THE CATLIN COLLECTION OP INDIAN PAINTINGS. 609 



dance called the last dance (PI. cl), and to the accuracy of Catliu's de- 

 scription and delineation of this I am prepared to testify. 



After the youths have been tortured in the lodge, as described, they 

 are led out of it with the weights, buffalo skulls, etc., hanging to their 

 flesh. Around the big canoe (i. e., the wooden cylinder) is formed a 

 circle of young men, who hold wreaths of willow boughs between them, 

 and run around with all possible violence, yelling as loud as they can. 



The young fellows who have been tortured are then led forward and 

 each one has assigned to him two athletic, fresh young men (their bodies 

 singularly painted), who step up to him, one on each side, take him by. 

 a leathern strap tied around the wrist, and run around outside the 

 other circle with all possible speed, forcing him forward until he faints. 

 Then they coutinue to drag him, with his face in the dirt, until the 

 weights are all disengaged by tearing the flesh out. The skewers are 

 never withdrawn lengthwise. They then drop him and fly through the 

 crowd away upon the prairie, as if they were guilty of some enormous 

 crime and were fleeing from summary vengeauce. The victim lies to all 

 appearance a corpse, unaided, until his strength returns, and he walks 

 home to his lodge, where he is at last kindly cared for and fed, and his 

 sufferings are at an end. 



There are many more extraordinary occurrences in the ceremonies, 

 for which I must refer the curious to Catliu's works.* He tells us that 

 when he saw the rites some forty-five or fifty youths submitted them- 

 selves to the torture. When I beheld them there were but four candi- 

 dates, and two of these were members of other tribes who, for some rea- 

 son, had chosen to go through the Maudau initiation. Such was the 

 change wrought in less than four decades. 



Mr. Catlin's artistic labors did not end with the formation of this 

 gallery. After it had passed from his hands he again set out on his 

 jourue,ys and traveled extensively in North and South America, making 

 sketches as he went. The materials collected in these later wander- 

 ings are, I understand, iu the hands of his heirs. I trust the time may 

 soon come when they will be added to the more famous collection which 

 we now possess. 



The history of this collection is as romantic and eventful as that of 

 its author, and the preservation of the collection to the present day 

 seems little less than providential. 



The sketches, taken in desolate and hostile lands, were borne on 

 horseback over dim trails, or in frail canoes and bull- boats along the 

 currents of treacherous streams, before they reached places of compara- 

 tive safety iu the white settlements. 



When, in 1837, after eight years of travel and labor, the collection was 



* " Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American In- 

 dians." 10th edition, London, 1866, vol. 1, p. 155 et seq. Okeepa, a Religious Cere- 

 mony and other Customs of the Mandans. Philadelphia, 1?367; and other works of 

 Catlin. 



H. Mis. 129, pt. 2—39 



