15 January: Calm, pleasant morning; at seven thirty, −8 1/2°F [−22.5°C]. Wind northeast, not strong but cold.

About noon Mató-Tópe came with many Indians. One of them wore a long, trailing bonnet of white and black kiliou feathers (máhchsi-akub-háschka) on his head. This beautiful bonnet had about 40 eagle feathers attached to a broad red strip of cloth. They went to Ruhptare to adopt a medicine son and to dance the medicine pipes.

Mató-Tópe was dressed beautifully. In his hair he had [symbolized] all his wounds with small wooden sticks: four yellow, one red, and one blue. I had precise copies made. On the right side of his head, he also wore a knife made from wood, painted partly red as a sign that he had killed a Cheyenne chief with a knife. On top of each wooden piece, there is a yellow nail driven in, like a little button. On the back of his head, he wore a large tuft of eagle owl feathers, a symbol of the Meníss-Óchatä, and eagle feathers stuck radially upright in his hair. I lent him my necklace of bear claws, and he took an ornamented eagle’s feather belonging to Máhchsi-Karéhde that was at our place and stuck that in his hair, too. One eye was painted yellow, the other red; his forehead and the lower part of his chin [were] red. His body and arms were marked with reddish brown vertical stripes, and his coups [were] indicated by horizontal stripes on his arms. On his chest [was] a yellow hand that indicated he had taken prisoners.M3Mr. Bodmer portrayed this interesting man (who has a very high opinion of himself) in [all] this attire very truly and correctly. Cháratä-Numakschi came after [Four Bears] and cleaned his gun with a red strip that Belhumeur had given him.

They stayed for about an hour and then went to Ruhptare. At twelve thirty, −2°F [−18.9°C]. Wind northeast. The weather [was] good. In the afternoon the Yanktonai came and roasted ears of corn on the fire. Evening calm and not especially cold.