A half-century of conflict. France and England in North America. Part ...

22 SEARCH FOR THE PACIEIC. [1742.and children, — for this was always the case on occasionsofpublic interest, — and that they were forcedto undergo a merciless series of feasts in the lodgesof the chiefs. Here, seated by the sunken hearth inthe middle, under the large hole in the roof thatserved both for window and chimney, they couldstudy at their ease the domestic economy of theirentertainers. Each lodge held a gens^ or family connection,whose beds of raw buffalo hide, stretched onpoles, were ranged around the circumference of thebuilding, while by each stood a post on which hungshields, lances, bows, quivers, medicine-bags, andmasks formed of the skin of a buffalo's head, with thehorns attached, to be used in the magic buffalo dance.Every day had its sports to relieve the monotonyof savage existence, the game of the stick and therolling ring, the archery practice of boys, horse-racingon the neighboring prairie, and incessant games ofchance; while every evening, in contrast to thesegayeties, the long, dismal wail of women rose fromthe adjacent cemetery, where the dead of the village,sewn fast in buffalo hides, lay on scaffolds above thereach of wolves.The Mandans did not know the way to the Pacific,but they told the brothers that they expected a speedyvisit from a tribe or band called Horse Indians, whocould guide them thither.It is impossible to identifythis people with any certainty. ^The two travellers1 The Clieyonnes have a tradition that they were the first triheof this region to have horses. Tliis may perhaps justify a conjee-