142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 185 
were pounded into a sandy composition. The vessels were fired in 
charcoal, completely covered. Designs, it was added, were incised. 
Most of the site has been plowed at least 50 times since John Goodall 
first homesteaded it in 1886. A small strip of land on the edge of the 
terrace from 5 to 25 feet in width remained unbroken by plows. 
Cabins found here were about 1 foot under the surface of the ground; 
those in the field had been destroyed. 
Before excavation commenced it appeared that there were two cabins 
and four cache pits still remaining on the unplowed portion of the 
village. Nearly halfway down the terrace, about 100 yards to the 
north of the terrace edge, there were traces of what appeared to have 
been two more cabin outlines. On the benchland below the terraces, 
still farther to the north, was the distinct outline of another cabin and 
two more cache pits. All the remains on the terrace slope and in the 
bottomlands proved to be the works of early ranchers in the vicinity 
and not that of the Indians. Only the cabin outlines and the cache 
pits on the terrace proper proved to have been a part of the Hidatsa 
village. 
Cabin 1—Cabin 1 was originally an irregular depression in the 
ground about 3 feet in depth. Rusty cans and broken pieces of glass 
and chinaware were scattered around on the ground in the vicinity of 
this outline. After the vegetation in the pit was cleared away, trowels 
were used to explore the debris. Glass bottles, broken dishes, a kitchen 
knife, fork, spoon, harmonica, padlock and key, a toy cap pistol, 
cartridge shells, a pocket knife, railroad spikes,’ and numerous other 
items were found here. A few broken animal bones, a bone artifact, 
and glass beads reminded us that this was, after all, an Indian site. 
The specimens were most numerous where charcoal was concentrated, 
and near the apparent edge of the cabin. Most of the artifacts found 
at the site came from cabin 1. 
Despite careful troweling and shoveling, nothing definite could be 
found which would show the former size and shape of the cabin. Por- 
tions of a floor were discerned, but most of it had been seriously 
disturbed in recent years by amateur collectors. It is possible also 
that some of the confusion in the soil around the cabin was caused 
by native reconstruction. Informants mentioned that several of the 
cabins were rebuilt and occupied by persons other than the original 
owner. Our Hidatsa informant, Adlai Stevenson, was not certain 
who had occupied this cabin, but he thought that-it might have be- 
longed to one of Black Hawk’s wives, Different Cherries, or that pos- 
sibly it might have belonged to Bull Head. 
®An Indian agent in 1888 mentioned the completion of the Saint Paul, Minneapolis 
and Manitoba Railway between the reservation and Minot, N. Dak. See Abram J. Gifford 
(communication in), Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1888, p. 44, 
Washington, D.C. 
