A knotted wooden club
Arikkara bird-cage gourds
Many Mandans likewise carry lances, and I was told that they had a remarkably handsome one, of which, however, I did not obtain a sight. These Indians have shields, which do not differ from those of the tribes already mentioned. They all wear, in their girdle, behind, their large knife, which is indispensable to them in hunting and in war. Some use, for the handle of the knife, the lower jaw of a bear, with the hair and teeth remaining.[327] The bow and arrows are, even now, much esteemed by all the nations living on the Missouri, while those that have been entirely driven from that river (the Osages) greatly prefer the gun; the former, therefore, are capital archers, which cannot be affirmed of the Osages. The Mandans and Manitaries are said to fight well in their manner, and there have been frequent instances of individual bravery. One of their most distinguished warriors, at this time, is Mato-Topé, of whom we shall often have to speak in the sequel. He has killed more than five chiefs of other nations. The father of Mato-Topé, whose name was Suck-Schih (the handsome child), behaved exactly {391} in the same manner as the Manitari chief, Kokoahkis, mentioned by Say.[328] He went, one evening, wrapped up in his robe, into a hut of the hostile Arikkaras, as the young men of the village often do, ate with his face covered, so that he was taken for a young Arikkara; then laid himself down by the side of a woman, and afterwards cut off a lock of her hair, with which he retired. He might have killed the woman, as Kokoahkis did, but refrained from doing so.
Wounds appear to be healed with remarkable ease. In cases of arrow wounds, they like to force the arrow quite through, that the iron head may not remain in the wound. Men and women are often scalped, in battle, who afterwards come to themselves, and are cured. Such a large wound on the head is rubbed with fat; the medicine man fumigates it, singing at the same time. Disorders are not uncommon among the Indians. The Mandans and Manitaries often suffer from diseases in the eyes; many are one-eyed, or have a tunicle over one eye. In inflammation of the eye they have a custom of scratching the inner eye with the leaf of a kind of grass, resembling a saw, which causes them to bleed very much, and this may often occasion the loss of the eye. Rheumatism, coughs, and the like, are frequent, because they go half naked in the severest cold, and plunge into ice water. Much benefit is often derived from their steam-baths, in a well closed hut, where a thick steam is produced by pouring water on hot stones. They then immediately go into the cold, roll themselves in the snow, or plunge into a river covered with drifting ice, but do not return to a warm hut, as the Russians do. Many Indians are said to have died on the spot by trying this remedy. Some suffer from gout; but all who survive these violent remedies are stronger and more hardy. Another remedy is trampling on the whole body, especially the stomach, as is practised also among the Brazilians. This operation is performed with such violence, as often to occasion hard swellings in the intestines, or ulcers, especially in the liver. The steam-bath is used as a remedy in all kinds of disorders. Vaccination, the application of which met with no difficulties among several nations on the great lakes, especially the Chippeways, is not yet practised among the Mandans and Manitaries. Spitting of blood is said to be frequent, but not pulmonary consumption. Gonorrhœa is very common; they affirm that all venereal disorders come to them from the Crows beyond the Rocky Mountains. For such disorders they often seat themselves over a heated pot, but very frequently burn themselves. They cut open buboes, lengthwise, with a knife, and then run for a couple of miles as fast as they can. The jaundice is said not to occur among them. It appears that they are not acquainted with emetics, but, if they feel anything wrong in the stomach, they thrust a feather down the throat, and thus produce vomiting. Their purgatives are obtained from the vegetable kingdom. The poison-vine often produces swellings, especially in children. As rattlesnakes are rare in the vicinity of the villages, it is, of course, seldom that any one is bitten by them; these Indians are said, however, to have very good remedies against the bite. Frozen limbs are rubbed with snow. {392} When blindness arises from the dazzling brightness of the snow, which it very frequently does in March, they bathe the eyes with a solution of gunpowder and water. They often have recourse to bleeding, which they perform with a sharp flint, or a knife. They often apply to the Whites for medicine, and willingly follow their prescriptions. These Indians have also various remedies for their horses; thus, when a horse has the strangury, they give it a piece of a wasp's nest.
When a Mandan or Manitari dies, they do not let the corpse remain long in the village; but convey it to the distance of 200 paces, and lay it on a narrow stage, about six feet long, resting on four stakes about ten feet high, the body being first laced up in buffalo robes and a blanket.[329] The face, painted red, is turned towards the east. A number of such stages are seen about their villages, and, although they themselves say that this custom is injurious to the health of the villages, they do not renounce it. On many of these stages there are small boxes, containing the bodies of children wrapped in cloth or skins. Ravens are usually seen sitting on these stages, and the Indians dislike that bird, because it feeds on the flesh of their relations. If you ask a Mandan why they do not deposit their dead in the ground, he answers—"The lord of life has, indeed, told us that we came from the ground, and should return to it again; yet we have lately begun to lay the bodies of the dead on stages, because we love them, and would weep at the sight of them." They believe that every person has several spirits dwelling in him; one of these spirits is black, another brown, and another light-coloured, the latter of which alone returns to the lord of life. They think that after death they go to the south, to several villages which are often visited by the gods; that the brave and most eminent go to the village of the good, but the wicked into a different one; that they there live in the same manner as they do here, carry on occupations, eat the same food, have wives, and enjoy the pleasures of the chase and war. Those who are kind-hearted are supposed to make many presents and do good, find everything in abundance, and their existence there is dependent on their course of life while in the world.[330] Some of the inhabitants of the Mandan villages are said not to believe all these particulars, and suppose that after death they will live in the sun or in a certain star.
They mourn for the dead a whole year; cut off their hair, cover their body and head with white or grey clay, and often, with a knife or sharp flint, make incisions in their arms and legs in parallel lines, in their whole length, so that they are covered with blood. For some days after death the relations make a loud lament and bewailing. Often a relative, or some other friend, covers the dead, as they express it: he brings one or two woollen cloths, of a red, blue, white, or green colour, and, as soon as the body is laid on the stage, mounts upon the scaffolding, and conceals the body beneath the covering. A friend who will do this is, in token of respect, presented, by the family of the deceased, with a horse. If it is known beforehand that a person intends doing this honour to the dead, a horse is at once tied near the stage, and the friend, having performed {393} this last office, unties the animal and leads it away. If a Mandan or Manitari falls in battle, and the news of his death reaches the family, who are unable to recover the body, a buffalo skin is rolled up and carried to the village. All those who desire to lament the deceased assemble, and many articles of value are distributed among them. The mourners cut off their hair, wound themselves with knives, and make loud lamentations. Joints of the fingers are not cut off here, as among the Blackfeet, as a token of mourning, but as signs of penance and offering to the lord of life and the first man.[331]