39 6 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



graduated, showing clearly that they have very little taste or ear for melody. These 

 instruments are blown in the end, and the sound produced much on the principle of 

 a whistle. 



In the vicinity of the Upper Mississippi I often and familiarly heard this instru- 

 ment called the Winnebago courting flute, and was credibly informed by traders 

 and others in those regions that the young men of that tribe meet with signal suc- 

 cess, oftentimes, in wooing their sweethearts with its simple notes, which they blow 

 for hours together, and from day to day, from the bank of some stream, some favorite 

 rock or log on whieh they are seated, near to the wigwam which contains the object 

 of their tender passion, until her soul is touched, and she responds by some welcome 

 signal, that she is ready to repay the young Orpheus for his pains with the gift of her 

 heart. How true these representations may have been made I cannot say, but there 

 certainly must have been some ground for the present cognomen by which it is known 

 in that country. [See Plate No. 263, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.] 



From these rude and exceedingly defective instruments it will at once be seen that 

 musichas made but little progress with these people; and the same fact will be still 

 more clearly proved to those who have an opportunity to hear their vocal exhibitions, 

 which are daily and almost hourly serenading the ears of the traveler through their 

 country. — Pages 241-243, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



LODGES OR TENTS. 



The Blackfeet and the Crows, like the Sioux and Assinneboins, have nearly the 

 same mode of constructing their wigwam or lodge, in which tribes it is made of buffalo- 

 skins sewed together, after being dressed, and made into the form of a tent, supported 

 within by some twenty or thirty pine poles of 25 feet in height, with an apex or aper- 

 ture at the top, through which the smoke escapes and the light is admitted. These 

 lodges or tents are taken down in a few minutes by the squaws when they wish to 

 change their location, and easily transported to any part of the country where they 

 wish to encamp, and they generally move some six or eight times in the course of the 

 summer, following the immense herds of buffaloes as they range over these vast plains 

 from east to west and north to south. The objects for which they do this are two- 

 fold — to procure and dress their skins, which are brought in in the fall and winter 

 and sold to the fur company for white man's luxuries, and also for the purposes of kill- 

 ing and drying buffalo meat, which they bring in from their hunts, packed on their 

 horses' backs, in great quantities, making r;emican, and preserving the marrow-fat 

 for their winter quarters, which are generally taken up in some heavily-timbered bot- 

 tom, on the banks of some stream, deep embedded within the surrounding bluffs, which 

 break off the winds and make their long and tedious winter tolerable and support- 

 able. They then sometimes erect their skin lodges amongst the timber, and dwell in 

 them during the winter months, but more frequently cut logs and make a miserable 

 and rude sort of log cabin, in which they can live much warmer and better protected 

 from the assaults of their enemies in case they are attacked, in which case a log cabin 

 is a tolerable fort against Indian weapons. 



The Crows, of all the tribes in this region, or on the continent, make the most beaut if ul 

 lodge. As I have before mentioned, they construct them as the Sioux do, and make 

 them of the same material, yet they oftentimes dress the skins of which they are com- 

 posed almost as white as linen, and beautifully garnish them with porcupine quills, and 

 paint and ornament them in such a variety of ways as renders theni exceedingly pict- 

 uresque and agreeable to the eye. I have procured a very beautiful one of this descrip- 

 tion (Plate 20), highly ornamented and fringed with scalp-locks, and sufficently large 

 for forty men to dine under. The poles which support it are about thirty in number, 

 of pine, and all cut in the Rocky Mountains, having beensome hundred years, perhaps, 

 in use. This tent, when erected, is about 25 feet high, and has a very i>leasing effect, 



