42 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



in every respect, is, according to Mr. J. C. Collester, of Redfield, Soiitli 

 Dakota, to he. seen at the moutli of the Moreau river. These are doubt- 

 less the remains of the Arikara village that was visited by Lewis and 

 Clarke in their passage irp the Missouri in 1803. The houses of the 

 Arikaras were described by these explorers as circular dome-like struc- 

 tures, the floor of which was about .'^> feet below tlie level of the sur- 

 rounding land. But in house-building, as in the manufacture of pottery 

 and other things, the customs of the Arikaras, though somewhat ruder, 

 resembled those of the Mandans, and the similar remains farther up the 

 river may therefore be due to that people. Some are probably the re- 

 mains of the Mandan villages described by Lewis and Clarke in ISOli, 

 and by Catlin in 1833. 



MINNESOTA. 



The only explorations made in this state on behalf of the Bureau 

 were at and ab(nit the noted Pipestone quarry in Pipestone county and 

 in the extreme southeastern county. 



PIPESTONE COUNTY. 



The only group known in this county is that in the vicinity of the 

 sacred Pipestone quarry. 



A sketch and description of the locality as it formerly appeared, to- 

 gether with an account of the Indian traditions relating to it, may be 

 tbund in Catlin's '' North American Indians.'" These works consist of 

 low mounds and an irregular inclosure in the vicinity of Pipestone. 



One of these mounds, which for convenience is designated No. 1, is 

 of the usual low conical form, 28 feet in diameter and 3 feet high. An 

 exph)ration revealed nothing but the dark, adhesive soil of which it 

 was chiefly composed, and stone fragments, a few of which were catlin- 

 ite, bearing traces of tool marks. No bones, ashes, or charcoal were 

 observed. Possibly it was nothing more than a refuse heap. 



No. 2 is the mound represented in Catlin's sketch ^ of which he gives 

 the history, and which, according to his statement, was built two years 

 before his visit, probably in 1S30 or 1S37. lie does not give the diam- 

 eter, but estimates the height at 10 feet. Nicollet saw and noted it in 

 1838. Col. Norris noticed it in 1857, when, although apparently undis- 

 turbed, it was but little over 6 feet in lieight. When he saw it again 

 in 1877 it bore the marks of having be(Mi opened, and he then learned 

 that a cranium and some of the weapons and trinkets deposited with 

 the Indians buried had been unearthed and carried oft". He found a 

 perforated bear's claw and some glass beads among tlie angular frag- 

 ments of rock lying in the excavation. Making a thorough excavation 

 when he visited it in 1882 on behalf of the Bureau, he found near the 

 center some decayed fragments of wood, one of them apparently the 



' Vol. 2, p. 144. '' North American luaiaus, Vol . 2, p. 104, PI. 270. 



