Page:A Topographical Description of the State of Ohio, Indiana Territory, and Louisiana.djvu/137

127 present number. They live in fortified villages; claim no particular tract of country; hunt only in their own neighbourhood; raise corn, beans, melons, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco. They barter these articles, and horses and mules, with their neighbours, the Assinniboins, for guns, ammunition, axes, kettles, and many other articles, which are purchased of the Canadian traders, on the Assinniboin river. The traders themselves frequently bring their merchandise to them. The Mandans, again, exchange the articles thus obtained, for horses, leather tents, furs,, and peltry, with the Crow Indians, and many other nations, who visit them for the purpose of traffic. The trade carried on, at these villages, gives them some resemblance of mercantile towns. They reside on both sides of the Missouri, about sixteen hundred miles from its mouth.

The Ah-wah-ha-wa, or Gens de Soulier, is a small nation, very little different from the Mandans, excepting that they carry on a constant and unjust warfare with the defenceless Snake Indians. They have fifty warriors, and two hundred inhabitants. Their village is only three miles above the Mandans, on the south side of the Missouri. They claim to have been a part of the Crow Indians, whom they still acknowledge as relation, but have resided on the Missouri, as long back as their tradition extends.

The Minetares, or Gross Ventres, is a large nation, consisting of six hundred warriors, and