252 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
gentleman whose veracity may be entirely depended upon, assured the 
author that in the late war, being with his company in garrison, at 
Kaskaskia, some Indians came there, and, speaking the Welsh dialect, 
were perfectly understood and conversed with by two Welshmen in his 
company, and that they informed them of the situation of their nation 
as mentioned above.” Now, Fort Mandan is far up the Missouri, and 
there it was that the traveller and artist, George Catlin, found, as he 
thought, the survivors of Madoc’s colony. 
In his “Illustrations of the Manners, Customs and Condition of the 
North American Indians” Catlin refers more than once to his belief 
that the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, now almost extinct, were the Welsh 
Indians of many tales. His appendix A, on the extinction of the Man- 
dans, discusses the Welsh colony at length. He professes to have traced 
the excavated camps of the Mandans far into the south, to have detected 
in them intruders among the Dakota tribes, and to have differentiated 
their black clay pottery from that of other American aborigines. “In 
addition to this art, which I am sure belongs to no other tribe on the 
continent, these people have also, as a secret with themselves, the extra- 
ordinary art of manufacturing a very beautiful and lasting kind of blue 
glass beads, which they wear on their necks in great quantities, and 
decidedly value above all others that are brought amongst them by the 
fur traders. This secret is not only one that the traders did not intro- 
duce amongst them, but one that they cannot learn from them; and at 
the same time, beyond a doubt, an art that has been introduced amongst 
them by some civilized people, as it is as yet unknown to other Indian 
tribes in that vicinity, or elsewhere. Of this interesting fact, Lewis and 
Clarke have given an account thirty-three years ago, at a time when no 
traders, or other white people, had been amongst the Mandans, to have 
taught them so curious an art. The Mandan canoes which are alto- 
gether different from those of all other tribes, are exactly the Welsh 
coracle, made of raw-hides, the skins of buffaloes, stretched underneath 
a frame made of willow or other boughs, and shaped nearly round like 
a tub; which the woman carries on her head from her wigwam to the 
water's edge, and having stepped into it, stands in front, and propels it 
by dipping her paddle forward and drawing it to her, instead of paddling 
by the side.” 
“How far these extraordinary facts may go in the estimation of the 
reader, with numerous others which I have mentioned in Volume I, 
whilst speaking of the Mandans, of their various complexions, colours 
of hair, and blue and gray eyes, towards establishing my opinion as a 
sound theory, I cannot say; but this much I can safely aver that at the 
