er 21st. The weather was this day fine: the river clear of ice and
rising a little: we are now settled in our new winter habitation, and
shall wait with much anxiety the first return of spring to continue our
journey.

The villages near which we are established are five in number, and are
the residence of three distinct nations: the Mandans, the Ahnahaways,
and the Minnetarees. The history of the Mandans, as we received it from
our interpreters and from the chiefs themselves, and as it is attested
by existing monuments, illustrates more than that of any other nation
the unsteady movements and the tottering fortunes of the American
nations. Within the recollection of living witnesses, the Mandans were
settled forty years ago in nine villages, the ruins of which we passed
about eighty miles below, and situated seven on the west and two on the
east side of the Missouri. The two finding themselves wasting away
before the small-pox and the Sioux, united into one village, and moved
up the river opposite to the Ricaras. The same causes reduced the
remaining seven to five villages, till at length they emigrated in a
body to the Ricara nation, where they formed themselves into two
villages, and joined those of their countrymen who had gone before them.
In their new residence they were still insecure, and at length the three
villages ascended the Missouri to their present position. The two who
had emigrated together still settled in the two villages on the
northwest side of the Missouri, while the single village took a position
on the southeast side. In this situation they were found by those who
visited them in 1796; since which the two villages have united into one.
They are now in two villages, one on the southeast of the Missouri, the
other on the opposite side, and at the distance of three miles across.
The first, in an open plain, contains about forty or fifty lodges, built
in the same way as those of the Ricaras: the second, the same number,
and both may raise about three hundred and fifty men.

On the same side of the river, and at the distance of four miles from
the lower Mandan village, is another called Mahaha. It is situated in a
high plain at the mouth of Knife river, and is the residence of the
Ahnahaways. This nation, whose name indicates that they were "people
whose village is on a hill," formerly resided on the Missouri, about
thirty miles below where they now live. The Assiniboins and Sioux forced
them to a spo