PREFACE 
When Louisiana became a part of the United States the great 
wilderness to the westward of the Mississippi was the home of 
many native tribes, or groups of tribes, retaining their primitive 
manners and customs, little influenced by contact with Europeans. 
Their villages were scattered along the water courses or skirted the 
prairies, over which roamed vast herds of buffalo, these serving to 
attract the Indians and to supply many of their wants—food, rai- 
ment, and covering for their shelters. But so great are the changes 
wrought within a century that now few buffalo remain, the Indian 
in his primitive state has all but vanished, and even the prairies have 
been altered in appearance. The early accounts of the region con- 
tain references to the native camps and villages, their forms and 
extent, tell of the manner in which the habitations were constructed, 
and relate how some were often removed from place to place. Ex- 
tracts from the various narratives are now brought together, thus 
to describe the homes and ways of life of the people who once 
claimed and occupied a large section of the present United States. 
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