72 ETHNIC RELATIONSHIP. 



mills that are more like those of their southern and 

 western neighbors. Stone metates are more common 

 in the southwest than in the territory to the north. 

 The beveled form of spearheads seems also to be a 

 feature of their rude art, which they had in common 

 with the Indians of the south. Tribes of the Ponca 

 family, as the Wichitas and the Pawnees, have at 

 different times lived on the Arkansas, the Kansas, and 

 the Platte rivers in the central part of the Western 

 Plains. They seem to have migrated occasionally both 

 north and south. Mr. Hodge says that the "Wichitas 

 shifted their settlements from time to time as necessity 

 demanded and that more than one time their settle- 

 ments were on and north of the Arkansas river."* At 

 an early time their home was farther south. In a 

 border tj'ibe there would inevitably be some mingling 

 of arts and customs of the neighboring nations with 

 those of its own. The use of ground shell as well as 

 sand for tempering the earthenware may have such a 

 significance. Captain Marcy, who visited a Wichita 

 village near Washita river in 1852, says that their 

 "lodges were about twenty-five feet in diameter at the 

 base", and consisted of a frame-work of poles placed in 

 a circle in the ground, bound together with withes 

 and thatched with grass. He also states that they 

 raised corn and other vegetables, using hoes for culti- 

 vating the soil, but depended on the chase for their 

 sustenance during the greater part of the year.** It is 



* Harahey, J. V. Brower, St. Paul, 1899, p. 72. 



** Exploration of the Red Elver of Louisiana in the year 1852, by R. B. Marcy, 

 p. 77. 



