304 ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY OF THE 
village, at which they trade from five hundred to eight hundred bushels in a season. This 
trade on the part of the Indians is carried on by the women, who bring the corn by pan- 
fuls or the squashes in strings, and receive in exchange knives, hoes, combs, beads, paints, 
&c., also ammunition, tobacco, and other useful articles for their husbands. In this way 
each family is supplied with all the smaller articles needed for a comfortable existence ; 
and though the women perform all the labor, they are compensated by having their full 
share of the profits. 
The second market for their grain is with several bands of the Dakotas, who are at peace 
with them. These Indians make their annual visits to the Arikaras, bringing buffalo- 
robes, skins, meat, &c., which they exchange for corn; and the robes and skins thus ob- 
tained enable the Arikaras to buy at the trading-post the various cloths and cooking 
utensils needed by the women, and the guns, horses, &c., required by the men. 
At the commencement of the winter the Arikaras leave their village in quest of buffalo, 
which seldom approach near enough to be killed in the vicinity of their cabins. ‘They 
then encamp in skin tents, in various directions from the Missouri or along its banks, 
wherever the buffalo may chance to range. They pass the winter in hunting, and return 
to their permanent village early in the spring, bringing with them their skins in an un- 
prepared state, with a great supply of meat. The buffalo skins are then dressed into robes 
before the season for planting arrives, and the meat with their reserves of corn enables them 
to live well. ‘The Arikaras are also good fishermen, and take the fish by placing pens 
made of willows in the eddies of the Missouri. The fish entering the door of the pen or 
basket, it is closed, and often large numbers are thus secured. The Arikaras are also 
good swimmers, venturing out on floating cakes of ice when the Missouri breaks in the 
spring, and bringing ashore the bodies of drowned buffalo that are drifting by. Multitudes 
of these animals, in attempting to cross the river in the fall before the ice is strong enough 
to support them, break through, and often whole herds are thus drowned, their bodies 
remaining in the mud until the ice moves in the spring, when they are carried down by 
the current. ‘They are often piled up along the shore, impregnating the air with their 
decomposing flesh. Even in this condition the Arikaras seem to prefer the meat, which 
is eaten raw, and though one would suppose that disease in its worst forms would be 
engendered, no injurious results follow. 
The gathering of drift-wood in the spring is also a very hazardous employment, and is 
performed almost entirely by the women. ‘There being but little timber for fuel in the 
vicinity of their village, it becomes necessary for them to secure the drift-wood in the time 
of high water in the spring, and then the women sail out on the masses of ice, attach cords 
to the floating trees, and haul them to land. Whenever there is an unusual quantity of 
wood floating down the current, all the village, men, women, and children, turn out, and 
