1922] BARRETT, A NEW ETHNOLOGY GROUP 175 



of the animals which may have been fortunate enough to escape instant 

 death and which might hobble away. This fence runs down to the 

 river, where it is lost in the trees lining its banks. 



Just across the stream, on a commodious flat, is the camp circle of 

 the hunters, each tipi set up, in accordance with tribal custom, with its 

 door facing the east. In the center is the medicine lodge, a larger tipi 

 in which the medicine man or shaman performs his magic ceremonies, 

 which give the hunters their luck at the piskun and without which the 

 tribe would be unable to supply itself with the pemmican needed for 

 the long, hard winter which is soon to come. 



About the village is the bustle of women and children hurrying here 

 and there, making ready to cross the river and butcher the hundreds of 

 carcasses which will soon be piled in a great heap at the base of the 

 cliff, for now the camp is assured of its winter's supply of food. But 

 the next few days will be very busy ones, for this vast store of meat 

 must be dried, ground and mixed with ground corn and berries and 

 stored away in parfleches, for without this pemmican the long bleak 

 winter would be fatal in this region. Also the skins of the buffalo 

 must be dried. Those of the younger bulls and the cows were finely 

 dressed for clothing, moccasins, lodge covers and other uses, where 

 lighter, more pliable skins were required. The heavy hides of the old 

 bulls were used in rawhide form for making parfleches, shields and 

 various other articles where a heavier material was required. 



Back of the camp circle, rises in succession, the rolling-prairie and 

 then the foothills, growing ever higher and higher, with their dried 

 grasses, sparse bushes and, here and there, a small clump of stunted 

 evergreens. Except along the meandering stream bed in these lower 

 altitudes, there are no trees of any considerable size. But on the higher 

 mountains in the background we find the heavier pine forests covering 

 their flanks almost completely, until the snow line is reached. Even 

 in this late summer scene, a few patches of eternal snow are found on 

 some of the higher peaks, as a reminder of the winter which is to come 

 and as a spur to the hunters. 



Just at the left of the precipice and standing on its very brink, is a 

 scaffold where two carefully wrapped bodies are placed in accordance 

 with ancient tribal custom. Thus protected from the wild animals, 

 these bodies rest in peace, with their weapons, implements and other 

 property hanging on the poles of the scaffold, which is always placed 

 on some high point or other prominence on the landscape. 



This group was built by the Museum's Department of Groups and 



