As told elsewhere in this work, Maximilian, on June 18, 1833, arrived at Fort Clark. At that time representatives of several tribes were gathered in the vicinity of the fort. These included Crows, "of which tribe there were now seventy tents about the fort." Referring to these in particular, he remarked: "The tents of the Crows are exactly like those of the Sioux, and are set up without any regular order. On the poles, instead of scalps, there were small pieces of coloured cloth, chiefly red, floating like streamers in the wind." (Maximilian, (1), p. 172.) Later in the day Maximilian accompanied the Indian agent to the tipi occupied by the Crow chief Eripuass. This he found to be of much interest. "The interior of the tent itself had a striking effect. A small fire in the centre gave sufficient light; the chief sat opposite the entrance, and round him many fine tall men, placed according to their rank, all with no other covering than a breech-cloth. Places were assigned to us on buffalo hides near the chief, who then lighted his Sioux pipe, which had a long flat tube, ornamented with bright yellow nails, made each of us take a few puffs, holding the pipe in his hand, and then passed it round to the left hand." And speaking of the tribe as a whole he wrote: "The territory in which they move about is bounded, to the north or north-west, by the Yellow Stone River, and extends round Bighorn River, towards the sources of Chayenne River and the Rocky Mountains. These Indians are a wandering tribe of hunters, who neither dwell in fixed villages, like the Mandans, Manitaries, and Arikkaras, nor make any plantations except of tobacco, which, however, are very small.... They roam about with their leather tents, hunt the buffalo, and other wild animals, and have many horses and dogs, which, however, they never use for food.... The Crow women are very skilful in various kinds of work, and their shirts and dresses of bighorn leather, embroidered and ornamented with dyed porcupine quills, are particularly handsome, as well as their buffalo robes, which are painted and embroidered in the same manner." (Op. cit., pp. 174-175.)
During the spring of 1863 a peculiar type of log house was discovered in the Crow country which had probably been erected by members of that tribe. They may have resembled the cabins mentioned by Matthews as standing at the Fort Berthold Reservation nine years later. On May 2, 1863, a member of the Yellowstone expedition entered in his journal: "In the timber along the river, we saw many houses built of dry logs and bark; some are built like lodges, but the most of them are either square or oblong, and among them were many large and strong corrals of dry logs. The Crows evidently winter along here, and, from the sign, they are very numerous." The following day, "We camped three miles below Pompey's Pillar, on which we found the names of Captain Clark and two of his men cut in the rock, with the date July 25, 1806.... Buffalo to be seen in every direction, and very tame.... No wonder the Crows like their country; it is a perfect paradise for a hunter.... About sundown a large band of buffalo came in to drink at a water-hole about two hundred yards in front of our camp." (Stuart, (1), pp. 176-178.) This may have represented a winter camp ground, with permanent huts to which the Crows returned from year to year. It was in the northeastern part of the present Yellowstone County, Montana.
A very interesting description of a Crow camp is to be found in Lord Dunraven's narrative of his hunting trip to the Yellowstone region performed during the year 1874. The particular camp stood not far from the present Livingston, Montana. In describing the camp he wrote: "The lodges are tall, circular dwellings, composed of long fir-poles planted on a circle in the ground. These slope inwards and form a cone, meeting and leaning against each other at the apex; and upon them is stretched a covering of buffalo hides. They make very comfortable, clean and airy houses, and are far preferable to any tent, being much warmer in winter and cooler in summer. A tepee will hold from twelve to fifteen or even twenty individuals; several families, therefore, generally occupy one in common. The earth is beaten down hard, forming a smooth floor, and in the middle burns the fire, the smoke finding an exit through an aperture at the top. The portions of the tepee assigned to each family or couple are divided by a kind of wicker-work screen at the head and foot, separating a segment of a circle of about eight or ten feet in length and five or six in breadth, closed by the screen at either end, and at the outer side by the wall of the lodge, but being open towards the interior. The fire is common property, and has a certain amount of reverence paid to it. It is considered very bad manners, for instance, to step between the fire and the place where the head man sits. All round, on the lodge poles and on the screens, are suspended the arms, clothing, finery, and equipment of the men and their horses. Each lodge forms a little community in itself.
"The tepees are pitched with all the regularity of an organized camp, in a large circle, inside which the stock is driven at night or on an alarm or occasion of danger. Outside the door is struck a spear or pole, on which is suspended the shield of the chief and a mysterious something tied up in a bundle, which is great medicine." (Dunraven, (1), pp. 94-95.)
A white shield supported outside a tipi is visible in the photograph reproduced as plate [47]. This remarkable picture has not, unfortunately, been identified, but it was undoubtedly made in the Upper Missouri Valley, and from the nature of the tipis, many appearing to be quite small, it may be assumed that it was a party of Indians who had come on a trading trip, rather than that it represented a regular village.
Several accounts are preserved of large structures discovered in the region frequented by the Crows which, although not positively identified, were possibly erected by members of that tribe. Thus Lewis and Clark on July 24, 1806, arrived at an island in the Yellowstone River between 5 and 6 miles below the mouth of Clark's Fork, and wrote: "It is a beautiful spot with a rich soil, covered with wild rye, and a species of grass like the blue-grass, and some of another kind, which the Indians wear in plaits round the neck, on account of a strong scent resembling that of vanilla. There is also a thin growth of cottonwood scattered over the island. In the centre is a large Indian lodge which seems to have been built during the last summer. It is in the form of a cone, sixty feet in diameter at the base, composed of twenty poles, each forty-five feet long, and two and a half in circumference, and the whole structure covered with bushes. The interior was curiously ornamented. On the tops of the poles were feathers of eagles, and circular pieces of wood, with sticks across them in the form of a girdle: from the centre was suspended a stuffed buffaloe skin; on the side fronting the door was hung a cedar bush: on one side of the lodge a buffaloe's head; on the other several pieces of wood stuck in the ground. From its whole appearance, it was more like a lodge for holding councils, than an ordinary dwelling house." (Lewis and Clark, (1), II, p. 386.) This was undoubtedly a ceremonial lodge, and it was probably quite similar to another observed a few years later. To quote the description of the second example: "In the country of the Crow Indians, (Up-sa-ro-ka,) Mr. Dougherty saw a singular arrangement of the magi. The upper portion of a cotton-wood tree was implanted, with its base in the earth, and around it was a sweat house, the upper part of the top of the tree arising through the roof. A gray bison skin, extended with oziers on the inside so as to exhibit a natural appearance, was suspended above the house, and on the branches were attached several pairs of children's mockasins and leggings, and from one of the limbs of the tree, a very large fan made of war eagle's feathers was dependent." (James, (1), I, p. 272.)
Caddoan tribes.
The ancient habitat of the many small tribes which evidently later became confederated, thus forming the principal groups of this linguistic stock, was in the southwest, whence the Pawnee and Arikara, and those gathered under the name of the Wichita, moved northward.
The Caddo proper, the name of a tribe later applied to the confederated group of which they formed the principal member, formerly occupied the valley of the Red River of Louisiana, the many villages of the several tribes being scattered along the banks of that stream and of its tributaries in northern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, and eastern Texas. Although usually included in the same linguistic group with the Pawnee, Arikara, Wichita, and others, several notable authorities are inclined to regard the Caddo as constituting a separate and distinct linguistic group. This may be established and recognized in the future.