were arranged in two concentric circles, in large lodges, the inner set being higher than the outer. Compartments within opening toward the fire were formed of willow matting, or skins. [Illustration: AN OMAHA TIPI] The regular tipi was decorated in accordance with tribal customs. Dorsey has published some careful notes on this as on other matters connected with the tribes of the Dakota stock, and Catlin has also given descriptions. The decorations were often the result of a vision. If a man had a vision of the aurora he depicted it on his robes and tent, the latter having a band of paint around the bottom, above which was a zigzag border from which, on one side, three stripes were drawn to the top of the tent, four on the other, and one in the rear. If he had a vision of the night or of some other “superterrestrial object, he blackened the upper part of his tent and a small portion on each side of the entrance.” Sometimes a star was also indicated, and night was represented by a black band above the middle or at the bottom. A tent similar to the Dakota tipi is in wide use among the Amerinds. Morgan states that the Dakotas were living in bark-covered houses when first discovered, in villages, in the present state of Minnesota, and that when they were driven “upon the plains by an advancing white population, but after they had become possessed of horses, they invented a skin tent eminently adapted to their present nomadic condition. It is superior to any other in use among the American aborigines from its roominess, its portable character, and the facility with which it can be erected and struck.”[176] While this is probably accurate as concerns the Dakotas, it is likely that other tribes invented a similar tent for themselves, before the appearance of the Dakotas on the plains.[177] Three tipis among the Omahas were sacred, and sheltered three sacred objects, the Sacred Pole, the Sacred White Buffalo-Cow Skin, and the Sacred Bag. These are all now in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. They were built like the common tipi. [Illustration: A SEMINOLE DWELLING]