EY BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (BULL. 77 
Unfortunately, Larocque did not describe the appearance of the 
tipis, but such information was supphed by later writers. 
Catlin visited the Crows during the summer of 1832 and saw many 
who frequented Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, during 
his stay at that post. He wrote at that time: “The Crows who live 
on the head waters of Yellow Stone, and extend from this neighbor- 
hood also to the base of the Rocky Mountains, are similar . . . tothe 
Blackfeet ; roaming about a great part of the year.” And describing 
their habitations, he said: “ The Crows, of all the tribes in this re- 
gion, or on the Continent, make the most beautiful lodge ... they ~ 
construct them as the Sioux do, and make them of the same material; 
yet they oftentimes dress the skins of which they are composed almost 
as white as linen, and beautifully garnish them with porcupine quills, 
and paint and ornament them in such a variety of ways, as renders 
them exceedingly picturesque and agreeable to the eye. I have pro- 
cured a very beautiful one of this description, highly ornamented, 
and fringed with scalp-locks, and sufficiently large for forty men to 
dine under. The poles which support it are about thirty in number, 
of pine, and all cut in the Rocky Mountains . . . This tent, when 
erected, is about twenty-five feet high.” (Catlin, (1), I, pp. 43-44.) 
Catlin’s original painting of this most interesting tipi is in the 
National Museum, Washington, and is here reproduced in plate 46, a. 
The same was drawn and given by Catlin as plate 20 in his work. 
As told elsewhere in this work, Maximilian, on June 18, 1838, 
arrived at Fort Clark. At that time representatives of several tribes 
were gathered in the vicinity of the fort. These included Crows, 
“of which tribe there were now seventy tents about the fort.” Re- 
ferring to these in particular, he remarked: “ The tents of the Crows 
are exactly like those of the Sioux, and are set up without any regu- 
lar order. On the poles, instead of scalps, there were small pieces. 
of coloured cloth, chiefly red, floating like streamers in the wind.” - 
(Maximilian, (1), p. 172.) Later in the day Maximilian accompanied 
the Indian agent to the tipi occupied by the Crow chief Eripuass. 
This he found to be of much interest. “The interior of the tent itself 
had a striking effect. A small fire in the centre gave sufficient light; 
the chief sat opposite the entrance, and round him many fine tall 
men, placed according to their rank, all with no other covering than 
a breech-cloth. Places were assigned to us on buffalo hides near the 
chief, who then lighted his Sioux pipe, which had a long flat tube, 
ornamented with bright yellow nails, made each of us take a few 
puffs, holding the pipe in his hand, and then passed it round to the 
left hand.” And speaking of the tribe as a whole he wrote: “The © 
territory in which they move about is bounded, to the north or 
north-west, by the Yellow Stone River, and extends round Bighorn 
