260 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



they sometimes lacerate their arms and legs ; and the women frequently 

 visit the graves and strew them with locks of hair cut from their heads for 

 the purpose, often chanting, during the process, lamentations very poetical 

 in style. Carver has communicated a funeral oration of a Naudowessie 

 (Sioux) ; it runs thus : " Thou still sittest amongst us, brother ; thy body 

 retains its usual appearance, and without any perceptible exception is still 

 similar to our own ; but the power of action is wanting to it. But whither 

 has the breath fled, which a few hours since blew smoke aloft towards the 

 Great Spirit ? Why are now silent the lips from which, a short time ago, 

 we heard such expressive and agreeable language ? Why are motionless 

 the feet which, a few days since, were swifter than the deer upon the 

 mountains ? Wherefore hang these arms powerless, that climbed the high- 

 est trees, and bent the strongest bow ? Alas ! every part of the structure 

 that we regarded with admiration and astonishment, is as inanimate as 

 it was three hundred winters ago. Nevertheless we will not mourn as if 

 thou wert for ever lost to us, or as if thy name should never again be 

 heard. Thy soul still lives in the great land of spirits, with the souls of 

 thy countrymen who have gone thither before thee. We, it is true, remain 

 behind in order to maintain thy renown, but we too shall one day follow 

 thee. Animated by the regard which we cherished for thee in thy lifetime, 

 we come now to render thee the last office of kindness. In order that thy 

 remains may not be left upon the plain, a prey to the beasts of the field or 

 the birds of the air, we will carefully place them with the bodies of thy 

 predecessors, in the hope that thy soul may banquet wath their spirits, and 

 be ready to receive ours when we also arrive in the great spirit land." 

 The burial-place, we will add, is usually a large cave. 



3. The Minetares, who are divided into three tribes : settled Minetares, 

 including the Annahawas, Mandans, and Crow Indians or Upsaroka nation. 

 The two first are farmers, and dwell in villages on or in the vicinity of the 

 Missouri, between 47° and 48* north latitude. The Crow Indians (pi. I, 

 Jigs, 19 and 20) are a wandering people south of the Missouri, between 

 the Little Missouri and the south-eastern branches of the Yellowstone 

 River. Among the Mandan Indians, complexions almost entirely white, 

 and even blue eyes, occur. {PL 29, fig. 3, dance of Mandan women, and 

 fig. 4, of Mandan men ; fig. 5, buffalo dance of the latter.) The buffaloes 

 (properly, bisons) wander over the plains in large herds. The Mandans are 

 frequently deprived of the means of subsistence when these animals fail to 

 make their appearance. As soon as this calamity occurs, the Mandans put 

 on their disguises of buffalo skins, and then commence the bufl^alo dance, 

 performed in order to induce these animals to return, and repeated until 

 they actually make their appearance, called, according to their opinion, 

 by the dance alone. Whilst the ceremony is going on, drums are beaten,, 

 rattles set in motion, and the air resounds with the incessant singing and 

 yelping of spectators. 



The Southern Sioux consist of eight tribes, and their territory originally 

 extended along the Mississippi, from a point below the mouth of the 

 Arkansas to 41° north latitude. They lived, and still dwell, to the north 

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