10 



faces, broken skulls, indicating a violent death and not one 

 by the pestilence, while the well-known fear of the Indians for 

 this terrible disease forbids the thought of their laying the 

 bones in the systematic order in which they were found. An- 

 other question arising is, why may not these superficial inter- 

 ments be those of Sioux, Ojibewavs, or Crees, buried in the 

 mound?? The answer is, that these nations have their own 

 distinctive modes of burial, all differing from that of the 

 mound. They either bury their dead by exposing them on 

 raised platforms, or on the branches of trees, or in the case of 

 the Ojibeways, by burial in separate graves dug in the earth, 

 and covered over with sticks some two feet in length, placed 

 together in the form of a roof. 



The Mandans would seem to have regarded these mounds 

 as the tombs of their ancestors. Nothing could be more fit- 

 ting than that their heroes slain in battle should receive an 

 honourable burial in these "sacred spots" of their race. If 

 the Mandans be taken as having a peculiar connexion with 

 these mounds, it may be well to notice some interesting facts 

 regarding them mentioned by Catlin and others. The Man- 

 dans were not onh- far advanced as to livinp- in fixed abodes, 

 in having fortified villages, in cultivating the soil, in the manu- 

 facture of pottery — an art said by Catlin to have been con- 

 fined to them among the North American Indians during this 

 century — and in the practice of religious rites of a more 

 elaborate kind than the other Indian tribes, but many of the 

 tribe had light whitish hair and blue and prey eyes. A few 

 Mandans are still said to survive on the upper Missouri, and 

 they bear the name "White Beards." To one acquainted with 

 the Indian nations, it is well-known that a full-blooded In- 

 dian, unless a monster, can have only black hair and a dark 

 eye. 



The Mandans have been traced, by their mounds for forti- 

 fication, for burial, for sacrifice, and for observation, along 

 the Ohio, and far up the Missouri.The point at which the na- 

 tion dwelt on the Missouri, in 1838, when they were so almost 

 completely destroyed by small-pox, was reached by the Mis- 

 souri trail from the Red River country. Their possession of 

 arts mentioned, and more especially the recurrence among 

 them of numerous cases of light complexion, would seem to 

 indicate the mixture of an element of Caucasian ancestry in 

 the tribe. Up to this century they were unknown to the 

 present white population of the continent. A considerable 

 number of writers have, in consequence, considered them the 

 descendants of early European adventurers, absorbed in an 

 Indian alliance. 



