- BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 143 
the pots, of which I shall speak more hereafter. A bundle of brush- 
wood is hung on this pole, to which are attached the leathern dress 
and leggins of a woman. The head is made of wormwood, and has 
a cap with feathers. The interior of their huts is arranged as among 
the Mandans: like them the Manitaries go, in winter, into the forests 
on both banks of the Missouri, where they find fuel, and, at the same 
time, protection against the inclement weather. Their winter villages 
are in the thickest of the forest, and the huts are built near to each 
other, promiscuously, and without any attempt at order or regularity. 
They have about 250 or 300 horses in their three villages, and a con- 
siderable number of dogs” (pp. 396-397). Bodmer’s picture of the 
“Winter Village of the Minatarres,” made during the winter of 
1833, is probably the most accurate drawing of an earth-lodge village 
in existence. It was given as plate xxvi by Maximilian, which is 
lere reproduced as plate 44, 6. A pencil sketch which may be con- 
sidered as the original sketch made by Bodmer, and from which the 
finished picture was made, is now in the E. E. Ayer collection pre- 
served in the Newberry Library. Unfortunately the drawing is un- 
- finished but is very interesting historically. Itis shown in plate 44, a. 
Maximilian then referred briefly to the creation myth of the peo- 
ple with whom he was then resting. The entire surface was once 
covered with water. There were two beings: one a man who lived in 
the far Rocky Mountains who made all; the other was the old woman 
called grandmother by the members of the tribe. “She gave the 
Manitaries a couple of pots, which they still preserve as a sacred 
treasure,” and “ When their fields are threatened with a great drought 
they are to celebrate a medicine feast with the old grandmother’s 
pots, in order to beg for rain: this is, properly, the destination of 
the pots. The medicine men are still paid, on such occasions, to sing 
for four days together in the huts, while the pots remain filled with 
water.” Such were the superstitious beliefs of these strange people. 
November 26, 1833, Maximilian, Bodmer, and several others went 
from Fort Clark to the winter village to attend “a great medicine 
feast among the Manitaries.” ‘They passed the two Mandan towns ~ 
and during the journey saw a large stone, “ undoubtedly one of those 
isolated blocks of granite which are scattered over the whole prairie, 
and which the Indians, from some superstitious notion, paint with 
vermilion, and surround with little sticks, or rods, to which were 
attached some feathers.” The little party had seen much of interest 
on the way, and it was late in the day when they arrived at the vil- 
lage, “the large huts of which were built so close to each other that 
it was sometimes difficult to pass between them.” Herds of buffalo 
having been reported in the vicinity of the village, a party of Indians 
had decided to start after them the following day, and planned “to 
implore the blessings of heaven upon their undertaking by a great 
