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occupied by the laborers and traders. These low houses are covered with 

 dirt roofs ; none of the houses are built against the fort walls, but behind 

 them is a space of about twenty-five feet, and this is occupied in various 

 ways. The north side has a house for the deposit of harness and implements 

 of labor — the powder-house, milk-house for quite a good dairy — the stable 

 and stable-yard ; the south side has two large buildings for corn, meat, skins, 

 &c., while the south west corner is occupied by the office, a one-story build- 

 ing ranging with the main building, and having behind it a house occupied 

 by one of the clerks, and a yard in which the feathered tribe live and lay 

 eggs. This arrangement of the buildings leaves quite a large square in the 

 centre, from the middle of which generally rises a tall flagstaff, but at pres- 

 ent there is none — the last was blown down by the wind. 



The Fort Pierre grave yard lies about a quarter of a mile south of the 

 fort ; it is a square piece of ground which has been well fenced in but not 

 ornamented in any way ; it contains the bodies of a number of dead, both 

 Indians and Whites : the latter are in the o-round and their o-raves are marked 

 with wooden crosses, or with tombstones recording their names and dates of 

 their death. The Indians however have followed their own customs in dis- 

 posing of their dead, which is to place them on a scaffold about eight or ten 

 feet from the ground. As you approach the yard coming from the fort, you 

 see elevated on a scaffold supported by rough willow poles and now half 

 broken down, a confused pile of old boxes of various lengths — old trunks 

 and pieces of blankets hanging out. These may seem strange things for 

 a grave yard, but these old boxes contain the bodies of dead Indians : they 

 were originally placed on a good scaffold and had piles of blankets wrapped 

 around them, but the scaffold has broken down from exposure to weather 

 and weight of the bodies, which appear to have been heaped on without 

 order of any kind. If you look over the fence to the left of this scaffold, 

 you will see on the ground one of these boxes which has probably fallen 

 down and broken open : and there the bones lay exposed, except the skull 

 w^hich perhaps has been buried by some friend of the deceased ; if you look 

 a little more closely you will see lying with the bones, a dark looking 

 object about three inches broad and perhaps fifteen long, tied around with 

 a string : this is some tobacco given to the dead to smoke in the other 

 world ; they always place with their dead almost every article of common 

 use, for their benefit in the other world : blankets, sometimes as many as 

 twenty, the best the parties can afford — tobacco, sugar, coffee, molasses, 

 kettles of mush and other things of use. These remain undisturbed until 

 they decay, or are destroyed by the weather or wolves. On the east side 

 is a scaffold put up a few months since ; the box is a rough one, daubed 

 with black paint, and is surrounded by several old trunks, that were the 

 property of the old squaw who rests within. On the opposite side is 

 another scaffold, on which is placed the body of a man who died not many 

 months since : you can see the scarlet blanket through the large cracks in 

 this rude coffin. It appears to me, that this method of burial originated 

 in a desire to protect the bodies from the wolves, more than in any of their 

 religious opinions : they frequently bury the bones, after the flesh has 

 decayed entirely. On a large tree, a little above the fort, is a body which 

 must have a great pile of blankets on it, from the size. 



Tuesday, May 28. — This morning arose early and found the day to be 

 clear, with a delightful, bracing air : after breakfast went up the river about 

 a mile, intending to cross in the flat, with some Indians going after buffalo, 



