The Riccarees have been a very small tribe, far inferior to the Mandans; and by the traditions of the Mandans, as well as from the evidence of the first explorers, Lewis and Clarke, and others, have lived, until quite lately, on terms of intimacy with the Mandans, whose villages they have successively occupied as the Mandans have moved and vacated them, as they now are doing, since disease has swept the whole of the Mandans away.
Whether my derivation of the word Mandan from Madawgwys be correct or not, I will pass it over to the world at present merely as presumptive proof, for want of better, which, perhaps, this enquiry may elicit; and, at the same time, I offer the Welsh word Mandon, (the woodroof, a species of madder used as a red dye,) as the name that might possibly have been applied by their Welsh neighbours to these people, on account of their very ingenious mode of giving the beautiful red and other dyes to the porcupine quills with which they garnish their dresses.
In their own language they called themselves See-pohs-ka-nu-mah-ka-kee, (the people of the pheasants,) which was probably the name of the primitive stock, before they were mixed with any other people; and to have got such a name, it is natural to suppose that they must have come from a country where pheasants existed, which cannot be found short of reaching the timbered country at the base of the Rocky Mountains, some six or eight hundred miles West of the Mandans, or the forests of Indiana and Ohio, some hundreds of miles to the South and East of where they last lived.
The above facts, together with the other one which they repeatedly related to me, and which I have before alluded to, that they had often been to the hill of the Red Pipe Stone, and that they once lived near it, carry conclusive evidence, I think, that they have formerly occupied a country much farther to the South; and that they have repeatedly changed their locations, until they reached the spot of their last residence, where they have met with their final misfortune. And as evidence in support of my opinion that they came from the banks of the Ohio, and have brought with them some of the customs of the civilized people who erected those ancient fortifications, I am able to say, that the numerous specimens of pottery which have been taken from the graves and tumuli about those ancient works, (many of which may be seen now, in the Cincinnati Museum, and some of which, my own donations, and which have so much surprised the enquiring world,) were to be seen in great numbers in the use of the Mandans, and scarcely a day in the summer, when the visitor to their village would not see the women at work with their hands and fingers, moulding them from black clay, into vases, cups, pitchers, and pots, and baking them in their little kilns in the sides of the hill, or under the bank of the river.
In addition to this art, which I am sure belongs to no other tribe on the Continent, these people have also, as a secret with themselves, the extraordinary art of manufacturing a very beautiful and lasting kind of blue glass beads, which they wear on their necks in great quantities, and decidedly value above all others that are brought amongst them by the Fur Traders.
This secret is not only one that the Traders did not introduce amongst them, but one that they cannot learn from them; and at the same time, beyond a doubt, an art that has been introduced amongst them by some civilized people, as it is as yet unknown to other Indian tribes in that vicinity, or elsewhere. Of this interesting fact, Lewis and Clarke have given an account thirty-three years ago, at a time when no Traders, or other white people, had been amongst the Mandans, to have taught them so curious an art.
The Mandan canoes which are altogether different from those of all other tribes, are exactly the Welsh coracle, made of raw-hides, the skins of buffaloes, stretched underneath a frame made of willow or other boughs, and shaped nearly round, like a tub; which the woman carries on her head from her wigwam to the water’s edge, and having stepped into it, stands in front, and propels it by dipping her paddle forward, and drawing it to her, instead of paddling by the side. In referring to [plate 240], letter c, [page 138], the reader will see several drawings of these seemingly awkward crafts, which, nevertheless, the Mandan women will pull through the water at a rapid rate.
How far these extraordinary facts may go in the estimation of the reader, with numerous others which I have mentioned in Volume I., whilst speaking of the Mandans, of their various complexions, colours of hair, and blue and grey eyes, towards establishing my opinion as a sound theory, I cannot say; but this much I can safely aver, that at the moment that I first saw these people, I was so struck with the peculiarity of their appearance, that I was under the instant conviction that they were an amalgam of a native, with some civilized race; and from what I have seen of them, and of the remains on the Missouri and Ohio rivers, I feel fully convinced that these people have emigrated from the latter stream; and that they have, in the manner that I have already stated, with many of their customs, been preserved from the almost total destruction of the bold colonists of Madawc, who, I believe, settled upon and occupied for a century or so, the rich and fertile banks of the Ohio. In adducing the proof for the support of this theory, it I have failed to complete it, I have the satisfaction that I have not taken up much of the reader’s time, and I can therefore claim his attention a few moments longer, whilst I refer him to a brief vocabulary of the Mandan language in the following pages, where he may compare it with that of the Welsh; and better, perhaps, than I can, decide whether there is any affinity existing between the two; and if he finds it, it will bring me a friendly aid in support of the position I have taken.
From the comparison, that I have been able to make, I think I am authorized to say, that in the following list of words, which form a part of that vocabulary, there is a striking similarity, and quite sufficient to excite surprise in the minds of the attentive reader, if it could be proved that those resemblances were but the results of accident between two foreign and distinct idioms.
| English. | Mandan. | Welsh. | Pronounced. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Me | Mi | Me | |
| You | Ne | Chwi | Chwe | |
| He | E | A | A | |
| She | Ea | E | A | |
| It | Ount | Hwynt | Hooynt | |
| We | Noo | Ni | Ne | |
| They | Eonah |  | Hwna mas. | Hoona |
| Hona fem. | Hona | |||
| Those ones | Yrhai Hyna | |||
| No, or, there is not | Megosh | Nagoes | Nagosh | |
| No | | Nage | ||
| Nag | ||||
| Na | ||||
| Head | Pan | Pen | Pan | |
| The Great Spirit | Maho peneta | Mawr penaethir[47] | Maoor panaether | |
| Ysprid mawr[48] | Uspryd maoor | |||