470. _Sioux worshipping at the Red Boulders._ A large boulder and two small ones, bearing some resemblance to a buffalo cow and two calves, painted red by the Indians, and regarded by them with superstitious reverence, near the "Coteau des Prairies." 471. _Camanchee Warrior lancing an Osage_, at full speed. 472. _Camanchees giving the Arrows to the Medicine Rock._ A curious superstition of the Camanchees: going to war, they have no faith in their success, unless they pass a celebrated painted rock, where they appease the spirit of war (who resides there), by riding by it at full gallop, and sacrificing their best arrow by throwing it against the side of the ledge. 473. _"Bàtiste, Bogard, and I" approaching Buffalo_, on the Missouri. 474. _Wi-jun-jon (an Assinneboin Chief), going to and returning from Washington._ This man was taken to that city in 1832, in a beautiful Indian dress, by Major Sanford, the Indian agent, and returned to his country the next spring, in a Colonel's uniform. He lectured a while to his people on the customs of the whites, when he was denounced by them for telling lies, which he had learned of the whites, and was, by his own people, put to death at the mouth of the Yellow Stone. 475. "_Butte de Mort_," Upper Missouri, a great burial-place of the Sioux, called by the French "_Butte de Mort_," Hill of Death. Regarded by the Indians with great dread and superstition. There are several thousand buffalo and human skulls, perfectly bleached and curiously arranged about it. 476. "_Rain-making_," amongst the Mandans, a very curious custom. Medicine-men performing their mysteries inside of the lodge, and young men volunteer to stand upon the lodge from sunrise until sundown, in turn, commanding it to rain. Each one has to hazard the disgrace which attaches (when he descends at sundown) to a fruitless attempt; and he who succeeds acquires a lasting reputation as a _Mystery or Medicine man_. _They never fail to make it rain!_ as this ceremony continues from day to day until rain comes. 477. "Smoking the Shield." A young warrior, making his shield, invites his friends to a carouse and a feast, who dance around his shield as it is smoking and hardening over a fire built in the ground. 478. "_The Thunder's Nest_" (Nid du Tonnerre), and a party of Indians cautiously approaching it, Coteau des Prairies. Tradition of the Sioux is that in this little bunch of bushes the thunders are hatched out by quite a small bird, about as large (say their _Medicine-men_, who profess to have seen it) as the end of a man's thumb. She sits on her eggs, and they hatch out in claps of thunder. No one approaches within several rods of the place.