92 



APPENDIX. 



the shouting immediately fly to the defence of the town, armed with bows, arrows, 

 and clubs. 



" In the middle of the town stands the king's palace, sunk somewhat below the 

 level of the ground, on account of the heat of the sun. Around it are ranged the 

 houses of the nobles, all slightly covered with palm branches ; for they make use 

 of them only during nine months of the year, passing, as we have said, the other 

 three months in the w^oods. When they return, they take to their houses again ; 

 unless, indeed, they have been burnt down in the meantime by their enemies, in 

 which case they build themselves new ones of similar materials. Such is the 

 magnificence of Indian palaces." 



Among the Indians to the westward of the Mississippi, particularly among the 

 Mandans and kindred tribes, a somewhat different system of defence prevailed. 

 The serpentine courses of the rivers, all of which have here high steep banks, 

 leave many projecting points of land on elevated peninsulas, protected on nearly 

 all sides by the streams, and capable, with little artificial aid, of being made effec- 

 tive for defensive purposes. Mr. Catlin describes the principal village of the 

 Mandans, while that remarkable tribe existed, as protected upon three sides by the 

 river, and upon the fourth " by a strong picket, with an interior ditch, three or 

 four feet in depth." The picket vpas composed of timbers a foot or more in diam- 

 eter and eighteen feet high, set firmly in the ground, at a sufficient distance from 

 each other to admit guns to be fired between them. The warriors stationed them- 

 selves in the ditch during an attack, and were thus almost completely protected 

 from their assailants. These practices seem, however, to be of comparatively 

 late introduction. — (N. A. Indians, Vol. I., p. 81.) 



Brackenridge {Views of Louisiana, p. 242) mentions the ruins of an Indian 

 town upon the Missouri River, fifty miles above the mouth of the Shienne. The 

 spot was marked by " great piles of Bufl"alo bones and quantities of earthen-ware. 

 The village appeared to have been scattered around a kind of citadel or fortifica- 

 tion, enclosing from four to five acres, in an oval form." The earth was thrown 

 up about four feet, and a few of the palisades were remaining. The Shienne 

 River is 1300 miles above the mouth of the Missouri. Lewis and Clark also men- 

 tion a number of remains of Indian fortifications of like character, but it is to be 

 observed that they distinguish between them and the larger and more imposing 

 ancient works which fell under their notice in the same region. They describe 

 an abandoned village of the Riccarees, called Lahoocat, which was situated in the 

 centre of Goodhope Island. It contained seventeen lodges, surrounded by a cir- 

 cular wall, and is known to have been occupied in 1797. — {Exp., p. 72.) They 

 also mention the remains of a deserted village, erected by Petit Arc or Little Bow, 

 an Omahaw chief, on the banks of a small creek of the same name, emptying into 

 the Missouri. It was surrounded by a wall of earth about four feet high. — {Exp., 

 p. 41.) A circular work of earth, formerly enclosing a village of the Shiennes, 

 was noticed by these explorers, a short distance above the mouth of the Shienne 

 River. — {Exp., p. 80.) The ancient villages of the Mandans, nine of which were 

 observed in the same vicinity, within a space of twenty miles, were indicated by 

 ihe walls which surrounded them, the fallen heaps of earth which covered the huts, 



