Page:A Topographical Description of the State of Ohio, Indiana Territory, and Louisiana.djvu/145

135 said to be fertile, well watered, and in most parts well timbered. These people are divided into four bands, called by themselves, Ahah-ar-ro-pir-no-pah, Noo-ta, Pa-rees-car, and E-hart-sar. They annually visit the Mandans, Minetares, and Ahwahaways, to whom they barter horses, mules, leather lodges, and many articles of Indian apparel, for which they receive guns, ammunition, axes, kettles, awls, and other European manufactures. When they return to their country, they are, in turn, visited by the Paunch and Snake Indians, to whom they barter most of the articles they have obtained from the nations on the Missouri, for horses and mules, of which those nations have a greater abundance than themselves. They also obtain of the Snake Indians, bridle bits, blankets and some other articles, which those Indians purchase of the Spaniards.

The Al-la-ka-we-ah, or Paunch Indians, or Gens de Pause, reside on each side of the Yellow Stone river, near the Rocky Mountains, and heads of the Big-horn river. They have eight hundred warriors, and two thousand three hundred souls. These are said to be a peaceable, well disposed nation. Their country is variegated, consisting of mountains, vallies, plains, and wood lands, irregularly interspersed. These people, as well as the Crow Indians, inhabit a country, which produces an abundance of the most