THE GEORGE " CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 351 



and I have, fortunately, been able to see and to understand it in most of its bearings, 

 which was more than I had reason to expect, for no white man, in all probability, has 

 ever been before admitted to the medicine-lodge during these most remarkable and 

 appalling scenes. 



Well and truly has it been said that the Maudans are a strange and peculiar peo- 

 ple, and most correctly had I been informed that this was an important and interest- 

 ing scene by those who had on former occasions witnessed such parts of it as are 

 transacted out of doors and in front of the medicine-lodge. 



Since the date of my last letter I was lucky enough to have painted the medicine- 

 man, who was high priest on this grand occasion, or conductor of the ceremonies, 

 who had me regularly installed doctor of medicine, and who, on the morning when 

 these grand refinements in mysteries commenced, took me by the arm and led me into 

 the medicine-lodge, where the fur-trader, Mr. Kipp, and his two clerks accompanied 

 me in close attendance for four days, all of us going to our own quarters at sundown 

 and returning again at sunrise the next morning. 



I took my sketch-book with me, and have made many and faithful drawings of 

 what we saw, and full notes of everything a» translated to me by the interpreter; 

 and since the close of that horrid and frightful scene, which was a week ago or more 

 I have been closely ensconced in an earth-covered wigwam with a fine skylight over 

 my head, with my j)alette and brushes endeavoring faithfully to put the whole of 

 what we saw upon canvass, which my companions all agree to be critically correct, 

 and of the fidelity of which they have attached their certificates to the backs of die 

 paintings. 1 have made four paintings of these strange scenes, containing several 

 hundred figures, representing the transactions of each day. * * * 



I shudder at the relation or even at the thought of these barbarous scenes, and am 

 almost ready to shrink from the task of reciting them after I have so long promised 

 some account of them. I entered the medicine-house of these scones as I would have 

 entered a church, and expected to see something extraordinary and strange, yet in 

 the form of worship or devotion, but alas! little did I expect to see the interior of 

 their holy temple turned into a slaughter-house and its floors strewed with the blood 

 of its fanatic devotees. Little did I think that I was entering a house of God, where 

 His blinded worshipers were to pollute its sacred interior with their blood and pro- 

 pitiatory suffering and tortures, surpassing, if possible, the cruelty of the rack or the 

 inquisition, but such the scene has been, and as such I will endeavor to describe it. 



The Mandan religious ceremony then, as I believe it is very justly denominated, is 

 an annual transaction, held in their medicine-lodge once a year, as a great religious 

 anniversary, and for several distinct objects, as I shall in a few minutes describe; 

 during and after which they look with implicit reliance for the justification and ap- 

 proval of the Great Spirit. 



INDIAN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 



All of the Indian tribes, as I have before observed, are religious — are worshipful — 

 and many of them go to almost incredible lengths (as will be seen in the present in- 

 stance, and many others I may recite) in worshipping the Great Spirit ; denying and 

 humbling themselves before Him for the same purpose, and in the same hope as we 

 do — perhaps in a more rational and acceptable way. 



The tribes, so far as I have visited them, all distinctly believe in the existence of 

 a Great (or Good) Spirit, an Evil (or Bad) Spirit, and also in a future existence and 

 future accountability, according to their virtues and vices in this world. So far the 

 North American Indians would seem to be one family, and such an unbroken theory 

 amongst them; yet with regard to the manner and form, and time and place of that 

 accountability — to the constructions of virtues and vices, and the modes of appeas- 

 ing and propitiating the Good and Evil Spirits, they are found with all the changes 

 and variety which fortuitous circumstances, and fictions, and fables have wrought 

 upon them. 



