Riv. Bas. SUR. 
Pap. No. 26} SMALL SITES ABOUT FORT BERTHOLD—METCALF 13 
after that,” said one informant. In 1951, during the excavation 
of a nearby site, we were often visited by groups of local residents, 
and several attempts were made to obtain from them the exact dates 
for the building and destruction of this lodge. Although many of 
them remembered the structure, none could furnish the desired infor- 
mation, but one man volunteered to obtain it from older people. 
Some days later he handed us a slip of paper upon which was written 
“Mud Lodge completed, May, 1907. Mud Lodge destroyed fall of 
1918.” Later we were told by a White resident of a neighboring town 
that the structure was pulled down and the logs from it sold at public 
auction “about 1918 or 1919.”5 
George Will, student of Mandan ethnology and author of several 
papers on North Dakota archeology, stated that he had been inside 
the lodge when it was in good condition and that he had attended 
ceremonies which were held in front of it. He believed this to have 
been in 1909. Wilson mentions an “Arikara dance lodge” as one of 
seven earthlodges still in use on the reservation in 1908 (Wilson, 
1934, p. 375). 
In 1908 when a survey party from the State Historical Society of 
North Dakota was engaged in mapping a village site to the east of 
Beaver Creek, the party chief, A. B. Stout, made the following entry 
in his notes: “The band in this corner of the reservation ... . have 
reverted to their early religion and have built a dance lodge of the 
old type. It stands now near the mouth of Beaver Creek, is an 
earthen and sod-covered building, circular, about 75 feet in diameter 
with door facing eastward. In front of door some 30 feet is the 
stone .... While we were there the Indians were getting ready 
for a big dance, had been billed to give it by the Curtis party ... .” 
(Field Notes, A. B. Stout, 1908. Files of the State Historical 
Society of North Dakota). 
The testimony of Stout and Wilson thus seems to verify the infor- 
mation on the note which was given to us and makes it probable that 
the lodge was built in 1907 and pulled down in 1918 or 1919. 
The lodge stood upon the high terrace on the east (right) side of 
Beaver Creek, a small tributary of the Missouri which enters that 
stream from the south. The site, 32ME49 in the files of the Missouri 
Basin Project, is in Mercer County, N. Dak., 15 miles north and 5 
miles west of the town of Beulah, in the NW% sec. 5, T. 146 N., 
R. 88 W., and is 500 feet southwest of the Beaver Creek Day School 
(map 1). The ring-mound marking the site of the lodge was very 
distinct. The posts which supported the roof and walls had been 
4 Pete Star, personal interview August 24, 1950. 
5 William Christman, Hazen, N. Dak. Personal interview, July 1951. Christman 
stated that he attended the auction and bought some of the logs. 
