126 UOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
but some of them were still perfect, and the plan of their structure easily 
made out. The above ground-plan of the village was taken from the work 
of-Prince Maximilian, and the remaining illustrations are from sketches and 
measurements of the author. It was situated upon a bluff on the west side 
of the Missouri, and at a bend in the 
river which formed an obtuse angle, 
and covered about six acres of land. 
The village was surrounded with a 
stockade made of timbers set verti- 
cally in the ground, and about ten 
feet high, but then in a dilapidated 
state. 
a The houses were circular in ex- 
Too 00 
SUT) 
PACES 
Fic. 16.—Mandan Village Plot. ternal form, the walls being about five 
feet high, and sloping inward and upward from the ground, upon which 
rested an inclined roof, both the exterior wall and the roof being plastered 
over with earth a foot and a half thick. For this reason they have usually 
been called “dirt lodges.” 
These houses are about forty feet in diam- 
eter, with the floor sunk a foot or more below 
the surface of the ground, six feet high on the 
inside at the line of the wall, and from twelve 
to fifteen feet high at the center. Twelve posts, 
MORTAR 
six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the 
ground, at equal distances, in the cireumfer- 
ence of a circle, and rising about six feet above 
the level of the floor. String-pieces, resting in 
forks cut in the ends of these posts, form a 
polygon at the base and also upon the ground 
floor. Against these an equal number of 
Fic. 17.—Ground-plan of a Mandan 
House. braces are sunk in the ground about four feet 
distant, which, slanting upward, are adjusted by means of depressions cut 
’ ) eae ’ d y 
in the ends, so as to hold both the posts and the stringers firmly in their 
places. Slabs of wood are then set in the spaces between the braces at the 
