Company has a fort here also [Fort Clark]." I was surprised to find around the dwellings fair fields of maize, cultivated with the greatest care. These Indians continue to make the same earthen vessels (and every lodge has several of them) that are found in the ancient tombs scattered through the United States, and which the antiquarians of the country assume to have belonged to an earlier race than the savages of to-day. The.jugglers or conjurers of the Aricaras enjoy a high reputation among the Indians, by reason of the astonishing tricks that they perform to give themselves greater importance; they pretend to have communications with the spirit of darkness. They plunge their arms to the elbows in boiling water, by means of the juice of a certain root wherewith they rub their arms. They eat fire and shoot arrows at one another without injury. One trick surprised me greatly, though the savage was unwilling to perform it in my presence, saying that my medicine (religion) was stronger than his.
He had his hands, feet, legs and arms bound with a thousand knots; he was then enclosed in a big net and afterwards in a buffalo robe. The man who tied him promised him a horse if he got rid of his bonds; but in a minute he came forth free from all his fetters, to the great surprise of all the spectators. The commandant of the fort offered him another horse if he would communicate his secret to him. " Let yourself be tied," said the sorcerer to him; " I have ten invisible spirits that are at my orders; I
$ Fort Clark was built to accommodate the trade of the Mandans, Minnetarees and other tribes. It was located on the right bank of the Missouri fifty-five miles above the point where the Northern Pacific now crosses the river at Bismarck, N. D. This had been an important trading point from the earliest times. A post had been built there as early as 1822. Several other temporary posts were built in the vicinity but were succeeded by Fort Clark in 1831. This post was built by James Kipp under the orders of Kenneth McKenzie and was named after William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.