San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-08-28
IN ODD TRIBE OF INDIANS.
ACTS ABOUT THE ANTIQUITY OF
THE BLUE EYED MANOANS.

It Is Claimed That They Are Descended
from Early Welsh Explorsrs-They Had
Customs and Manners Entirely Different
from Other Indians.
In the gallery at the National museum are
ortraits of Indians with light hair and blue
yes. George Catlin found such Indians
mong the Mandans. During the months he
Ived with them and painted his pictures he
eveloped the interesting theory that this
ribe was descended from a band of Welsh
xplorers who landed in North America near
y 200 years before Christopher Columbus
anne in the Santa Maria.
There were ten ships which left North Wales
nder the direction of Prince Madoc or Ma
awe early in the Fourteenth century. They
ever returned. 1t is historical superstition
hat these explorers landed on the west Of
THAT Is Florida now, or somewhere about the
louth of the Mississippi, travelled into the
aterior, and gradually amalgamated with
the Indians.
Catlin concluded that Madoc's men estab-
ished their colony in what is now Ohio. They
nay have assembled the river from the gulf,
r they may have marched inland from the
cast. After he had lived among these In
ians in their fortified city on the upper Mis-
ouri Catlin traced their course backwards,
own the Missouri and up the Ohio, to the
xtensive Notifications in that state. He
'ound Mandan ruins in a dozen places. He
ecame satisfied that the ancestors of the In
,ians he knew had built these forts with walls
twenty or thirty feet high, and with covered
ways to the water. There was a striking
similarity in the work of construction Moth
ing like it was found among other tribes.
The specimens of pottery dug from the
Qualifications in Ohio were like the utensils
IN use by the Mandans. A visitor at
The village could see the Mandan women
raolding vases, cups pitchers and pots from
Hack clay and baking them in the little kilns
which they built in the sides of hills. The
Mandans alone of North American Indians
possessed the art of manufacturing beauti-
full and lasting kind of blue glass beads. They
had these beads in great quantities when the
fur traders first came among them. They
kept the process secret. Mandan canoes were
altogether different from the canoes of other
tribes. They were exactly like the Welsh
coracle, and were made of buffalo hides
stretched over a frame of willows or other
boughs, and were shaped so as to be nearly as
round as a tub.
wELSHMEN DIFFERENTIATED.
These were a few of the facts which
strengthened Catlin in his theory. He ar
yued that the Welshmen had settled in Ohio
and had fortified themselves. They had been
warred against by the Indians, and after
their ammunition gave out they had been ex-
terminated. But the half breeds had been
spared. Half breeds are always despised by
full blood Indians. These sons and daughters
Of Welshmen and Indian women had natur.
ally associated together in a band. They had
cut loose from parent tribes. Gradually they
had made their way down the Ohio and hen up
the Mississippi and the Missouri, stopping for
a generation or so in one fortified place, and
then moving on, increasing in numbers, pre-
serving some of the customs and character
lstics of their Welsh ancestors, and trying to
find place where they could live at peace,
but aloof from other tribes.
Catlin found the Mandans living behind a
well built stockade They had located their
principal city where the Missouri made sharp
turn around a rocky ledge. On two sides of
the town was this abrupt precipice and the
river. On the remaining side was the stock
ade. This was composed of timbers a foot
thick, set firmly in the ground, and eighteen
feet high Crevices were left between the
timbers to shoot through. Their fortified
city was impregnable.
Nothing like the Mandan architecture was
found by Mr.. Catlin among any of the other
North American Indians. The lodges were
circular, and from forty to sixty feet in
diameter.
The Mandan houses were built so closely
together that between them were only mar
row pathways At a distance the dome like
yellow roofs presented singular appear
ance. On nearer approach the visitor found
himself among lot of great mud huts The
greatest surprise was after entrance. Then
il was discovered that these were wooden
houses, dry and clean, and often furnished
with household comforts unknown to other
Indians.
THEY WE'RE SELF SUPPORTING.
The Mandans were agriculturists. They
raised corn, pumpkins and squashes IN great
quantities. They had no plows, but labori-
ously chopped the soil with hoes made from
the shoulder blades of bufaloes or elks.
Their corn was peculiar. 1t made ears which
were no larger than mans thumb, but it
ripened early, and matured we'll even in such
high latitude as the Northern Pacific of North
Dakota. White men in what was once the
Mandan country claim that it is impossible
to raise corn there. The seasons are too short.
The Mandans stored their corn and dried
vegetables in cellars made six or seven feet
deep and smaller at the top, like a jug. In
this way they easily preserved food through
the worst winters Wild fruit was gathered
and dried in season. The buffalo meat was
jerked.
Among the women particularly were many
rbosa sbirs yvara almost yyhite and who had