Note 291 — Chapter XXV · ACCOUNT OF THE MANDAN INDIANS (continued 2)

The author refers to a letter on this subject, written by Mr. Catlin, and published in a New York paper; but this is by no means so complete as that given in his valuable work published last year.—H. Evans Lloyd.

Comment by Ed. Catlin's letter, dated at the Mandan village, August 12, 1832, was published in the New York Spectator, and a German translation incorporated in the first edition of Maximilian's work published at Coblentz in 1841 (ii, pp. 658-667). Upon the issue of Catlin's North American Indians, (1841), the fuller account of Okippe therein given caused Maximilian's English translator to omit from his work Catlin's first description. Catlin's veracity in this description was impugned both by Schoolcraft and David D. Mitchell, and their criticism was embodied in an authorized government publication. Catlin thereupon (1866) appealed both to Kipp and Maximilian, who both unhesitatingly endorsed his account as correct. See evidence in Smithsonian Institution Report, 1885, part ii, pp. 368-383. Catlin then published O-kee-pa (London, 1867), with colored illustrations of the ceremony.