TltE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 409 



enables them, after being ever so many times wet, to dry soft and pliant as they were 

 before, which secret I have never yet seen practiced in my own country ; and, for 

 the lack of which, all of our dressed skins, when once wet, are, I think, chiefly 

 ruined. 

 See also plate 22, and No. 346 herein. 



An Indian's dress of deer skins, which is wet a hundred times upon his back, dries 

 soft; and his lodge also, which stands in the rains and even through the severity of 

 winter, is taken down as soft and as clean as when it was first put up. 



A Crow is known wherever he is met by his beautiful white dress, and his tall and 

 elegant figure; the greater part of the men being 6 feet high. The Blackfeet, on the 

 other hand, are more of the herculean make — about middling stature, with broad 

 shoulders and great expansion of chest ; and the skins of which their dresses are 

 made are chiefly dressed black, or of a dark brown color, from which circumstance, 

 in all probability, they, having black leggings or moccasins, have got the name of 

 Blackfeet. — Pages 46, 47, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



MANNER OF STRIKING TENTS OR LODGES AND TRANSPORTING THEM. 



Mr. Catlin thus describes the striking and moving of an Indian camp 

 on the Missouri Eiver in 1832 : 



The manner in which an encampment of Indians strike their tents and transport 

 them is curious, and to the traveler in this country a very novel and unexpected sight 

 when he first beholds it. Whilst ascending the river to this place I saw an encamp- 

 ment of Sioux, consisting of 600 of these lodges, struck, and all things packed and 

 on the move in a very few minutes. The chief sends his runners or criers (for such 

 all chiefs keep in their employment) through the village a few hours before they 

 are to start, announcing his determination to move, and the hour fixed upon, and the 

 necessary preparations are in the mean time making ; and at the time announced the 

 lodge of the chief is seen flapping in the wind, a part of the poles having been taken 

 out from under it. This is the signal, and in one minute 600 of them (on a level and 

 beautiful prairie), which before had been strained tight and fixed, were seen waving 

 and flapping in the wind, and in one minute more all were flat upon the ground. 

 Their horses and dogs, of which they had a vast number, had all been secured upon 

 the spot in readiness, and each one was speedily loaded with the burthen allotted to 

 it, and ready to fall into the grand procession. [See also No. 466 herein.] 



For this strange cavalcade preparation is made in the following manner: The poles 

 of a lodge are divided into two bunches, and the little ends of each bunch fastened 

 upon the shoulders or withers of a horse, leaving the butt ends to drag behind on the 

 ground on either side. Just behind the horse a brace or pole is tied across, which 

 keeps the poles in their respective places; and then upon that and the poles behind 

 the horse is placed the lodge or tent, which is rolled up, and also numerous other arti. 

 cles of household and domestic furniture, and on the top of all, two, three, and even 

 (sometimes) four women and children ! Each one of these horses has a conductress, 

 who sometimes walks before and leads it, with a tremendous pack upon her own back, 

 and at others she sits astride of its back with a child, perhaps, at her breast, and 

 another astride of the horse's back behind her, clinging to her waist with one arm, 

 while it affectionately embraces a sneaking dog-pup in the other. . 



In this way five or six hundred wigwams, with all their furniture, may be seen 

 drawn out for miles, creeping over the grass-covered plains of this country, and three 

 times that number of men on good horses, strolling along in front or on the flank; and 

 in some tribes, in the rear of this heterogeneous caravan, at least five times that num- 

 ber of dogs, which fall into the rank, and follow in the train and company of the wo- 

 men, and every cur of them who is large enough, and not too cunning to be enslaved, 

 is encumbered with a car or sled (or whatever it may be better called), on which he 



