Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/165

 SECT. TV.] BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC. 129 thousand five hundred souls ; their vocabulary was taken by Dr. Say. The Ricara villages are situated on the Missouri, about one hundred and fifty miles below the Mandanes, in latitude 46J°. They cultivate the soil, and are, like the Mandanes, always exposed to the attacks of the erratic tribes. They accordingly had formerly united with them, and were settled together twenty miles below the present site of the Mandane villages. They quarrelled and separated, since which time they have had also a short war with the United States. They appear now to be at peace with their neighbours, and are computed at three thousand souls. All the accounts of the Indians and of the interpreters agree in the fact of their speaking Pawnee, but w T e have no vocabulary of their language. We have now enumerated all the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi which cultivate the soil ; and it has been seen, that north of the Red River they consist only of the Sauks and Foxes, who are Algonkins; of the Pawnees; and, amongst the Sioux tribes, of those only which belong to the southern group, and of the Mandanes and stationary Minetares. The six western tribes of the Dahcotas, the Assiniboins, the Crows, and all the other tribes not yet enumerated, whether east or west of the Rocky Mountains, cultivate nothing whatever ; and those east of the Rocky Mountains subsist principally on the meat of the buffalo. But whether erratic, or agricultural, there is a marked difference between the habits and character of all the Indians, who dwelt amidst the dense forest which extends from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and those of the inhabitants of the western prairie. These are everywhere less ferocious than those on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Like all savages, they put to death the prisoners taken in battle ; but the horrid practice of inflicting on them the most excruciating torture for days together, does not appear to have prevailed anywhere beyond the Mississippi. These observa- tions seem, however, to apply more forcibly to the southern cultivating tribes of the Sioux family and to the Pawnees. Dr. Say, during his residence amongst the Omahaws, collected some important facts, which are equally applicable to their neighbours on the south of the Missouri, of either of those two families. They reside in their villages at most five months of the year, principally for the purpose of planting, cultivating, and gathering VOL. II. 17