9 



throwing up one mound. Would it be too much to hazard 

 the suggestion that the remains may have been those of wan- 

 dering bands of sea-faring adventurers, of whom we are be- 

 ginning to learn more, as having some six or eight centuries 

 ago visited the shores, and even penetrated the interior of the 

 North American continent? Perhaps the route of Lord Sel- 

 kirk's colonists by Hudson's Bay had been centuries before 

 opened up by the sea-king voyageurs. 



Leaving in the meantime this question, it may be well to 

 look at that of the later remains found in the superficial inter- 

 ments. It would naturally be in connection with these that the 

 legend given would be told. What are the main — ints of the 

 story? That the Mandrills live in the mound as a cave dwell" 

 ing. Now the cave-dwellers of the Missouri met by Catlin 

 were called the Mandans. They are a tribe now nearly ex- 

 tinct. The Red River country was visited by Missouri In- 

 dians, and the Missouri country by Northern Indians, by 

 means of the prairie trail, still known as the Missouri trail. 

 Carver, in speaking of Fort La Reine, on the Assiniboine, 

 says, "To this place the Mahahs, who inhabit a country 250 

 miles south-west, come also to trade with them ; and bring 

 great quantities of Indian corn to exchange for knives, toma- 

 hawks, and other articles." We have seen that the early ex- 

 plorers reached the same Missouri country by ascending a 

 branch of the Assiniboine. 



The name Mandrill, as also Mahah, is plaintly a corruption 

 of the word Mandan. Strange to say, the bulk of the Man- 

 dans, who were a dwindling, peaceful race, unable to cope 

 with the wild Sioux, but by far the most advanced of the 

 North American Indians in the arts of building and agricul- 

 ture, actually perished on the Missouri, within the last half- 

 century, by the smallpox. What more probable than that 

 some outlying colony of Mandans, bringing their customs 

 from the Missouri, had made earth-houses for themselves in 

 the Red River country, and had used the mound as a place 

 of burial ? As to the part of the legend referring to the 

 small-pox, it would be most natural to have it attached by 

 association of ideas to the mound, although the deaths by this 

 pestilence may have occurred long after the use of the mound 

 as a burial-place by the Mandans. 



As to the mound being inhabited by cave-dwellers, the 

 facts brought out by the excavation entirely disprove such a 

 hypothesis. Sepulture was plainly its purpose. That the 

 connecting of small-pox with the mound is a recent notion, is 

 shown by the presence in the surface of the mound of painted 



