454 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



THE MANDANS AND OTHER INDIANS AS SWIMMERS, AND THEIR METHOD OF BATHING. 



'At the distance of half a mile or so above the Mandan village is the customary place 

 where the women and girls resort every morning in the summer months to bathe in 

 the river. To this spot they repair by hundreds, every morning at sunrise, where, on 

 a beautiful beach, they can be seen running and glistening in the sun, whilst they are 

 playiug their innocent gambols and leaping into the stream. They all learn to swim 

 well, and the poorest swimmer amongst them will dash fearlessly into the boiling and 

 eddying current of the Missouri, and cross it with perfect ease. At the distance of a 

 quarter of a mile back from the river extends a terrace or elevated prairie, running 

 north from the village, and forming a kind of semicircle around this bathing place; 

 and on this terrace, which is some twenty or thirty feet higher than the meadow be- 

 tween it and the river, are stationed every morning several sentinels, with their bows 

 and arrows in hapd, to guard and protect this sacred ground from the approach of 

 boys or men from any direction. 



At a little distance below the village also, is the place where the men and boys go 

 to bathe and learn#to swim. After this morning ablution, they return to their vil- 

 lage, wipe their limbs dry, and use a profusion of bear's grease through their hair and 

 over their bodies. 



The art of swimming is known to all the American Indians; and perhaps no people 

 on earth have taken more pains to learn it, nor any who turn it to better account. 

 There certainly are no people whose avocations of life more often call for the use of 

 their limbs in this way; as many of the tribes spend their lives on the shores of our 

 vast lakes and rivers, paddling about from their childhood in their fragile bark canoes, 

 which are liable to continual accidents, which often throw the Indian upon his natu- 

 ral resources for the preservation of his life. 



There are many times also, when out upon their long marches in the prosecution of 

 their almost continued warfare, when it becomes necessary to plunge into and swim 

 across the wildest streams and rivers, at times when they have no canoes or craft in 

 which to cross them. I have as yet seen no tribe where this art is neglected. It is 

 learned at a very early age by both sexes, and enables the strong and hardy muscles 

 of the squaws to take their child upon the back, and successfully to pass any river 

 that lies in their way. 



The mode of swimming amongst the Mandans, as well as amongst most of the other 

 tribes, is quite different from that practiced in those parts of the civilized world 

 which I have had the pleasure yet to visit. The Indian, instead of parting his hands 

 simultaneously under the chin, and making the stroke outward in a horizontal direc- 

 tion, causing thereby a serious strain upon the chest, throws his body alternately 

 upon the left and the right side, raising one arm entirely above the water and reach- 

 ing as far forward as he can, to dip it, whilst his whole weight and force are spent 

 upon the one that is passing under him, and, like a paddle, propelling him along ; 

 whilst this arm is making a half circle, and is being raised out of the water behind 

 him, the opposite arm is describing a similar arch in the air over Ms head, to be dipped 

 in the water as far as he can reach before him, with the hand turned under, forming 

 a sort of bucket, to act most effectively as it passes in its turn underneath him. 



By this bold and powerful mode of swimming, which may want the grace that many 

 would wish to see, I am quite sure, from the experience I have had, that much of the 

 fatigue and strain upon the breast and spine are avoided, and that a man will preserve 

 his strength and his breath much longer in this alternate and rolling motion than he 

 can in the usual mode of swimming in the polished world. 



In addition to the modes of bathing which I have above described, the Mandans 

 have another, which is a much greater luxury, and often resorted to by the sick, but 

 far more often by the well and sound, as a matter of luxury only, or perhaps for the 

 purpose of hardening their limbs and preparing them for the thousand exposures and 

 vicissitudes of life to which they are continually liable. I allude to their vapor baths, 

 or sudatories, of which each village has several, and which seem to be a kind of public 



