According to the unambitious belief of the Osages, a people living on the
banks of one of the lower tributaries of the Missouri, they are sprung
from a snail and a beaver. The Mandans believe their ancestors once lived
in a large village under ground, near a subterranean lake; that by means
of a vine tree, which extended its roots to their cheerless habitation,
they got a glimpse of the light; that informed by some adventurers, who
had visited the upper world, of the numerous buffaloes pasturing on the
plains, and of the trees loaded with delicious fruits, the whole nation,
with one consent, began to ascend the roots of the vine; but that, when
about the half of them had reached the surface, a corpulent woman climbing
up, broke the roots by her weight; that the earth immediately closed, and
concealed for ever from those below the cheering beams of the sun. From a
people who entertain such fanciful notions of their origin, no valuable
information concerning their early history can be expected.--_Ibid._
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