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Updated: May 21, 2025
The party also celebrated New Year's Day by similar festivities. Sixteen of the men were given leave to go up to the first Mandan village with their musical instruments, where they delighted the whole tribe with their dances, one of the French voyageurs being especially applauded when he danced on his hands with his head downwards.
It may seem strange to modern readers familiar with the means for rapid travel and communication that no news from the explorers, later than that which they sent from the Mandan country, was received in the United States until their return, two years and four months later.
Late in November, a collision between the Sioux and the Mandans became almost certain, in consequence of the Sioux having attacked a small hunting party of the Mandans, killing one, wounding two, and capturing nine horses. Captain Clark mustered and armed twenty-four of his men, crossed over into the Mandan village and offered to lead the Indians against their enemies.
If they should tarry until the snows melted from the trail, they would be too late to reach the United States that winter and would be compelled to pass the next winter at some camp high up on the Missouri, as they had passed one winter at Fort Mandan, on their way out.
When he left the Mandan village on the 13th of December, he was already ill and it is a wonder that he did not perish from the cold on the winter journey across hill and prairie. "In all my life I have never," he says, "endured such misery from illness and fatigue, as on that journey."
When La Vérendrye had travelled some distance from the camp, he found that the bag containing his papers and many other things that would be required at the Mandan villages had been stolen by one of the Assiniboines. The thief, he also learned, had made off with his spoil. Instantly he sent two young warriors to secure him. The culprit was overtaken on the following day and the bag was recovered.
"Big White, the chief of the Mandans, now addressed them at some length, explaining the pacific intentions of his nation; the Chayennes observed that both the Ricaras and Mandans seemed to be in fault; but at the end of the council the Mandan chief was treated with great civility, and the greatest harmony prevailed among them.
After the Mandan had gone back, the brothers La Vérendrye managed to explain to the Good-looking Indians by signs that they were seeking the Horse Indians and asked for guides to one of the camps of these Indians.
Then he uttered the Mandan scalp-halloo, and dived for the door. There he paused, for just a second, to look back, that the squaw might see his face and in the glimmer of fire-light he noted a feather from the lance sticking in the hole in Wongatap's side. So back he darted, plucked the feather, and carrying it in his left hand, that the Great Spirit might help him, he ran hard.
The leggins of some of them were fringed with human hair, taken from the scalps of their enemies; and their moccassins, or shoes, were neatly ornamented with porcupine quills. They are notorious horse-stealers, and often make predatory excursions to the Mandan villages on the banks of the Missouri, to steal them.
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