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MORGAN. | MANDAN HOSPITALITY. Hl 
boiling over the fire, and any one who is hungry, either from the house- 
hold or from any other part of the village, has a right to order it taken off 
and to fall too, eating as he pleases. Such is an unvarying custom among 
the North American Indians, and I very much doubt whether the civilized 
world have in their institutions any system which can properly be called 
more humane and charitable. Every man, woman, or child in Indian com- 
munities is allowed to enter any one’s lodge, and even that of the chief of 
the nation, and eat when they are hungry, provided misfortune or necessity 
has drawn them to it. Even so can the poorest and most worthless drone of 
the nation, if he is too lazy to hunt or to supply himself; he can walk into 
any lodge, and every one will share with him as long as there is anything 
to eat. He, however, who thus begs when he is able to hunt, pays dear 
for his meat, for he is stigmatized with the disgraceful epithet of poltroon 
and beggar." Mr. Catlin puts the case rather strongly when he turns the 
free hospitality of the household into a right of the guest to entertainment 
independently of their consent. It serves to show that the provisions of the 
household, which, as he elsewhere states, consisted of from twenty to forty 
persons, were used in common, and that each household shared their pro- 
visions in the exercise of hospitality with any inhabitant of the village who 
came to the house hungry, and with strangers from other tribes as well. 
Moreover, he speaks of this hospitality as universal amongst the Indian 
tribes. It is an important statement, because few men in the early period 
of intercourse with the western tribes have traveled so extensively among 
them. 
The tribes of the Columbia Valley lived upon fish, bread-roots, and 
game. Food was abundant at certain seasons, but there were times of 
scarcity even in this favored area. Whatever provisions they had were 
shared freely with each other, with guests, and with strangers. Lewis and 
Clarke, in 1804-1806, visited in their celebrated expedition the tribes of 
the Missouri and of the Valley of the Columbia. They experienced the 
same generous hospitality whenever the Indians possessed any food to offer, 
and their account is the first we have at all special of these numerous tribes. 
Frequent references are made to their hospitality. The Nez Pereés “set 
1 Manners and Customs of the North American Indians, Hazard’s edition, 1857, i, 200. 
