An individual, who intends to perform this ceremony, takes some presents with him, such as a gun, horse, or strouding, and also provides a smooth skin, upon which hieroglyphics may be drawn, and repairs to the rock accompanied by his friends and magi. On his arrival, he deposits the presents there, and after smoking to the rock, he washes a portion of the face of it clean, and retires with his fellow devotees to a specified distance. During the principal part of his stay, he cries aloud to his god to have pity on him; to grant him success in war and in hunting; to favour his endeavours to take prisoners, horses, and scalps from the enemy. When the appointed time for lamentation and prayer has elapsed, he returns to the rock; his presents are no longer there, and he believes them to have been accepted and carried off by the Manhopa himself. Upon the part of the rock, which he had washed, he finds certain hieroglyphics traced with white clay, of which he can generally interpret the meaning, particularly when assisted by some of the magi, who were no doubt privy to the whole transaction. These representations are supposed to relate to his future fortune, or to that of his family or nation; he copies them off with pious care {253} and scrupulous exactness upon the skin which he brought for the purpose, and returns to his home, to read from them to the people, the destiny of himself or of them. If a bear be represented, with its head directed towards the village, the approach of a war party, or the visitation of some evil, is apprehended. If, on the contrary, the tail of the bear be towards the village, nothing but good is anticipated, and they rejoice. They say that an Indian, on his return from the rock, exhibited to his friends, on his hieroglyphical chart, the representation of a strange building, as erected near the village; they were all much surprised and did not perfectly comprehend its meaning; but four months afterwards, the prediction was, as it happened, verified, and a stockade trading house was erected there, by the French trader Jessaume.[13] [13] See sketch of Jessaume given in Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, note 94.—ED. Lewis and Clark inform us that the Mandans have a similar oracle. At the distance of the journey of one day and a half from Knife-creek,[14] which divides the larger and smaller towns of the Minnetarees from each other, are situate two conical hills, separated by about the distance of a mile. One of these hills was supposed to impart a prolific virtue to such squaws as resorted to it for the purpose of crying and lamenting, for the circumstance of their having no male issue.