Volume 1

FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE BIG BELLIES. 349
at night in small inclosures under the stages fronting their
huts. Their canoes are of a different shape, having one
end square and the other round ; but of the same material
and construction, and used in the same manner, the ferryman
sitting in the round end
;
but they seldom have occasion
to cross the river, w^hich is about a mile distant from
their village. They reside here only during the summer.
Early in the fall, when cold weather begins, they decamp
in a body for the Snake's Lodge, where they take up their
residence for the winter in huts of the same construction
as those already mentioned. There they do not remain
inactive ;
all, excepting the old people, decamp in parties
of 30 to 40 tents on long excursions to the W. and S. W.,
sometimes for two or three months, during which time
they hunt wolves, foxes, kitts, and buffaloes. They are
well provided for these excursions, every family having a
leather tent, many horses, and a vast number of stout,
strong dogs. Several families have from 20 to 30 horses.
This custom of abandoning their summer habitation is
less a matter of choice than of necessity ; for this village
has been so long settled that firewood is only to be got
from a great distance, and their only resource for a summer's
stock is the driftwood on the Missourie, which they
collect in the same manner as the Mandanes do. But as
they are more numerous the consumption is greater, and
transportation from the river to the village is too tedious a
piece of business for the winter. Knife river supplies them
with water, which they carry into the villages in buffalo
paunches. Their other utensils and implements are the
same as those of their neighbors, and they are likewise provided
with European kettles to cook meat, besides their
own earthen pots to boil corn and vegetables. Early in
the spring they return to sow their fields, while the men
are employed getting driftwood and drowned buffalo.
In 1804-05, when Captains Lewis and Clark wintered near
this place, they presented the people with silver medals and
flags, the same as they gave to the Mandanes ; but the Big