Volume 1

354 HOW BIG BELLIES BULL THE MARKET.
purchase ; everyone
receiving according to the value of his
contribution. Those strips of hide are kept as if very
precious, and displayed only upon certain occasions. At
this kind of sale you may get some good horses for hunting
buffalo, but none of their first-rate war horses.
If you wish
to have one of these, a different method must be employed.
Inquiry must first be made which of
the natives has such a
particular horse, and then the bargain is made in a more
private manner, with him only ;
you point out the horse
you want, and if you are not too exorbitant in your demand,
he seldom, if ever, refuses. By this manner of disposing
of the hide, you will always get two or three firstrate
horses, and generally their loads of corn, etc., are
given with them. They get a number of those skins from
the Rocky Mountain Indians and Schians in exchange for
guns, ammunition, etc., so that scarcely any man of any
note in all the five villages is without one or more of them.
They prefer a calf's skin to that of a full-grown animal. I
observed one of the latter in the Mandane village, whose
head was on one side of a lead color, inclining to black,
and upon the other perfectly white ;
upon the body were
many large spots of the same hue, on a white ground.
All the tribes I saw on the Missourie have a mean, dirty
custom, but more particularly the Big Bellies. When you
wish to purchase a horse, or, indeed, any trifle, they very
often instantly accept the price offered, and go away apparently
pleased with the bargain. But they soon come back,
refund the price, and without ceremony take back what
they have just sold. Should you offer to increase the
price, they may accept it, but you may rest assured it will
not be long before they bring back your property and ask
for theirs in return. It is of no use to augment the price,
as in the end they will insist on taking back their own
property, being at the same time very particular not to embezzle
the least article of yours. The best way is to take
back your own property upon the first offer, and without
murmuring. I was not philosopher enough to act in this