22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 77 
While living in the vicinity of the Minnesota the villages and 
camps of the Cheyenne undoubtedly resembled those of the Sioux 
of later days; the conical skin-covered lodge, or possibly the mat or 
bark structure of the timber people, as used by the Ojibway and 
others. But during the same period it is evident other bands of the 
tribe lived quite a distance westward, probably on the banks of the 
Missouri, and there the habitations were the permanent earth lodge, 
similar to those of the Pawnee, Mandan, and other Missouri Valley 
tribes. Sioux traditions refer to Cheyenne villages on the banks of 
the Missouri near Fort Yates, Sioux County, North Dakota. These 
were visited and described by Dr. Grinnell, during the spring of 1918, 
who wrote: “The Teton Sioux, now allotted and scattered over the 
Standing Rock Indian reservation, declare that on the west bank of 
the Missouri river, not far from Fort Yates, there were formerly two 
Cheyenne villages ... I visited the two sites. The most north- 
erly one is situated on a bluff above the Missouri river on the south 
side of Porcupine creek, less than five miles north of Ft. Yates. The 
village has been partly destroyed by the Missouri river, which has 
undermined the bank and carried away some of the house rings re- 
ported to have been well preserved, but a number remain. Of these 
a few are still seen as the raised borders of considerable earth lodges, 
the rings about the central hollow being from twelve to fifteen inches 
above the surrounding soil, and the hollows noticeably deep. In 
most cases, however, the situation of the house is indicated merely by 
a slight hollow and especially by the peculiar character of the grass 
growing on the house site. The eye recognizes the different vegeta- 
tion, and as soon as the foot is set on the soil within a house site, the 
difference is felt between that and the ground immediately without 
the site. The houses nearest both Porcupine creek and the Missouri 
river stand on the bank immediately above the water, and it is pos- 
sible that some of those on the Porcupine have been undermined and 
carried away by that stream when in flood. This settlement must 
have been large. It stands on a flat, now bisected by a railroad em- 
bankment, slightly sloping toward the river, and the houses stood 
close together.” More than 70 large house sites were counted, “ one 
at least being 60 feet in diameter,” and im addition to these were a 
large number of smaller ones. “On the gently rising land to the 
west of the Porcupine village the Cheyenne are said to have planted 
their corn, as also on the flats on the north side of the Porcupine 
river. The village site now stands on the farm of Yellow Lodge, a 
Yankton Sioux, who stated that he had always been told by the old 
people that this was a Cheyenne village and that in plowing he had 
often turned up pottery from the ground.” And in reference to the 
age of this interesting site: “ Sioux tradition declares that the village 
