302 ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY OF THE 
River, since which time they have made several removals, and are now located at Fort 
Clark, the former village of the Mandans. 
The Arikaras have never manifested a very friendly disposition toward aie men; in- 
deed, it is said, that feelings of bitter animosity and hatred toward them are taught to their 
children, as soon as they are able to understand. This appears to have been a traditionary 
custom handed down from their ancestors, originating, no doubt, in some difficulties with 
the first settlers of the Western borders, which also were the probable cause of their emigra- 
tion. Whatever the cause may have been, this system of education has been persisted in 
with the young even to the present time, and the consequences have been severely felt 
through successive generations. It was with great difficulty that a trade could be opened 
with them, when they inhabited their old village near Grand River, and individual enter- 
prise had established trading-posts for the Dakotas and other tribes lower down. Their 
thieving and murderous propensities were so great, that but few men would run the risk 
of living among them, and repeated attempts resulted in the deaths of those who tried the 
experiment. Still others ventured, and in the course of time a trade in their village was 
begun, though not established on a very secure basis. At the time the trade commenced 
on the Upper Missouri, the Arikaras numbered from one hundred and eighty to two hun- 
dred cabins, and eight hundred warriors. 
The cabins or huts of the Arikaras and other stationary tribes are built by planting four 
posts in the ground in the form of a square, the posts being forked at the top to receive 
transverse beams. To the beams other timbers are attached, the lower extremities of 
which describe a circle, or nearly so, the interstices being filled with small twigs, the whole 
thickly overlaid with willows, rushes, and grass, and plastered over with mud, laid on very 
thick. A hole is left in the top for the smoke to pass out, and another in the side for the 
door: This is the position of the building above ground, but within the circle an excava- 
tion is made two to four feet deep, and thus persons can stand upright or walk about with 
ease in the interior, except at the portion of the circle where the beds of the inmates are 
made. ‘The door opens a few steps distant from the main building, on the surface of the 
ground, from which by a gradual descent through a covered passage of about ten feet, the 
interior of the hut is reached. The door is of wood, and the aperture large enough to 
admit a favorite horse to the family circle, which is often done. Around the house on the 
outside a small trench is dug, to carry away the rain. 
These buildings are located within fifteen or twenty feet of each other, without any 
regard to regularity ; nothing like streets are formed, and the houses are so much alike 
that a stranger is liable to lose his way in the village. 
These Indians cultivate small patches of land on the Missouri bottom, each family till- 
ing from a half to one and a half acres, which are separated from each other by rude brush 
