THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 371 



enco and wolfare of the tribe. They were induced to this belief from the very strange 

 manner of its conception and birth, and were soon confirmed in it from the wonder- 

 ful things which it did at an early age. They say that, amongst other miracles which 

 he performed, when tho Mandans were like to starve, he gave them four buffalo bulls, 

 which filled the whole village, leaving as much meat as there was before they had 

 eaten, saying that these four bulls would supply them forever. Nu-molik-muclc-a-nah 

 (the first or only man) was bent on the destruction of the child, and, after making 

 many fruitless searches for it, found it hidden in a dark place, and put it to death by 

 throwing it into the river. 



" When O-kce-hee-de (the Evil Spirit) heard of the death of this child, he sought for 

 Nu-moliJc-mucTc-a-nah with intent to kill him. He traced him a long distance, and at 

 length found him at Heart River, about 70 miles below the village, with the big 

 medicine-pipe in his hand, the charm or mystery of which protects him from all of his 

 enemies. They soon agreed, however, to become friends, smoked the big pipe to- 

 gether, and returned to the Mandan village. The Evil Spirit was satisfied, and Nu- 

 mohlc-muck-a-nah told the Mandans never to pass Heart River to live, for it was the 

 center of the world, and to live beyond it would be destruction to them ; and he named 

 it Nat-com-pa-sa-hah (heart or center of the world)." 



Such are a few of the principal traditions of these people, which I have thought 

 proper to give in this place, and I have given them in their own way, with all the 

 imperfections and absurd inconsistencies which should be expected to characterize 

 the history of all ignorant and superstitious people who live in a state of simple and 

 untaught nature, with no other means of perpetuating historical events than by oral 

 traditions. 



I advance these vague stories, then, as I have done, and shall do in other instances, 

 not in support of any theory, but merely as I have heard them related by the Indians, 

 and preserved them, as I have everything else that I could meet in the Indian habits 

 and character, for the information of the world, who may get more time to theorize 

 than I have at present, and who may consider, better than I can, how far such tra- 

 ditions should be taken as evidence of the facts that these people have for a long 

 period preserved and perpetuated an imperfect knowledge of the Deluge, of the ap- 

 pearance and death of a Saviour, and of the transgressions of mother Eve. 



I am not yet able to learn from these people whether they have any distinct theory of 

 the creation, as they seem to date nothing further back than their own existence as a 

 people, saying (as I have before mentioned) that they were the first people created, 

 involving the glaring absurdities that they were the only people on earth before the 

 Flood, and the only one saved was a white man ; or that they were created inside of 

 the earth, as their tradition says, and that they did not make their appearance on its 

 outer surface until after the Deluge. When an Indian story is told it is like all other 

 gifts, to be taken for what it is worth, and for any seeming inconsistency in their 

 traditions there is no remedy, for as far as I have tried to reconcile them by reason- 

 ing with or questioning them I have been entirely defeated^ and more than that, have 

 generally incurred their distrust and ill-will. One of the Mandan doctors told me 

 very gravely a few days since that the earth was a large tortoise ; that it carried the 

 dirt on its back ; that a tribe of people, who are now dead, and whose faces were 

 white, used to dig down very deep in this ground to catch badgers, and that one day 

 they stuck a knife through the tortoise-shell, and it sunk down so that the water ran 

 over its back and drowned all but one man. And on the next day, while I was painting 

 his portrait, he told me there were four tortoises, one in the north, one in the east, 

 one in the south, and one in the west ; that each one of these rained ten days, and the 

 water covered over the earth. 



These ignorant and conflicting accounts, and both from the same man, give as good 

 a demonstration, perhaps, of what I have above mentioned as to the inefficiency of 

 Indian traditions as anything I could at present mention. They might, perhaps, have 

 been in this instance, however, the creeds of different sects, or of different. priests 



