ETHNOLOGY. 453 



The Coruanches say that the Kiowas formerly lived in holes in the 

 ground. It was the ordinary custom of all the Mississippi Valley tribes, 

 when small parties were caught away from their villages by their ene- 

 mies, to dig holes, in which to protect and defend their women, &c. All 

 the early French and English writers tell of this custom, and Lewis and 

 Clarke, Pike, and Long, all speak of it. 



Lieutenant Pike thus describes the Pawnee houses in 1806. "First, 

 there is an excavation of a circular form made in the ground about 4 

 feet deep and GO feet diameter, when there is a row of posts about 5 

 feet high, with crotches at the top, set firmly in all around, and horizon- 

 tal poles laid from one to an other. There is within this inclosure a row 

 of posts ten feet in height forming a circle about 10 feet in diameter. 

 The crotches of these are so directed that horizontal poles are also laid 

 from one to another; long poles are then laid slanting, like rafters from 

 the lower poles over the upper, and meeting nearly at the top, leaving 

 only a small aperture for the smoke of the fire to pass out, which is 

 made on the ground in the middle of the lodge. There are then a 

 number of small poles put up around the outer circle so as to form 

 a wall, and wicker-work run through the whole. The roof is then 

 thatched with grass and earth is thrown up against the wall until a bank 

 is made to the eaves of the thatch, and that is also covered with earth 

 one or two feet thick, and rendered so tight as entirely to exclude any 

 storm whatsoever and make them extremely warm. The entrance is 

 about 6 feet wide, with walls on each side, and roofed like our houses in 

 shape, but of the same materials as the main building. Inside them are 

 numerous little apartments, constructed of wicker-work, against the wall, 

 with small doors ; they have a great appearance of neatness, and in them 

 the members of the family sleep and have their little deposits." At the 

 time Pike gave the above description, (1806,) the Pawnees were in three 

 villages: the Grand Village, (3,130 souls,) on the Platte; Eepublican 

 Village, on Eepublican Fork of Kansas, (1,618 souls ;) Pawnee Loups, 

 on Loup Fork, 1,485 souls, (the latter on the late Pawnee reserve.) 

 This latter is the village Professor Hayden saw in 1867 and believed to 

 be of great antiquity. It was abandoned at the time when the small-pox 

 scourged the Pawnees so terribly. 



I have found stone arrow-points, lance-heads, skin-dressers, &c., at 

 numerous points through the Indian Territory, Northern Texas, and 

 Kansas. The stone skin-dresser is still used by all the tribes who dress 

 buffalo robes, &c, and is of the same style as those found all through 

 the West. Hayden says he has been unable to learn from the Indians 

 how far back they used stone arrow-points; that those he asked would 

 point toward heaven and say, " The Great Spirit only knows; we don't." 

 1 have failed to find a single one of the tribes west of the Mississippi 

 among whom there are not traditions regarding the stone arrow- 

 heads. Ten Bears, the old (Yamparica) Comanche chief, told me that 

 he used them. Nemmuro, a young Comanche, showed me in 1870 the 



