62 REVIEWS — THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



design. At last, no longer able to restrain his impatience, he took the lance, 

 saying that the blood of his brother cried out for vengeance, and added : Let no 

 Mandan speak any more the name of Mahtotopa ; let no one ask where he is, 

 nor whitL^r he has gone, until you hear the war-cry before your village, and he 

 shows you the scalp of Ononyatop. The iron of this lance shall drink the 

 blood of Ononyatop, or the shade of Mahtotopa shall follow that of his brother. 

 He departed and traversed a distance of more than two hundred miles, with no 

 other provisions than a little maize in a bag, walKing by night and hiding by 

 day, for fear of surprise. When he reached the village of the Riccarees he prowl- 

 ed around the cabins for some time, and under cover of the darkness of night 

 a,pproached that of Ononyatop. He saw his enemy light his pipe and lie down. 

 Mahtotopa then entered resolutely and sat down near the fire, over which a 

 kettle full of meat was suspended. He began to eat with the voracity of a man 

 dying of hunger ; he then in his turn lighted the pipe which his enemy had laid 

 down after having used it. The wife of Ononyatop, who had also gone to bed, 

 asked her husband who that man was eating in their cabin. The Riccaree 

 answered: 'What does it matter? he is hungry, let him eat.' Mahtotopa then, 

 turning round gradually, in . order the better to see the posture of his victim, 

 rapidly seized the lance and plunged it in his heart, took off his scalp in an 

 instant, and as swift as an arrow fled into the prairie, holding his trophy in his 

 hand. The whole village was quickly on foot, but no one knew who had killed 

 the chief Ononyatop ; and Mahtotopa, after having run several days and nights, 

 praying the Great Spirit to give courage to his heart and strength to his legs, 

 arrived the sixth day at his native village broken down with fatigue, but happy 

 and proud to have revenged his brother, and to have brought home the scalp of 

 Ononyatop." 



Such is the story of Mahtotopa's revenge. Far be it from us to 

 dispute the authenticating proof, that the Mandan chiefs portrait 

 "may be seen at the museum of Natural History in Paris ;" but, after 

 the extensive use made of George Cathn's pictures, it cannot fail to 

 strike the reader as a curious coincidence, that that artist narrates the 

 very same story, in his twenty-first letter, in illustration of the painted 

 Buffalo-robe of Mah-to-toh-pa ; a poor travestie of whose portrait by 

 Catlin figures at another page of the Abbe's volumes, with no reference 

 to any Parisian portrait, or Indian story, but merely the indefinite title 

 of a "Mandan Chief." 



Schoolcraft has been laid under still larger contributions than 

 Catlin, unless the theory of accidental coincidences suffice to account 

 for unacknowledged resemblances, such as those already referred to. 

 In some cases, however, the Abbe does admit, in general terms, a little 

 borrowing, as where he says, (vol. ii. p. 432,) " Several authors relate 

 a legend which is current among a number of the Northern populations 



