INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY. 433 
voyageurs, and although every precaution was taken in delivering the goods at the dif- 
ferent posts, yet it was communicated to the several tribes along the river. All the tribes 
suffered more or less, but none approached so near extinction as the Mandans. The 
summer was intensely hot, the disease was general in both villages, and owing to their 
confined, dark, and ill-ventilated cabins, proved fatal to a degree far beyond that of other 
nations. It was almost impossible that life could be sustained, on account of the impure 
state of the air, and the disease usually assuming the confluent form, almost invariably 
resulted in death. Remedies were tried at first, the principal of which were sweating, 
cold bathing, and depletion. Of these none succeeded. The first aggravated the fever to 
delirium, and the sufferers died during the operation. Bleeding produced no more bene- 
ficial results, and this, together with all treatment, was soon abandoned, whole families 
lying helpless, waiting death, in different stages of the disease. The banks of the river 
were strewn with the dead and blackened carcasses, which were daily pushed into the 
stream by the traders. ‘The drums and rattles of the medicine-men soon ceased, for they 
too were overtaken by death. The men committed suicide or murdered their suffering 
children ; the women mourned their fate; and all was misery, despair, and death. ‘The 
trading-post was closed, the traders confined to their rooms, and the cannon loaded and 
placed in the bastions, so as to protect them, if need be, against their hitherto most excel- 
lent friends. I need not pursue this subject farther than to say, that a period of darkness 
reigned, in which their fierce passions, being wrought up by disease and frenzy, these 
Indians committed acts at which the imagination revolts, and which were not wit- 
nessed by others than themselves. When the disease had abated, and when the remnant 
of this once powerful nation had recovered sufficiently to remove the decaying bodies from 
their cabins, the total number of grown men was twenty-three, of women forty, and of 
young persons sixty or seventy. These were all that were left of the eighteen hundred 
souls that composed the nation prior to the advent of that terrific disease, and even those 
that recovered were so disfigured as scarcely to be recognized. 
When the survivors had rallied and recovered, they left the village at the fort, and took 
up their residence in the other cabins, a few miles above. Here some attempt was made 
to reorganize their social system, but the race could only be propagated by intermarriage 
without regard to relationship, unless closely allied. To this they were forced by circum- 
stances. ‘The disease had only left one of a family, here and there, and no choice was 
offered for new connections. However, they conformed as nearly as practicable to their 
customary laws, avoiding as well as they were able contracts of marriage with blood rela- 
tives, although their condition imposed the necessity of perpetuating their nation by alli- 
ances which, had they been differently situated, would not have been resorted to. This 
appears to be an evil more or less incident to all stationary tribes. Women are very 
