As has been frequently stated, there are no large mounds perceived on the upper Missouri, the work of Indians, as have been discovered in some of the western States, but were it an object or custom to bury the dead in that manner we believe there is energy and power sufficient among any of these tribes to accomplish a work of the kind, even with the rude tools they have, in a loose soil, free of rock, and in the summer season. These mounds have most probably been national or public depositories for the dead of Indians in stationary huts; and as great superstition is attached to all funeral rites, it is not improbable they were excavated in a length of time by the united efforts of the nation. Being a work in which both women and children could join, and which could be executed with the most primitive tools, they no doubt worked at it in favorable seasons, stimulated to exertion by the directions and commands of the divining men. These marks of antiquity only prove the nation to have been numerous, stationary, and unanimous in the undertaking. The materials disinterred from these receptacles must show beyond doubt the state of arts and advancement of the tribe at the time the interment was made, supposing the articles thus exhibited to be of their own manufacture and not traded from Europeans. Bones reburied are not accompanied with a new deposit of instruments. Those articles first enveloped with the body, if found, are reinterred with it, which, having been the property of the deceased, are valuable, but to none other. It is only when the corpses fall from scaffolds or the bones of the dead by some means have become exposed that a second burial takes place; otherwise no Indians disturb the repose of the dead. ORPHANS AND THE AGED