There were also four articles of great veneration and importance lying on the floor of the lodge, which were sacks, containing in each some three or four gallons of water. These also were objects of superstitious regard, and made with great labour and much ingenuity; each one of them being constructed of the skin of the buffalo’s neck, and most elaborately sewed together in the form of a large tortoise lying on its back, with a bunch of eagle’s quills appended to it as a tail; and each of them having a stick, shaped like a drum-stick, lying on them, with which, in a subsequent stage of these ceremonies, as will be seen, they are beaten upon by several of their mystery-men, as a part of the music for their strange dances and mysteries. By the side of these sacks which they call _Eeh-teeh-ka_, are two other articles of equal importance, which they call _Eeh-na-dee_ (rattles), in the form of a gourd-shell made also of dried skins, and used at the same time as the others, in the music (or rather _noise_ and _din_) for their dances, &c. These four sacks of water have the appearance of very great antiquity; and by enquiring of my very ingenious friend and patron, the _medicine-man_, after the ceremonies were over, he very gravely told me, that “those four tortoises contained the waters from the four quarters of the world—that these waters had been contained therein ever since the settling down of the waters!” I did not think it best to advance any argument against so ridiculous a theory, and therefore could not even enquire or learn, at what period they had been instituted, or how often, or on what occasions, the water in them had been changed or replenished. I made several propositions, through my friend Mr. Kipp, the trader and interpreter, to purchase one of these strange things by offering them a very liberal price; to which I received in answer that these, and all the very numerous articles used in these ceremonies, being a _society property_ were _medicine_, and could not be sold for any consideration; so I abandoned all thoughts of obtaining anything, except what I have done by the _medicine_ operation of my pencil, which was applied to everything, and even upon that they looked with decided distrust and apprehension, as a sort of theft or sacrilege. Such then was the group, and such the appearance of the interior of the medicine-lodge during the three first, and part of the fourth day also, of the Mandan religious ceremonies. The medicine-man with a group about him, of young aspirants who were under his sole controul, as was every article and implement to be used, and the sanctity of this solitary and gloomy looking place, which could not be trespassed upon by any man’s presence without his most sovereign permission.