In Captain Burton's account of the articles paraded in the procession, the pipes (to which great mystery is attached), the _horns_ and _rattles (vide pl.)_, and _the baskets of water_ are common to the Mandan ceremony. May not the eight stools be representative of the eight diluvian survivors. _Vide supra_, 197, Cabiri? Let us, however, confine our attention to the "baskets of water." Compare with the following account in Catlin. "In the medicine (mystery) lodge ... there were also four articles of _veneration_ and importance lying on the ground, which were _sacks_ containing each some three or four gallons of _water_. These seemed to be objects of great superstitious regard, and had been made with much labour and ingenuity, being constructed of the skins of the _buffaloes'_ neck, and sewed together in the forms of large _tortoises_ lying on their backs (comp. p. 138; also p. 269), each having a sort of tail made of _raven's_ quills and a stick like a drumstick lying on it, with which, as will be seen in a subsequent part of the ceremony, the musicians beat upon the _sacks_ as instruments of music for their _strange dances_. By the sides of these sacks, which they called Ech-tee-ka (drums), there were two other articles of equal importance which they called Ech-na-da (rattles) made of undressed skins shaped into the form of _gourd_ shells," &c. (Note the segments of _gourd_ accompanying the _water_ baskets in the Dahome procession, _supra_.) Catlin adds--"The sacks of water had the appearance of great antiquity, and the Mandans pretended that the water had been contained in them ever since the Deluge."--pp. 15, 16.[217]