458 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



tlie Southern aucl Middle States, placed in onr Eastern museums, and looked upon as 

 a great wonder, when here this novelty is at once done away with, and the whole 

 mystery; where women can be seen handling and using them by hundreds, and they 

 can be seen every day in the summer also, molding them into many fanciful forms, 

 and passing them through the kiln where they are hardened. 



Whilst sitting at this feast the wigwam was as silent as death, although we were 

 not alone in it. This chief, like most others, had a plurality of wives, and all of 

 them (some fcix or seven) were seated around the sides of the lodge, upon robes or 

 mats placed upon the ground, and not allowed to speak, though they were in readi- 

 ness to obey his orders or commands, which were uniformly given by signs manual, 

 and executed in the neatest and most silent manner. 



When I arose to return, the pipe through which we had smoked was presented to 

 me; and the robe on which I had sat, he gracefully raised by the corners and ten. 

 dered it to me, explaining by signs that the paintings which were on it were the rep- 

 resentations of the battles of his life, where he had fought and killed with his own 

 hand fourteen of his enemies ; that he had been two weeks engag ed in painting it for 

 me, and that he had invited me here on this occasion to present it to me. The robe, 

 readers, which I shall describe in a future epistle (see Plate 65 herein, and the three 

 following), I took upon my shoulder, and he took me by the arm and led me back to 

 my painting-room. — Pages 114-116, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



THE LITTLE MANDAN VILLAGE. 



From the Minataree villages Mr. Catlin passed down the river to the 

 upper or little Mandan village. Of this he writes in 1832 : 



In speaking of the Mandans in a former letter I mentioned that t hey were living 

 in two villages, which are about two miles apart. Of their principal village I have 

 given a minute account, which precludes the necessity of my sayin g much of their 

 smaller town to which I descended a few days since from the Minatarees, and where 

 I find their modes and customs precisely the same as I have heretofore described. 

 This village contains sixty or eighty lodges, built in the same manner as those which 

 I have already mentioned ; and I have just learned that they have been keeping the 

 annual ceremony here precisely in the same manner as thac which I witnessed in the 

 lower or larger town, and have been explained. 



I have been treated with the same hospitality here that was ex tended to me in 

 the other village, and have painted the portraits of several distinguished persons, 

 which has astonished and pleased them very much. 



Of the Mandans who are about me in this little village I need say nothing, except 

 that they are in every respect the same as those I have described in the lower vil- 

 lage ; and, in fact, I believe this litte town is rather a summer residence for a few of 

 the noted families than anything else, as I am told that none of their wi gwams are 

 tenanted through the winter. — Page 203, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



FINAL LEAVE OF THE MANDANS 5 THEIR ORIGIN. 



* * * Their hospitality [the Mandans] had fully corroborated my fixed belief 

 that the North American Indian in his primitive state is a high-minded, hospitable, 

 and honorable being, and their singular and peculiar customs have raised an irresisti- 

 ble belief in my mind that they have had a different origin or are of a different com. 

 pound of character from any other tribe that I have yet seen or that can be probably 

 seen in North America. 



In coming to such a conclusion as this the mind is at once filled with a flood of inqui- 

 ries as to the source from which they have sprung, and eagerly seeking for the e vi- 

 dence which is to lead it to the most x>robabl6 and correct conclusion. Amongst these 



