456 The george catlin Indian (UtLfiRif. 



custom is similar amongst nearly all of these Missouri Indians, i. e., Indians along 

 the Missouri River, and amongst the Pawnees, Oniahas, and Puuchas and other tribes, 

 who have suffered with the small-pox (the dread destroyer of the Indian race), this 

 mode was practiced by the poor creatures, who fled by hundreds to the river's edge, 

 and by hundreds died before they could escape from the waves, into which they had 

 plunged in the heat and rage of a burning fever. Such will yet be the scourge, and 

 such the misery of these poor unthinking people, and each tribe to the Rocky Mount- 

 ains, as it has been with every tribe between here and the Atlantic Ocean — white men, 

 whisky, tomahawks, scalping- knives, guns, powder and ball, small-pox, debauchery — 

 extermination.— Pages 96-99, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



Mr. Catliii also noted the bathing in these sudatories (Plate 71) amongst 

 the Minatarees (page 170, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years) at their villages 

 on Knife River. See Nos. 5, 171-175, 383, 409, and 446, and page 466 

 herein. 



And every now and then are to be seen their sudatories or vapor-baths [Plate 71, 

 facing], where steam is raised by throwing water onto heated stones ; and the patient 

 jumps from his sweating-house and leaps into the river in the highest state of per- 

 spiration, as I have more fully described whilst speaking of the bathing of the 

 Mandans. 



DINNER WITH A MANDAN CHIEF, JULY, 1832— PEMICAN AND MARROW FAT. 



I spoke in a former letter of Mah-to-toh -pa (the Four Bears), the second chief of 

 the nation, and the most popular man of the Mandans — a high-minded and gallant 

 warrior, as well as a polite and polished gentleman. Since I painted his portrait, 

 as I before described, I have received at his hands many marked and signal atten- 

 tions; some of which I must name to you, as the very relation of them will put you 

 in possession of many little forms and modes of Indian life that otherwise might 

 not have been noted. 



About a week since this noble fellow stepped into my painting-room, about 

 twelve o'clock in the day, in full and splendid dress, and passing his arm through 

 mine, pointed the way, and led me in the most gentlemanly manner through the 

 village and into his own lodge, where a feast was prepared in a careful manner and 

 waiting our arrival. The lodge in which he dwelt was a room of immense size, some 

 forty or fifty feet in diameter, in a circular form, and about twenty feet high — with a 

 sunken curb of stone in the center, of five or six feet in diameter and one foot deep, 

 which contained the fire over which the pot was boiling. I was led near the edge 

 of this curb, and seated on a very handsome robe, most ingeniously garnished and 

 painted with hieroglyphics, and he seated himself gracefully on another one at a 

 little distance from me, with the feast prepared in several dishes, resting on a beau- 

 tiful rush mat, which was placed between us. 



The simple feast which was spread before us consisted of three dishes only, two of 

 which were served in wooden bowls, and the third in an earthen vessel of their own 

 manufacture, somewhat in shape of a bread-tray in our own country. This last con- 

 tained a quantity of pemican and marrow-fat, and* one of the former held a fine 

 brace of buffalo ribs, delightfully roasted, and the other was filled with a kind of 

 paste or pudding, made of the flour of the pomme blanche, as the French call it, a 

 delicious turnip of the prairie, finely flavored with the buffalo berries, which are col- 

 lected in great quantities in this country, and used with divers dishes in cooking, 

 as we in civilized countries use dried currants, which they very much resemble. 



A handsome pipe and a tobacco-pouch made of the otter skin, filled with Wnick- 

 Wneclc (Indian tobacco), laid by the side of the feast ; and when we were seated, mine 

 host took up his pipe, and deliberately filled it ; and instead of lighting it by the 

 fire, which he could easily have done, he drew from his pouch his flint and steel, and 

 raised a spark with which he kindled it. He drew a few strong whiffs through it, 



