138 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 7 
fragments now discovered scattered over ancient village sites. Two 
small vessels made by the Mandan, and collected by Dr. Matthews 
half a century ago, are in the National Museum collection, and one 
is shown in plate 41, 6. Very few perfect specimens exist, several 
being in the collection of the State Historical Society of North 
Dakota. The specimens in the National Museum are rather small, 
but some very large vessels were made and used 
in boiling their food. 
Bows and arrows were the principal weapons 
of the Mandan. The heads of the arrows, at 
the time of Maximilian’s stay among the people, 
were made of thin bits of iron, although persons 
then living remembered the use of stone. Lances 
and clubs were likewise made and used, and 
when mentioning the latter Maximilian said, 
“a simple, knotty, wooden club is called mauna- 
panischa,” and gives, on page 390, a woodcut 
of such a weapon. It is of interest to know 
that an example of this peculiar form of weapon, 
which at once suggests the traditional club of 
Hercules, is preserved in the Museo Kirche- 
riana, in Rome. It is one of four specimens 
now belonging to the museum which were col- 
lected by Maximilian, the other three being a 
knife sheath, a horse bridle, and a saddle 
blanket, all being beautifully decorated with 
colored quillwork. The club is shown in figure 
9, after a drawing made for the writer in 1905 
by Dr. Paribeni, of the museum. The smaller 
end is bound or braided with tanned skin, to 
serve as a handle, and around the upper end of 
the wrapping is a band of quillwork similar in 
Tic, 9.Wooden club, Workmanship to that on the other objects. All 
; are remarkably well preserved, and several 
specimens in the Ethnological Museum in Florence may have be- 
longed to the Maximilian collection. 
The Mandans, like other tribes of the upper Missouri Valley, were 
very expert in the art of dressing skins, especially those of the buffalo. 
They used two forms of implements, one of which is similar to those 
shown in plate 12, a; the second, rather more complicated, is repre- 
sented in plate 34, c. This is a beautiful old specimen now in the 
National Museum. The handle is formed of a piece of elk antler; the 
blade is of clear, brownish flint, well chipped. Other similar objects 
are preserved in the collection. 
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