Rocky Mountains. 331 



doubt, he said, that they were equally well informed as to 

 the matter out of which they were themselves formed, but 

 if he, a poor ignorant Indian, with no knowledge but his 

 own, might venture to give his opinion, he would say, that 

 they were formed of the excrement of the dog, baked white 

 in the prairie. 



They sometimes employ an indirect method of communi- 

 cating information, and of explaining some particular acts of 

 their own, which may have been erroneously construed by 

 others. 



Several Omawhaws, accompanied by a Frenchman, one 

 day passed our cantonment, on their way to the trading 

 house with a considerable quantity of jerked meat. On their 

 return they visited us ; when one of them, who amused him- 

 self by turning over the leaves of a book in search of pic- 

 tures, being asked by a squaw, in a jocular manner, what the 

 book said, replied, " It tells me, that when we were taking 

 our meat to the trading house, we wished to present some 

 fcf it to white people on the way, but that the Frenchman 

 would not permit us to do so." This remark explained the 

 reason of their having offered us no meat. 



An Indian, observing that one of our men when cutting- 

 wood, uttered the interjection hah! at each blow with the 

 axe, smiled and asked if it assisted him, or added force to 

 the blow. 



The Kinnecanick, or as the Omawhaws call it Nimiegahe^ 

 mixed or made tobacco, which they use for smoking in their 

 pipes, is composed partly of tobacco and partly of the leaves 

 of the Sumack (rhus glabrum) ; but many prefer to the latter 

 ingredient, the inner bark of the red willow ( Cornus sericea ;) 

 and when neither of the two latter can be obtained the inner 

 bark of the arrow wood (viburnum) is substituted for them. 

 These two ingredients are well dried over the fire, and com- 

 minuted together, by friction between the hands. 



Their pipes are neatly made of the red indurated clay, 



