BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 21 
Hill Lake, sixteen miles long, begins near Moose Jaws Forks, and 
on the opposite or south side of this long sheet of water, we saw 
eighteen tents and a large number of horses. The women in those 
we visited on our side of the valley and lake, had collected a great 
quantity of the mesaskatomina berry which they were drying.” 
And not far beyond we “began to find the fresh bones of buffalo 
very numerous on the ground, and here and there startled a pack of 
wolves feeding on a carcas which had been deprived of its tongue 
and hump only by the careless, thriftless Crees. On the high banks 
of the valley the remains of ancient encampments in the form of 
rings of stones to hold down the skin tents are everywhere visible, 
and testify to the former numbers of the Plain Crees. . . The 
largest ancient encampment we saw lies near a shallow lake in the 
prairie about a mile from the Qu’appelle valley. It is surrounded 
by a few low sandy and gravelly hills, and is quite screened from 
observation. It may have been a camping ground for centuries, as 
some circles of stones are partially covered with grass and embedded 
in the soil.” (Hind, (1), I, pp. 338-341.) 
This is a simple explanation of the origin of small circles of stones 
now encountered in different parts of the country, but in other 
localities, where stones were not obtainable, masses of sod were used 
for the same purpose, and these in turn may have caused the small 
earth circles which are now discovered in the lower Mississippi 
Valley and elsewhere. 
CHEYENNE, 
As has been remarked by the most observant student of this tribe: 
“Information as to the region occupied by the Cheyenne in early 
days is limited and for the most part traditional. Some ethnolo- 
gists declare that Indian tradition has no historical value, but other 
students of Indians decline to assent to this dictum. If it is to be 
accepted, we can know little of the Cheyenne until they are found 
as nomads following the buffalo over the plains. There is, however, 
a mass of traditionary data which points back to conditions at a 
much earlier date quite different from these. In primitive times 
they occupied permanent earth lodges and raised crops of corn, 
beans, and squashes, on which they largely depended for subsistence.” 
(Grinnell, (1), p. 359.) 
According to tradition, which in part is verified by the accounts 
vf early explorations, the Cheyenne at one time lived in the valley 
of the Minnesota, whence they gradually moved westward. Thus at 
least a part of the tribe removed from the edge of the timbered 
region to the plains, a movement which probably took place during 
the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
