settlement, prepared to have "a great medicine feast," and Maximilian
was invited to be present, and so, as he recorded in his narrative, "we
proceeded thither, on the 3rd of December, in the afternoon. Mr. Kipp
took his family with him, and Mato-Tope and several other Indians
accompanied us. We were all well armed, because it was asserted that a
band of hostile Indians had been seen among the prairie hills on the
preceding day. Our beds, blankets, and buffalo skins were laid on a
horse, on which Mr Kipp's wife, a Mandan Indian, rode. Thus we passed,
at a rapid pace, through the prairie, along the Missouri, then below the
hills, which are pretty high.... After proceeding about an hour and a
half we reached the village in the wood, which is the winter residence
of the inhabitants of Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush. We stopped at the hut of Mr.
Kipp's father-in-law, Mandeek-Suck-Choppenik (the medicine bird), who
accommodated us with a night's lodging. The description of this hut may
serve for all the winter huts of these Indians. It was about twenty
paces in diameter, and circular; _h_ is the fence or wall of the hut,
supported inside by strong, low posts, on which rests the vaulted roof,
which has a square hole to let the smoke escape; _g_ is the entrance,
protected by two projecting walls covered above. At _f_ is the door,
consisting of a piece of leather stretched on a frame. At _d d_ there is
a cross wall of considerable height, made of reeds and osier twigs woven
together, to keep off the draught of air. At _e e e_ there is another
cross wall, only three feet high, behind which the horses stand; _a_ is
the fireplace, round which, at _c c c c_, are the seats of the inmates,
consisting of benches formed of basket-work, covered with skins; _b b b
b_ are four strong pillars which bear the roof, and are very well united
above by cross beams. At _i_ there was a large leather case for the beds
in which the family slept. A chain, with a large kettle, was suspended
from the roof over the fire, to cook our supper, consisting of very
pleasant flavoured sweet maize." (Op. cit., pp. 425-426.) A plan of the
lodge is given on page 426, here reproduced as figure 8.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Plan of the interior of a Mandan lodge.]
The "great medicine feast" was to begin the evening of their arrival at
the winter village and to last 40 nights. That evening "after seven
o'clock we repaired to the medicine lodge; it was entirely cleared,
except that some women sat along the walls; the fire burned in the
centre, before which we took our seats, near the partition _d d_, with
several distinguished men of the band of soldiers. At our left hand, the
other soldiers, about twenty-five in number, were seated in a row; some
of them were handsomely dressed, though the majority were in plain
clothes. They had their arms in their hands, and in the centre were
three men who beat the drum." (Op. cit., pp. 426-427.) The lengthy
detailed account of what followed during the course of the "feast" is
most interesting, but will not be mentioned in this sketch.
As among the many neighboring tribes of the Missouri Valley, the buffalo
served as the principal source of food for the Mandan. Often sufficient
meat could be secured very near the towns; again it would be necessary
to undertake long journeys in search of the moving herds. It will be
recalled that on January 13, 1805, when the mercury stood 34 deg. below
zero, Lewis and Clark saw "nearly one half of the Mandan nation" pass
down the frozen Missouri on a hunt to last several days. And a few years
later, just at the beginning of summer, June 25, 1811, Brackenridge
wrote: "At ten, passed an old Mandan village; and at some distance
above, saw a great number of Mandan Indians on their march along the
prairie. They sometimes go on hunting parties by whole villages, which
is the case at present; they are about five hundred in number, some on
horseback, some on foot, their tents and baggage drawn by dogs. On these
great hunting parties, the women are employed in preserving the hides,
drying the meat, and making a provision to keep. Very little of the
buffalo is lost, for after taking the marrow, they pound the bones, boil
them, and preserve the oil." (Brackenridge, (1), p. 260.) On such trips
away from their permanent earth-lodge villages the Mandan made use of
the skin-covered tipi.
In addition to the food supplied by the chase the people of the
permanent villages had large gardens in which they raised quantities of
corn and beans of various sorts, gourds and sunflowers of several
varieties, and of the seeds of the latter "very nice cakes are made."
Many animals in addition to the buffalo, and various plants besides
those cultivated in the gardens, served the Mandan for food.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 40
[Illustration: "THE INTERIOR OF THE HUT OF A MANDAN CHIEF"
Karl Bodmer, 1833]
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 41
[Illustration: _a._ Mandan wooden bowl. Marked "Ft. Berthold, Dacotah
Ter. Drs. Gray and Matthews." Diameter 7-1/4 inches, depth 2 inches.
(U.S.N.M. 6341)]
[Illustration: _b._ Mandan earthenware jar, collected by Drs. Gray and
Matthews. (U.S.N.M. 8407)]
[Illustration: _c._ Wooden bowl. Marked "Bowl of Mandan Indians, Dakota
T. Drs. Gray and Matthews--U. S. A." Diameters 10-3/4 and 9-1/4 inches,
depth 3-1/2 inches. (U.S.N.M. 8406)]
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 42
[Illustration: _a._ Spoon, marked "Buffalo horn spoon, presented by Gen.
T. Duncan." Length about 10 inches. (U.S.N.M. 12259)]
[Illustration: _b._ Spoon made of horn of mountain sheep. "Mandan
Indians, Dacotah Ter. Drs. Gray and Matthews." Extreme length 16-1/2
inches. (U.S.N.M. 6333)]
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 77 PLATE 43
[Illustration: "MINATARREE VILLAGE"
George Catlin]
At the time of Catlin's and Maximilian's visits to the Mandan the latter
were making and using their primitive forms of utensils such as had been
in use for generations. Wooden mortars, bowls hollowed out of hard
knots, spoons made of the horn of buffalo and mountain sheep, and, most
interesting of all, dishes and vessels made of pottery--all these were
used in the preparation or serving of food. Some remarkable examples of
wooden bowls made by the Mandan are now preserved in the collection of
the United States National Museum, Washington. One of the most
interesting is shown in plate 41, _c_ (U.S.N.M. 8406), and another, of
simpler form but equally well made, in plate 41, _a_ (U.S.N.M. 6341).
Both examples were evidently quite old even when collected. They are
fashioned out of maple knots, worked thin and smooth, and are beautiful
specimens. Large spoons, often termed "drinking cups," were, as already
mentioned, made of the horns of buffalo and mountain sheep. The former
were extensively used by many tribes, and usually resembled the one
shown in plate 42, _a_. The spoons made of mountain-sheep horns were
often much larger and thinner, of a yellowish hue, and the handles were
frequently bent into form or decorated. A very beautiful spoon of this
sort is shown in plate 42, _b_. (U.S.N.M. 6333.)
Pottery dishes and vessels, so Catlin wrote, "are a familiar part of the
culinary furniture of every Mandan lodge, and are manufactured by the
women of this tribe in great quantities, and modelled into a thousand
forms and tastes. They are made by the hands of the women, from a tough
black clay, and baked in kilns which are made for the purpose, and are
nearly equal in hardness to our own manufacture of pottery; though they
have not yet got the art of glazing, which would be to them a most
valuable secret. They make them so strong and serviceable, however, that
they hang them over the fire as we do our iron pots, and boil their meat
in them with perfect success." (Op. cit., p. 116.) Maximilian described
the art of pottery making among the Mandan as exactly like that of the
two associated tribes, the Hidatsa and Arikara. He wrote regarding the
three tribes that they "understand the manufacture of earthen pots and
vessels, of various forms and sizes. The clay is of a dark slate colour,
and burns a yellowish-red, very similar to what is seen in the burnt
tops of the Missouri hills. This clay is mixed with flint or granite
reduced to powder by the action of fire. The workwoman forms the hollow
inside of the vessel by means of a round stone which she holds in her
hand while she works and smooths the outside with a piece of poplar
bark. When the pot is made, it is filled and surrounded with dry
shavings, and then burnt, when it is ready for use. They know nothing of
glazing." (Op. cit., p. 348.) This was probably the simple process of
manufacture followed by the widely scattered tribes, and the apparent
ease with which the vessels were made accounts for the great quantities
of fragments now discovered scattered over ancient village sites. Two
small vessels made by the Mandan, and collected by Dr. Matthews half a
century ago, are in the National Museum collection, and one is shown in
plate 41, _b_. Very few perfect specimens exist, several being in the
collection of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The
specimens in the National Museum are rather small, but some very large
vessels were made and used in boiling their food.
Bows and arrows were the principal weapons of the Mandan. The heads of
the arrows, at the time of Maximilian's stay among the people, were made
of thin bits of iron, although persons then living remembered the use of
stone. Lances and clubs were likewise made and used, and when mentioning
the latter Maximilian said, "a simple, knotty, wooden club is called
mauna-panischa," and gives, on page 390, a woodcut of such a weapon. It
is of interest to know that an example of this peculiar form of weapon,
which at once suggests the traditional club of Hercules, is preserved in
the Museo Kircheriana, in Rome. It is one of four specimens now
belonging to the museum which were collected by Maximilian, the other
three being a knife sheath, a horse bridle, and a saddle blanket, all
being beautifully decorated with colored quillwork. The club is shown in
figure 9, after a drawing made for the writer in 1905 by Dr. Paribeni,
of the museum. The smaller end is bound or braided with tanned skin, to
serve as a handle, and around the upper end of the wrapping is a band of
quillwork similar in workmanship to that on the other objects. All are
remarkably well preserved, and several specimens in the Ethnological
Museum in Florence may have belonged to the Maximilian collection.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Wooden club.]
The Mandans, like other tribes of the upper Missouri Valley, were very
expert in the art of dressing skins, especially those of the buffalo.
They used two forms of implements, one of which is similar to those
shown in plate 12, _a_; the second, rather more complicated, is
represented in plate 34, _c_. This is a beautiful old specimen now in
the National Museum. The handle is formed of a piece of elk antler; the
blade is of clear, brownish flint, well chipped. Other similar objects
are preserved in the collection.
How fortunate it was that Catlin and Maximilian chose to spend much time
among the Mandan during the years 1832, 1833, and 1834. A few years
later, in the spring of 1837, the dreaded smallpox swept away the
greater part of this most interesting nation, and "when the disease had
abated, and when the remnant of this once powerful nation had recovered
sufficiently to remove the decaying bodies from their cabins, the total
number of grown men was twenty-three, of women forty, and of young
persons sixty or seventy. These were all that were left of the eighteen
hundred souls that composed the nation prior to the advent of that
terrific disease, and even those that recovered were so disfigured as
scarcely to be recognized." (Hayden, (1), p. 433.) Soon those who
survived deserted their old village near Fort Clark and removed a few
miles above, and the town was, about this time, occupied by the Arikara.
It is interesting to know that the small remnant of the Mandan continued
to follow their own peculiar customs and to maintain their tribal unity
although so reduced in numbers. It will not be necessary in the present
sketch to trace the later history of the tribe.
In recent years the State Historical Society of North Dakota has caused
surveys to be made of the more important village sites in that State. In
addition to the plans of the sites, showing the position of the earth
lodges, they have been fortunate in obtaining drawings of the Mandan and
Hidatsa villages, made by a Mandan living on the Fort Berthold
Reservation. In writing of the picture and plan of the "most important
historical site of the Mandan tribe in the state, the one visited and
described by Lewis and Clark, Catlin, and Maximilian," Libby said: "The
Indian chart and the map of the village as it appears to-day are here
shown. It is seen that the two representations are not essentially
unlike. The grouping of the houses about a common center, at one side of
which is the holy tepee, is the predominating characteristic of each."
The Indian drawing, although crude, shows some details omitted by Catlin
in his many sketches; but the map (fig. 10) is of the greatest interest.
It shows the site near Fort Clark as it appeared about the year 1908,
and to quote from the description: "In the center of the tepees, on the
space devoted by the old Mandans to the 'big canoe' and cedar post of
the 'elder man,' stands now a large tepee (shown in dotted outline)
which was placed there by the Arikara who occupied the village after the
small-pox scourge of 1837 had killed or driven away the original
inhabitants." The structures surrounding the open space were occupied by
the principal men of the village, and the names as given by Libby were
secured by him from "Bad Gun, Rushing War Eagle, son of the Ma-ta-to-pe
or Four Bears, whose portrait Catlin painted." In the list of names
"Tepee No. 1 was the holy tepee and was also used by Lance Shoulder,"
and "No. 2 was occupied by Four Bears." The list includes fifteen names.
At the time the survey was made the entire ditch could not be traced,
but its general course could be followed, thus indicating the
approximate boundary of the town, "beyond which only a few tepees are
located." (Libby, (1), pp. 498-499.)
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Plan of the Mandan village at Fort Clark.]
When it is realized how little is known regarding the arrangement of the
many ancient villages which once stood in the country east of the
Mississippi, villages which in their time were probably as large and
important as those of the Mandan of the last century, it is not possible
to overestimate the value of the work of the Historical Society in
causing to be made an accurate survey of the sites and in securing
descriptions of the villages from some who remember them. A generation
later this would not have been possible.
HIDATSA GROUP.
Two tribes are regarded as constituting this group: The Hidatsa proper,
known to the earlier writers as the Minnetarees, and to others as the
Gros Ventres of the Missouri; and the Crows. The Hidatsa and the Crows
were, until a few generations ago, one people, but trouble developed and
the latter moved farther up the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, and
there they were discovered by the early explorers of the region.
The Amahami may have been a distinct tribe, and as such were recognized
by Lewis and Clark, but according to their own traditions they, together
with the Hidatsa and Crows, once formed a single tribe. Their language
differs only slightly from that of the Hidatsa. During the early years
of the last century their one village stood at the mouth of Knife River.
Already greatly reduced in numbers, they suffered during the epidemic of
1837, and later the majority of those who had survived became more
closely associated with the Hidatsa.
HIDATSA.
The Hidatsa, also known as the Minnetarees and designated by some
writers the Gros Ventres of the Missouri, a name which must not be
confused with Gros Ventres of the Prairie often applied to the Atsina,
lived when first known to Europeans near the junction of the Knife and
Missouri Rivers, in the eastern part of the present Mercer County, North
Dakota. Some are of the belief that it was the Hidatsa and not the
Mandan whom the French, under La Verendrye, visited during the autumn
and winter of 1738, but in the present sketch the Mandan are accepted as
undoubtedly being the tribe at whose villages the French remained.
The Hidatsa villages as seen by Catlin and Maximilian during the years
1832, 1833, and 1834 had probably changed little since the winter of
1804-05, when Lewis and Clark occupied Fort Mandan, their winter
quarters, some 8 miles below the mouth of Knife River. Describing the
villages, Catlin said the principal one stood on the bank of Knife River
and consisted of 40 or 50 earth-covered lodges, each from 40 to 50 feet
in diameter, and this town being on an elevated bank overlooked the
other two which were on lower ground "and almost lost amidst their
numerous corn fields and other profuse vegetation which cover the earth
with their luxuriant growth.
"The scenery along the banks of this little river, from village to
village, is quite peculiar and curious; rendered extremely so by the
continual wild and garrulous groups of men, women, and children, who are
wending their way along its winding shores, or dashing and plunging
through its blue waves, enjoying the luxury of swimming, of which both
sexes seem to be passionately fond. Others are paddling about in their
tub-like canoes, made of the skins of buffaloes." (Catlin, (1), I, p.
186.) Among the great collection of Catlin's paintings belonging to the
United States National Museum, in Washington, is one of the large
village. The original painting is reproduced in plate 43. A drawing of
the same was shown as plate 70 in Catlin's work cited above. The work is
crude but interesting historically, and conveys some idea of the
appearance of the town, although in this, as in other paintings by the
same artist, the earth lodges are very poorly drawn, failing to show the
projection which served as the entrance and having the roofs too rounded
and dome-shaped. Bodmer's sketches are far superior.
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]
As told in the preceding section, Maximilian returned from Fort Union to
Fort Clark, where, with the artist Bodmer, he spent the long winter.
While near the Mandan towns he made several visits to the Hidatsa
villages a few miles above, and learned much of the manners and ways of
life of the people. He again spoke of the three villages on the banks of
Knife River, "two on the left bank, and the third, which is much the
largest, on the right bank." He continued: "At present the Manitaries
live constantly in their villages, and do not roam about as they
formerly did, when, like the Pawnees and other nations, they went in
pursuit of the herds of buffaloes as soon as their fields were sown,
returned in the autumn for the harvest, after which they again went into
the prairie. In these wanderings they made use of leather tents, some of
which are still standing by the side of their permanent dwellings" (p.
395). He then described the dress and general appearance of the people
and continued: "The Manitari villages are similarly arranged as those of
the Mandans, except that they have no ark placed in the central space,
and the figure of Ochkih-Hadda is not there. In the principal village,
however, is the figure of a woman placed on a long pole, doubtless
representing the grandmother, who presented them with the pots, of
which I shall speak more hereafter. A bundle of brushwood is hung on
this pole, to which are attached the leathern dress and leggins of a
woman. The head is made of wormwood, and has a cap with feathers. The
interior of their huts is arranged as among the Mandans: like them the
Manitaries go, in winter, into the forests on both banks of the
Missouri, where they find fuel, and, at the same time, protection
against the inclement weather. Their winter villages are in the thickest
of the forest, and the huts are built near to each other, promiscuously,
and without any attempt at order or regularity. They have about 250 or
300 horses in their three villages, and a considerable number of dogs"
(pp. 396-397). Bodmer's picture of the "Winter Village of the
Minatarres," made during the winter of 1833, is probably the most
accurate drawing of an earth-lodge village in existence. It was given as
plate xxvi by Maximilian, which is here reproduced as plate 44, _b_. A
pencil sketch which may be considered as the original sketch made by
Bodmer, and from which the finished picture was made, is now in the E.
E. Ayer collection preserved in the Newberry Library. Unfortunately the
drawing is unfinished but is very interesting historically. It is shown
in plate 44, _a_.
Maximilian then referred briefly to the creation myth of the people with
whom he was then resting. The entire surface was once covered with
water. There were two beings: one a man who lived in the far Rocky
Mountains who made all; the other was the old woman called grandmother
by the members of the tribe. "She gave the Manitaries a couple of pots,
which they still preserve as a sacred treasure," and "When their fields
are threatened with a great drought they are to celebrate a medicine
feast with the old grandmother's pots, in order to beg for rain: this
is, properly, the destination of the pots. The medicine men are still
paid, on such occasions, to sing for four days together in the huts,
while the pots remain filled with water." Such were the superstitious
beliefs of these strange people.