On June 19, 1833, Maximilian, aboard the steamboat _Assiniboin_, left Fort Clark bound for Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Soon after passing the Mandan village of Ruhptare, so Maximilian wrote: "We saw before us the fine broad mirror of the river, and, at a distance on the southern bank, the red mass of the clay huts of the lower village of the Manitaries, which we reached in half an hour. The Missouri is joined by the Knife River, on which the three villages of the Manitaries are built. The largest, which is the furthest from the Missouri, is called Elah-Sa (the village of the great willows); the middle one, Awatichay (the little village), where Charbonneau, the interpreter, lives; and the third, Awachawi (le village des souliers), which is the smallest, consisting of only eighteen huts, situated at the mouth of Knife River.... The south bank of the river was now animated by a crowd of Indians, both on foot and on horseback; they were the Manitaries, who had flocked from their villages to see the steamer and to welcome us. The appearance of this vessel of the Company, which comes up, once in two years, to the Yellow Stone River, is an event of the greatest importance to the Indians.... The sight of the red brown crowd collected on the river side, for even their buffalo skins were mostly of this colour, was, in the highest degree, striking. We already saw above a hundred of them, with many dogs, some of which drew sledges, and others, wooden boards fastened to their backs, and the ends trailing on the ground, to which the baggage was attached with leather straps." (Maximilian, (1), pp. 178-179.) BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 44 [Illustration: _a._ Original pencil sketch] [Illustration: _b._ Finished picture of the same "WINTER VILLAGE OF THE MINATARRES" Karl Bodmer, 1833] BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 45 [Illustration: _a._ Manner of carrying basket similar to that shown in plate 52, _a_] [Illustration: _b._ The ring-and-pole game] [Illustration: _c._ Hidatsa group with bull-boats. At Fort Berthold, July 13, 1851 FROM KURZ'S SKETCHBOOK]