us. We then proceeded about 300 paces in a north-west direction from the fort, up the Missouri, to the principal village of the Mandans, Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush. (Plate XVI.) This village consisted of about sixty large hemispherical clay huts, and was surrounded with a fence of stakes, at the four corners of which conical mounds were thrown up, covered with a facing of wicker-work, and embrasures, which serve for defence, and command the river and the plain. We were told that these cones or block-houses were not erected by the Indians themselves, but by the Whites. Three miles further up the river, and on the same bank, is the second village of the Mandans, called Ruhptare, consisting of about thirty-eight clay huts, which we could not then visit for want of time. In the immediate vicinity of the principal village, the stages on which these Indians, like the Sioux, place their dead, lay scattered. (See the annexed woodcut.) Around them were several high poles, with skins and other things hanging on them, as offerings to the lord of life, Omahank-Numakshi, or to the first man, Numank-Machana. The three villages of the Manitaries (gros venire) nation, whose language is totally different from that of the Mandans, are situated about fifteen miles higher up on the same side of the river, and most of their inhabitants had come on this day to the Mandan villages. The view of the prairie around Fort Clarke was at this time highly interesting. A great number of horses were grazing all round; Indians of both sexes and all ages were in motion; we were, every moment, stopped by them, obliged to shake hands, and let them examine us on all sides. This was sometimes very troublesome. Thus, for example, a young warrior took hold of my pocket compass which I wore suspended by a ribbon, and attempted to take it by force, to hang as an ornament round his neck. I refused his request, but the more I insisted in my refusal, the more importunate he became. He offered me a handsome horse for my compass, |