462 



INDIAN FORTS AND DWELLINGS. 



defeated, and some of their bones and a skull perforated by arrows were 

 found in 1870 by officers of the Tenth Cavalry. 



By referring to Figure 2 the advantage of the disposition of the forts 

 will be seen. The Figures, 



bank along Med- 

 icine Bluff Creek 

 is about 100 feet 

 high, that over 

 the bottom where 

 the corn -fields 

 were located is 

 about 80 feet, 

 and that on the 

 opposite side of 

 the plateau about 

 60 feet. A path 

 comes up the 

 short hollow from 

 the corn-fields, 

 and there is a 

 spring below the 

 high creek bank. 

 A naked bar ex- 

 tends on the op- 

 posite side of the Fortified camp of the Wichitas. 



creek. The corn-caches are in the center of the villages. According to 

 Es-sad-dowa the Pawnees, to the number of 500, attacked them in the 

 manner shown by the line with dots. This enabled every fort to tire 

 and cross-fire on their line, and as there were about 400 men, women, 

 and children in the forts, and as about 275 of this number could handle 

 the bow and were firing on the line, the Pawnees, after getting inside 

 the town, and unable to penetrate any of the houses, were repulsed 

 with considerable loss. 



The Pawnee tribe, of which the Wichita is an off-shoot, formlery 

 constructed houses nearly similar to those above described and also 

 subterranean habitations. Of the latter, Col. A. G. Boone, the veteran 



frontiersman, told me that in 1825, 

 when going to the Rocky Mountains 

 with Ashley's trapping party, they 

 came across quite a large village of 

 Pawnees on the Platte. He described 

 the houses as being about eight feet in 

 diameter, neatly lined with grass and 

 buffalo robes, and each forming the 

 habitation of a family. He made a 

 section view of one of them, as shown in Figure 3. 



Figure 3. 



