How fortunate it was that Catlin and Maximilian chose to spend much time among the Mandan during the years 1832, 1833, and 1834. A few years later, in the spring of 1837, the dreaded smallpox swept away the greater part of this most interesting nation, and "when the disease had abated, and when the remnant of this once powerful nation had recovered sufficiently to remove the decaying bodies from their cabins, the total number of grown men was twenty-three, of women forty, and of young persons sixty or seventy. These were all that were left of the eighteen hundred souls that composed the nation prior to the advent of that terrific disease, and even those that recovered were so disfigured as scarcely to be recognized." (Hayden, (1), p. 433.) Soon those who survived deserted their old village near Fort Clark and removed a few miles above, and the town was, about this time, occupied by the Arikara. It is interesting to know that the small remnant of the Mandan continued to follow their own peculiar customs and to maintain their tribal unity although so reduced in numbers. It will not be necessary in the present sketch to trace the later history of the tribe. In recent years the State Historical Society of North Dakota has caused surveys to be made of the more important village sites in that State. In addition to the plans of the sites, showing the position of the earth lodges, they have been fortunate in obtaining drawings of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, made by a Mandan living on the Fort Berthold Reservation. In writing of the picture and plan of the "most important historical site of the Mandan tribe in the state, the one visited and described by Lewis and Clark, Catlin, and Maximilian," Libby said: "The Indian chart and the map of the village as it appears to-day are here shown. It is seen that the two representations are not essentially unlike. The grouping of the houses about a common center, at one side of which is the holy tepee, is the predominating characteristic of each." The Indian drawing, although crude, shows some details omitted by Catlin in his many sketches; but the map (fig. 10) is of the greatest interest. It shows the site near Fort Clark as it appeared about the year 1908, and to quote from the description: "In the center of the tepees, on the space devoted by the old Mandans to the 'big canoe' and cedar post of the 'elder man,' stands now a large tepee (shown in dotted outline) which was placed there by the Arikara who occupied the village after the small-pox scourge of 1837 had killed or driven away the original inhabitants." The structures surrounding the open space were occupied by the principal men of the village, and the names as given by Libby were secured by him from "Bad Gun, Rushing War Eagle, son of the Ma-ta-to-pe or Four Bears, whose portrait Catlin painted." In the list of names "Tepee No. 1 was the holy tepee and was also used by Lance Shoulder," and "No.