“In this way the women and some old quack medicine-men together had succeeded in raising an opposition against me, and the reasons they assigned were so plausible and so exactly suited for their superstitious feelings, that they completely succeeded in exciting fears and a general panic in the minds of a number of chiefs who had agreed to sit for their portraits, and my operations were of course for several days completely at a stand. A grave council was held on the subject from day to day, and there seemed great difficulty in deciding what was to be done with me and the dangerous art which I was practising and which had far exceeded their original expectations. I finally got admitted to their sacred conclave and assured them that I was but a man like themselves, that my art had no _medicine_ or mystery about it, but could be learned by any of them, if they would practice it as long as I had; that my intentions towards them were of the most friendly kind, and that in the country where I lived brave men never allowed their squaws to frighten them with their foolish whims and stories. They all immediately arose, shook me by the hand, and dressed themselves for their pictures. After this there was no further difficulty about sitting, all were ready to be painted; the squaws were silent, and my painting-room was a continual resort for the chiefs and braves and medicine-men, where they waited with impatience for the completion of each one’s picture, that they could decide as to the likeness as it came from under the brush, that they could laugh and yell and sing a new song, and smoke a fresh pipe to the health and success of him who had just been safely delivered from the hands and the mystic operation of the _white medicine_.” The Mandans celebrate the anniversary of the feast of the deluge with great pomp. During the first four days of this religious ceremony they perform the buffalo dances four times the first day, eight the second, twelve the third, and sixteen the fourth day, around the great canoe placed in the centre of the village. This canoe represents the ark which saved the human race from the flood, and the total-number of the dances executed is forty, in commemoration of the forty nights during which the rain did not cease to fall upon the earth. The dancers chosen for this occasion are eight in number and divided into four pairs corresponding to the four cardinal points. They are naked and painted various colours; round their ankles they wear tufts of buffalo hair; a skin of the same animal with the head and horns is thrown over their shoulders; the head serves as a mask to the dancers. In one of their hands they hold a racket, in the other a lance, or rather a long inoffensive stick. On their shoulders is bound a bundle of branches. In dancing they stoop down towards the ground and imitate the movements and the bellowing of buffaloes.