34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 77 
later, like the related Cheyenne, with whom they have been closely 
allied during recent generations and probably for a long period, they 
reached the prairies, through what causes may never be known, 
and there, with different environments, their manners and ways of 
life changed. While a people of the timbered country, they un- 
doubtedly reared and occupied the forms of habitations so charac- 
teristic of the forests, as exemplified by the wigwams of the Ojibway 
and other tribes in recent times, but after reaching the prairie coun- 
try, where buffalo were obtained in such vast numbers, their villages 
or camps assumed the appearance of those of the Siouan tribes, 
conical skin lodges taking the place of the mat or bark covered 
structures. 
The Atsina, a detached division of the Arapaho, closely associated 
with the Blackfeet, were often mentioned by the early writers as 
the Gros Ventres of the Prairie, and in certain English narratives 
as the Fall or Rapid Indians. In other journals they were men- 
tioned under the name Minnetarees of Fort de Prairie. Thus they 
were called by the early American explorers. 
On May 29, 1805, just two weeks before arriving at the Great 
Falls of the Missouri, the Lewis and Clark party reached Judith 
River, and a short distance above its junction with the Missouri “ We 
saw the fires of one hundred and twenty-six lodges, which appeared 
to have been deserted about twelve or fifteen days, and on the other 
side of the Missouri a large encampment, apparently made by the 
same nation. On examining some moccasins which we found there, 
our Indian women said that they did not belong to her own nation 
the Snake Indians, but she thought that they indicated a tribe on this 
side of the Rocky mountains, and to the north of the Missouri; 
indeed it is probable that these are the Minnetarees of fort de 
Prairie.” (Lewis and Clark, (1), I, p. 234.) The following year, 
when the expedition was returning from the west, the tribe was again 
mentioned. On July 15, 1806, the expedition passed Shields River, 
and two days later reached Brattons River (now Bridger Creek), a 
tributary of the Yellowstone in the present Sweetgrass County, 
Montana. Here, “In one of the low bottoms of the river was an 
Indian fort, which seems to have been built during the last summer. 
It was built in the form of a circle, about fifty feet in diameter, 
five feet high, and formed of logs, lapping over each other, and cov- 
ered on the outside with bark set up on end, the entrance also 
was guarded by a work on each side of it, facing the river. These 
intrenchments, the squaw informs us, are frequently made by the 
Minnetarees and other Indians at war with the Shoshonees, when 
pursued by their enemies on horseback.” Another similar work was 
encountered the next day. (Lewis and Clark, (1), 1, pp. 379-380.) 
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