34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLy. 185 
reservoir area generally. Both Indian and White residents refer to 
these outlines as tipi rings, and a number of Indians volunteered the 
statement that their fathers and grandfathers had told them that the 
rings marked the sites of former camps. These were said to have been 
summer camps, hunting parties often encamping on the high places, 
where the rings are most commonly found, to escape the mosquitoes 
present nearer the streams; or, arriving at the valley rim at a late hour, 
they often encamped on the upland in preference to attempting the 
descent of the rugged valley sides in the failing light. 
The stones are commonly said to have been used to anchor the tipi 
cover, but occasionally the statement was made that they were placed 
against the butts of the poles to brace and steady them. No person 
questioned had ever seen stones used for their purpose, although some 
of them had seen tipis in use. In 1949 and 1950 I questioned three 
aged Dakotas regarding the rings in sites of this type which are also 
present in southwestern South Dakota. All three spoke of the stone 
circles as tipi rings and ascribed them to the Kiowa. All three had 
owned tipis, but all denied the use of stones by the western Dakota to 
brace the poles or hold down the cover of the lodge. Maximilian says, 
however, that both the Teton Dakota and Assiniboine dug up sods 
which were piled on the lower edge of the tipi and mentions the result- 
ing rings of sods which remained after the tipis were moved (Maxi- 
milian, 1906, 72 Thwaites, vol. 22, p. 318; vol. 23, pp. 19, 199). 
The Crow are said to believe that rocks were once used to weight 
down the bottoms of tipi covers, although one informant restricted the 
practice to the winter season (Lowie, 1922, p. 224). Information ob- 
tained by Kehoe from a number of elderly Piegans during the summer 
of 1953 indicates a belief among the members of that tribe that the 
rings of stones were made by their ancestors, who anchored the bottoms 
of their tipis in this fashion. Several of the informants believed 
that stones were used for this purpose when the dog was their only 
means of transport, while others stated that the practice continued 
after the acquisition of the horse. Kehoe’s interpreter showed him 
tipi rings the construction of which he had witnessed, and a ring which 
marked the site of a tipi of the informant’s grandfather (Kehoe, 
1960). Over 40 years earlier McClintock gathered substantially 
the same information; an informant, relating the tale of a legendary 
event, stated that it happened before the days of the horse, “when 
they used stones instead of wooden pegs to hold down their lodges” 
(McClintock, 1910, p. 492). McClintock describes seeing a tipi pre- 
pared against an approaching storm by “laying stones and logs around 
the bottom of the canvas, so that the pegs could not be loosened by the 
wind-strain (ibid., p. 59). 
While it seems probable that many tribal groups of the Northern 
Plains fastened down their tipis with a ring of stones, there is evidence 
