village, composed of large huts covered with earth. This once numerous nation is now reduced to a few families, the only survivors of the smallpox of 1838 [1837]. Their village lies 1,8oo miles above the mouth of the Missouri, zoo below the mouth of the Yellowstone. Some clays after, we stopped at Fort Berthold, to land some goods at the great village of the Minnetarees, or Osier tribe, nicknamed the Grosventres of the Missouri. Their cabins are built like those of the Aricaras and Mandans. Four forks, or rather four forked trees, set in the ground about twenty feet apart, form a square. These are joined on top by cross-pieces, over which other pieces are laid obliquely, leaving a great opening in the centre, to admit air and give vent to the smoke; these pieces are woven together with osiers: the whole is covered with hay and earth-not with turf, however. An opening is made on one side to receive the door, which consists of a bison-skin. Before the door is a sort of alley, ten or fifteen feet long, inclosed by pickets, and easily defended in case of attack. In the middle of the lodge, under the upper opening which admits the light, a hole about a foot deep is dug to answer as a fireplace. Around the lodge there are beds, one, two or three feet from the floor, with doe-skins as curtains. The whole village is surrounded by a high and strong palisade of large trees, squared.
The Minnetarees raise Indian-corn, squashes, beans and potatoes. The other permanent villages on the Missouri are those of the Osages, Omahas, Poncas, Pawnees, Aricaras and Mandans. The Minnetarees are of the same stock as the Crows, and speak about the same language. They say that they separated in consequence of a dispute between two chiefs, over a bison that both claimed to have killed on a hunt.
The great chief of the latter [Minnetaree] village, called Four Bears, is the most civil and affable Indian that I met on the Missouri. He begged me to baptize his two little boys and several members of his family. All the children