80 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



square ujilcs have Ijeen.sct apart for tliem as their reservation. They have 500 acres 

 under cultivation, and are receiving considerable assistance from the Government in 

 the way of improved implements. Many houses are being built, and the more pro- 

 gressive Indians are abandoning the old mud lodges for them.— W. H. Jackson, 1877. 



PRESENT LOCATION AND CONDITION. 



On June 30, 1885, tliere were 544 Arickarees at Fort Bertliold Agency, 

 Dakota, with Gros Ventres and Mandans. 



August 18, 1885, they numbered 435. Slowly decreasing. 

 June 30, 1884, the agent says : 



Of the three tribes here, the Arickarees I consider the most progressive. 

 In 1885 the agent confirms the report of 1884, 



MAK-BANS. 



[Mandan: Laws of the United States. Mandan: Indian Bureau, June 30, 1885.] 



(See-po'hs-ka-nu-ma'h-ka'-kee) : People of the Pheasants ; People of the 



Bank. 



A small tribe of 2,000 souls, living in two permanent villages on the Missouri, 1,800 

 miles above its junction with the Mississippi. Earth-covered lodges; villages forti- 

 fied by strong pickets, 18 feet high, and a ditch. {_TMs friendly and interesting tribe 

 all jyerislied iy the small-pox and suicide in 1837 (three years after I lived amongst them), 

 exceijting ahout forty, ivho have since been destroyed by their enemy, rendering the tribe en- 

 tirely extinct, and their language lost, in ike short space of a few months ! The disease was 

 carried amongst them by the traders, which destroyed in six mouths, of different 

 tribes, 25,000 !] 



Mr. Oatlin visited them in June, July, and August, 1832. They were 

 then living in their villages, near the present town of Mandan, Dakota. 

 Mr. Catlin's statement, in italics, above given, is not true in fact, as he 

 was misinformed as to the fate of the Mandans. The Mandans, after 

 their dreadful experience with the small-pox in 1838, joined the Arick- 

 arees, with whom they have since lived. (See subsequent page for 

 further details.) Mr. Oatlin expended more time and observation with 

 and on the Mandans than any of the several Indian tribes that he vis- 

 ited. 



The interesting and peculiar ceremonies observed are vouched for 

 fully, as shown herein in the memoir of Mr. Catlin. 



1-27. Ha-na-td-nu-malik, the Wolf Chief; head of the tribe, in a splendid dress ; 



head-dress of raven-quills, and two calumets, or pipes of peace, in his hand. 



(Painted in 1832. Plate No. 49, page 92, vol. I, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



This man is head-cliief of the nation, and familiarly known by the name of ''Chef 



de Loup," as the French Traders call him ; a haughty, austere, and overbearing man, 



respected and feared by his people rather than loved. The tenure by which this man 



holds his office is that by which the head-chiefs of most of the tribes claim, that of 



inheritance. It is a general, though not an infallible, rule amongst the numerous 



tribes of North American Indians tliat the office of chief belongs to the eldest son of 



a chief; provided he shows himself, by his conduct, to be equally worthy of it as any 



other in the nation ; making it hereditary on a. very j)roper condition — in default of 



which requisites, or others which may happen, the office is elective. 



