uested us to take one of the Ricara chiefs up
to the Mandans and negociate a peace between the two nations. To this we
replied in a suitable way, and then repaired to the third village. Here
we were addressed by the chief in nearly the same terms as before, and
entertained with a present of ten bushels of corn, some beans, dried
pumpkins, and squashes. After we had answered and explained the
magnitude and power of the United States, the three chiefs came with us
to the boat. We gave them some sugar, a little salt, and a sunglass. Two
of them then left us, and the chief of the third, by name Ahketahnasha
or Chief of the Town, accompanied us to the Mandans. At two o'clock we
left the Indians, who crowded to the shore to take leave of us, and
after making seven and a half miles landed on the north side, and had a
clear, cool, pleasant evening.

The three villages which we have just left, are the residence of a
nation called the Ricaras. They were originally colonies of Pawnees, who
established themselves on the Missouri, below the Chayenne, where the
traders still remember that twenty years ago they occupied a number of
villages. From that situation a part of the Ricaras emigrated to the
neighbourhood of the Mandans, with whom they were then in alliance. The
rest of the nation continued near the Chayenne till the year 1797, in
the course of which, distressed by their wars with the Sioux, they
joined their countrymen near the Mandans. Soon after a new war arose
between the Ricaras and the Mandans, in consequence of which the former
came down the river to their present position. In this migration those
who had first gone to the Mandans kept together, and now live in the two
lower villages, which may thence be considered as the Ricaras proper.
The third village was composed of such remnants of the villages as had
survived the wars, and as these were nine in number a difference of
pronunciation and some difference of language may be observed between
them and the Ricaras proper, who do not understand all the words of
these wanderers. The villages are within the distance of four miles of
each other, the two lower ones consisting of between one hundred and
fifty and two hundred men each, the third of three hundred. The Ricaras
are tall and well proportioned, the women handsome and lively, and as
among other savages to them falls all the drudgery of the field and the
labours of procuring subsistence, except that of hunting: both se