flowers brighten the prairies. Many species are general throughout
the State, while others are typical only of certain sections. Before
the last patches of snow are gone, the blue-gray pasque flower, so
like the crocus that it is often called by that name, appears on the
rolling prairies and the northern slopes of hills. It is soon followed
by the wild parsley, Nuttall's or yellow violet, and the vivid plumes
of the purple avens. Most of the spring flowers are of soft, delicate
hues, such as the white meadow rue, parsley, false-Solomon's-seal,
silverberry, squaw-weeds, meadow parsnip, blue-eyed-grass, and harebell.
With the coming of midsummer, the colors become more brilliant. The
fragrant prairie rose, the State flower, blossoms profusely in fields
and along roadsides. The showy oxeye or false-sunflower, the flaming
prairie mallow, wild blue and yellow flax, the vivid flame lily, the
purple coneflower, and the black-eyed Susan emblazon the summer fields.
Along the Pembina and Sheyenne Rivers, and in Sully's Hill National
Game Preserve, grow the wintergreen and ladyslipper. Water lilies float
on pools and shallow streams in the western part of the State. In the
Badlands grow the rabbit brush, butte primrose, false-lupine, and
prickly pear, and the scoria lily which resembles a thistle during the
day and opens its fragile, waxy petals only after the sun has gone down.
Yellow is the color of the prairies in autumn, as amid the fading
foliage the goldenrod, sunflower, aster, and blazing star dominate the
scene.
Some wild flowers, such as the wild morning-glory, are so common that
they are regarded as weeds. These are not so obnoxious to the farmer,
however, as the Russian-thistle, pigeon grass, quack grass, pigweed,
mustard, burdock, and sow thistle which often invade the grainfields.
The seeds of most of these plants were brought in with seed grain from
European countries, and their eradication is a difficult process.
Another obnoxious plant, against which a strong campaign has been
conducted by farmers, is the common barberry, on which thrive the
parasitic fungi that cause wheat rust. Many weeds, however, are
considered a valuable asset to the fields and pasture lands where they
grow. These include the American vetch or wild sweet pea, which forms
an important addition to hay, and the white and violet prairie clovers,
which, although too tough to be used for fodder, serve to enrich the
soil.
When the first settlers came to this section of the country, they
described the land as being covered with innumerable varieties of
wild flowers. Since that time, cultivation and drought have changed
the picture. Efforts to preserve the native plant life in its natural
setting have met with cooperation from Federal and State agencies
alike. The reserves that have been established are also sanctuaries for
bird and animal life, upon which recent drought and severe winters have
had a disastrous effect.
Under the auspices of the State game and fish commission, 2,700 acres
of land have been set aside as five game and fish farms, while 240,000
acres of privately owned land have been designated as game refuges.
The Federal Government has established some 60 sanctuaries on 225,000
acres, of which about 90,000 acres are privately owned.
Animal life zones in the State are more marked than are plant life
zones. The woods of the Turtle Mountains, at the meeting point of the
Canadian and transition zones, abound with wild life of both regions.
More than 300 varieties of game and song birds live here, including the
Dakota song sparrow, the black-billed cuckoo, the oriole, and the blue
jay. In the deserted holes of badgers, foxes, and gophers live those
queer prairie birds, the burrowing owls. Grebe, ducks, geese, heron,
and occasionally swan inhabit the lakes of the region. Deer, red fox,
rabbits, red squirrels and northern chipmunks are common; and at night
the bright-eyed, mousy Richardson shrew and the silver-haired bat can
be seen. Lynx are occasionally reported.
In the Red River Valley and the central prairies of the State, once
the scene of buffalo hunts, very little large game is found today. A
few buffalo remain in Sully's Hill National Game Preserve, and in the
Sheyenne Valley and the Pembina Mountains deer are still found. Game
birds abound in this region, however, and with the restoration of their
breeding places they are now being propagated in huge numbers on the
many reserves.
Early travelers in the western part of the State were astonished by the
prairie-dog villages which dotted the country. Some of these villages
still exist, in the extreme western sections. Their inhabitants are
typical of the upper austral zone, as are also the coyotes whose
long melancholy wail can be heard across the prairie at twilight or
daybreak. Chipmunks, squirrels, gophers and ferrets also make their
homes here. Along the Missouri and in the forested areas of the
Badlands are both white-tailed and mule deer. The one bird peculiar to
the austral zone is the sage-hen; and the American magpie, commonly
seen here, is rare in other parts of the State.
Birds such as the robin, sparrow, blackbird, swallow, horned lark, and
meadow lark are common to the entire State. The lark is one of the
early spring comers, and its clear sweet whistle can be heard when the
prairies are just beginning to turn green.
One of the most common animals in the State is Richardson's ground
squirrel, otherwise known as the gopher or "flickertail." It is from
this tiny, agile, yellow creature that North Dakota gets its name of
"the Flickertail State." Another familiar prairie animal is the jack
rabbit.
Fish life, like that of plants and animals, has been adversely affected
by recent droughts, but efforts are being made to propagate fish and
to provide sufficient water for their existence. In the larger lakes
and rivers, perch, black and rock bass, pickerel, pike, sunfish, and
catfish are found. Some landlocked salmon have been introduced, but
they are not adapted to North Dakota lakes and streams. Suckers and
carp are common but they are not considered desirable game fish.
INDIANS AND THEIR PREDECESSORS
PREHISTORIC MAN IN NORTH DAKOTA
Just when and where in the shadowy, endless past the Indians of North
Dakota, or even of the two Americas, began to break away from the
parent stem is not known. Weapons and tools shaped from stone and found
in strata that settled into place near the end of the Pleistocene, or
glacial, period indicate that as much as 15,000 to 20,000 years ago
men wandered along the rivers and through the swamps of those areas
that later became New Mexico, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Very probably,
in long hunts after game, parties of these men penetrated what is now
North Dakota. Stone tools and weapons found in the vicinity of Bismarck
suggest an early occupation of the area, how long ago no one knows.
A great many years nearer the present day, but still possibly a
thousand or more years ago, men were digging busily in the flint
quarries 19 miles north of Hebron and 12 miles northwest of Dodge and
at other points on the Knife River. With the flint obtained here they
fashioned arrowheads and spear points to kill buffalo or to protect
their homes against enemy tribesmen. One of these heavily sodded sites
on the Knife River contains more than 300 pits, most of which are from
8 to 10 feet across, and from 3 to 5 feet deep.
The extensive mounds and earthworks found in the eastern half of North
Dakota have been only imperfectly investigated so far, partly because
archeologists have but recently recognized the possibilities of the
area. The skeletons and the bone and stone manufactured articles lately
discovered, however, as well as the general finds of the region,
suggest the probability of outlining tribal movements of importance.
There is an increasing suggestion that before the time of the historic
tribes the prairies of the eastern half of the State supported large
populations. It is thought that, just as the Cheyenne are known to have
done in the historic period, in prehistoric time the Assiniboin and the
Blackfeet, and preceding them still other tribes, carried on a settled
agricultural life before they became nomadic. Of course the movements
of these tribes were not confined entirely to what is now North Dakota.
Perhaps hundreds of years after the construction of the mounds in
the eastern half of the State--possibly from one to four hundred
years ago--some tribe or tribes, probably the Sioux or certain
of the village-building Indians, were putting together the turtle
effigies frequently encountered on the hills west of the Missouri,
and constructing the more widespread and better-known boulder-ring
effigies. The purpose of these crude outlines on the prairie is not
definitely known. Because the turtle plays a prominent part in medicine
ceremonies of the Mandan Indians, some think the turtle effigies were
made to win the favor of certain spirits. Others claim they were made
to point the weary Indian to good water--a theory which may also apply
to a number of the cairns occasionally seen piled on the tops of high
hills. Other cairns are ceremonial or commemorative.
Boulder rings, which sometimes appear in large numbers but more often
present only one or two specimens in a given location, were once
thought to be tipi rings. The fact that many of them appear on the
sides and tops of hills has discredited this assumption, however.
Veneration of the so-called sacred stones of the State probably began
in the effigy-building period, but the origin of the very interesting
writing rocks (_see Side Tours 3B, 4A, 8A, and 8C_) is undoubtedly far
more ancient. The significance of the markings on these rocks has not
yet been determined.
THE COMING OF THE NORTH DAKOTA INDIAN TRIBES
About the time the earlier turtle effigies were made--perhaps 200
years ago--in permanent villages of earth lodges in the valley of
the Missouri dwelt a most interesting group of people, raising many
cultivated plants, building fortified towns, and in general living
a rather ordered existence. These were the Mandan, as far as is
definitely known the first of the historic tribes to enter the State.
Their exact origin is not clear. Certain of their traditions claim
that they long ago lived in the East near a great body of water--most
authorities suggest the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico.
At any rate, many generations before the coming of the whites, the
Mandan--probably crowded by other tribes--began to wander westward.
Apparently their long trek finally brought them and their wives and
children to the junction of the White River with the Missouri in what
is now South Dakota. Grass-grown sites of their old villages along
the benchland of the river show how these people, in quest of a new
and more satisfactory home, moved northward in successive migrations
until in time they arrived at the mouth of the Heart River in the
neighborhood of present Mandan and Bismarck. Here they probably
remained for generations, carrying on a settled agricultural life. They
were visited by the Verendryes in 1738 (_see Tour 8_), at which time
they had six large, well-fortified villages. Estimates of their number
at this time have ranged from 2,500 to 15,000.
They are one of those four North Dakota Indian groups--Mandan, Hidatsa,
Cheyenne, and Arikara--who because of their farming activities are
called the agricultural tribes. While the Mandan were building on the
Missouri, the Hidatsa were probably living somewhat farther north and
east. They have a tradition that they originally came from a large
lake to the east, possibly Devils Lake. Later, probably forced on
by some other tribe, they moved their families over the prairies to
the Missouri in the region of the Heart River, and eventually allied
themselves with the Mandan. Their history thereafter follows very
closely that of the latter tribe.
While the Mandan and Hidatsa were dwelling on the Missouri, the
Cheyenne were migrating westward from the headwaters of the
Mississippi, by way of Lac Que Parle in present Minnesota, Lake
Traverse, and the big bend of the Sheyenne River, to the Missouri,
seeking a place where they could till the soil and rear their children
in peace, free from the harrying of the Sioux.
At the same time the Arikara, doubtless likewise trying to take their
families away from the ravaging Dakota, were ascending the Missouri.
The name of this tribe arose from their custom of wearing in their hair
two pieces of bone which stood up on each side of the head like horns.
They came from the southwest and their language differs only in dialect
from the Pawnee. In 1770 French traders encountered them dwelling along
the river bank somewhat below the mouth of the Cheyenne River in what
is now South Dakota.
The migrations of the Hidatsa, Cheyenne, and Arikara, as those of
the Mandan, are traceable by the old village sites, of which there
are about 75 known locations on the prairies of the State. Arikara
sites predominate lower down the Missouri in South Dakota; the older
Mandan--perhaps constructed as early as 1575-1650--in the Heart River
region; and the Hidatsa, farther north near the Knife River. There
are apparently two types, a newer and an older. The newer, perhaps
less carefully laid out than the older, is found at and above the
mouth of the Heart River. The older type appears to have had better
fortifications than the newer, and the lodges do not seem to have been
so crowded. Because of its greater age it is more heavily sodded, and
thus manufactured articles left by the village dwellers, such as stone
and bone tools and ornaments, are less easily recovered. It seems
to center below the Heart River, with the Huff site, just below the
village of Huff, as perhaps the best example (_see Tour 8_).
Sometime--perhaps a hundred years--after the Mandan first built
about the mouth of the Heart River, the three nomadic North Dakota
tribes--the Sioux, Assiniboin, and Chippewa--were ranging the forests
near the headwaters of the Mississippi. The Chippewa, however, were not
strictly nomadic, as they had more or less permanent camping places,
where they built their distinctive bark shelters.
The Chippewa wandered from the Lake region across Minnesota to the
Turtle Mountains. They cultivated maize and were apparently more or
less at peace with the Sioux until in the early eighteenth century the
coming of the whites brought them firearms. With this advantage they
overcame the Sioux and drove them south and west.
The Assiniboin were a large tribe, whose language, with only a very
slight dialectal difference from that of the Yanktonai tribe of the
Sioux, suggests they had not long been separated from the latter
when first encountered by the whites near the headwaters of the
Mississippi. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they were in
the neighborhood of Lake Winnipeg, whence they drifted southward to the
territory west of the Turtle Mountain region in present North Dakota.
The Sioux apparently once lived in the Ohio Valley, but prior to the
historic period they moved out in several directions. At the coming of
the whites in the middle seventeenth century they were found in the
woods in northern Minnesota. Pressed by the Chippewa, they extended
their range westward over the prairies to the Missouri, and west of
that stream, from the Yellowstone River on the north to the Platte on
the south, to cover a huge block of territory throughout which the name
of this powerful tribe was feared and dreaded by all other Indians.
Of these seven North Dakota peoples--Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne,
Arikara, Sioux, Assiniboin, Chippewa--well-authenticated records exist.
It will be noted that nearly all except the Arikara seem to have come
from the east, particularly from the Lakes region, with the added
suggestion of an earlier residence farther east or south. There is also
in some cases a definite shift from a settled agricultural life to a
nomadic one. They apparently arrived in the State in the following
order:
Mandan
Hidatsa, also known as Gros Ventres, Minitari, and Absaroke
Cheyenne
Assiniboin, also called Stone
Sioux, also called Dakota
Arikara
Chippewa, also called Ojibway
Linguistically all the North Dakota tribes are Siouan, except the
Arikara, who are Caddoan, and the Chippewa and Cheyenne, who are
Algonquian.
EARLY INDIAN LIFE IN NORTH DAKOTA
It is interesting to visualize the prairie scene centuries ago when the
Indian ruled the plains. The agricultural tribes usually built their
villages of earth lodges so that one or more sides lay along a high
cliff or next to a river. This afforded partial protection from the
Sioux. In the more ancient types an earthen wall, sometimes built with
bastions, protected the exposed sides. A log palisade topped the wall,
and around the whole a ditch was dug. The number of lodges in a village
varied from 30 or 40 to as high as perhaps 160. Catlin said the lodges
had the appearance of huge inverted kettles, above which rose spears,
and scalp and medicine poles.
The lodges in the older types of villages were arranged with a certain
degree of uniformity. In the Mandan villages the lodges faced the
center, where stood a large barrel or hogshead, called the Big Canoe.
Soon after the Mandan came upon the earth, it is told, a great flood
came and would have destroyed them utterly had not a wise Mandan, the
First Man, with superlative effort and dexterity, built a great canoe
or ark and hurried the surviving people into it. This staunch ark
weathered the fury of the waters and finally came to rest on a high
hill near the Cannonball River (_see Side Tour 8C_). The Big Canoe in
the center of the village was a symbol of this ark.
Uniformity was not so evident in the later types of villages.
Between the lodges only room enough was left for men and women of
the village to pass; consequently, the broad earth roofs served the
additional purpose of verandas. Out upon these roofs, especially in the
summertime, was much activity--children played, old men watched for
enemy tribesmen, sweethearts conversed, neighbors gossiped. Although
the tribes were often ruthless and cruel in war, in their prairie homes
and villages they were very friendly and companionable people. Both men
and women indulged in a great number of games, and spent a good deal
of time in visiting, feasting, and dancing. Catlin upon his departure
after living with the Mandans for months was loaded with gifts and
urged to continue his visit.
Heavy garments were worn in the winter, and at that season the buffalo
robe was very much in evidence both for bedcovering and as an article
of clothing; but in summer time clothing was rather scanty. Both men
and women went down to the grassy shore of the Missouri in the morning
to bathe, often with little regard for dress--a fact that greatly
shocked some early travelers.
As the morning sun flooded the narrow dirt lanes of one of these
villages, braves, clad in breechcloths and moccasins, might have been
seen preparing for a hunt, while naked boys played with scores of
scampering dogs. If the village was Mandan, some of the hunters were
surprisingly Caucasian in appearance--the skin somewhat lighter than
that of the average Indian, the nose not so broad, and the cheekbones
less prominent. Early travelers noted cases of extraordinarily
light complexions, and also instances of brown hair and blue
eyes--characteristics suggesting European blood. By certain of the
first white visitors the Hidatsa were regarded as being rather superior
intellectually, but this was not so apparent in later days.
At their sides the hunters carried knives and bows and arrows in
leather sheaths. If they were going out to kill rabbit, ducks, geese,
beaver, deer, or elk along the river bottom, they might go afoot. If
they sought the wilder bighorn sheep or the buffalo, however, they
brought their ponies from the lodges, where they had been quartered
overnight, as that was the safest place available. Lariats, bridles,
and saddles were of leather. To protect themselves from enemy attack
the hunters had spears, tomahawks, shields, and lances, in addition to
the ever present bows and arrows.
As they threaded their way between the lodges, here and there they
saw some of their women baking pottery of a mixture of clay and
powdered granite or flint--Catlin says they modeled it into a thousand
forms, and that some of their pottery held as much as five gallons.
Other women, using bone awls and needles, were decorating girdles,
fans, moccasins, and dresses with beadwork and embroidery. Clothing,
especially headdress, was elaborate and spectacular on ceremonial
occasions. Still other women were weaving wickerwork, both flat and in
the form of baskets; making bone spoons, ladles, and other household
utensils; fashioning implements for the work in their gardens; and
working over hides stretched on crude frames, in the process of
tanning. In the latter art all the North Dakota tribes were unusually
proficient. Hides prepared by them retained their softness and
resilience even after being subjected to moisture many times.
Farther on, a group of boys hovered about a hoary old man who sat near
the door of a lodge in the soft summer sun and told them the history
and traditions of their tribe. They had just come in from the prairie
outside the village, where the older warriors had been teaching them
the art of war by leading them in a sham battle. The victorious side
had danced the scalp dance, just as their elders did after the actual
taking of scalps, and now all were gathered about this old man to hear
the stories of their people. If the village was Mandan, very possibly
the old man was telling them of the great tribal hero, Good Furred
Robe, who is supposed to have played so large a part in establishing
the Mandan way of living. The narrator would tell them, too, that the
Mandan were the first people created in the world, and that originally
they lived inside the earth, where they raised many vines. Of course,
they were constantly striving and struggling to find a way out of this
dark, underground world. Finally one of their vines pushed its way
through a hole in the earth overhead, and some of their people climbed
up and out into a rich, fine country. A large fat woman, trying to
climb out, broke the vine, however, and the remainder of the Mandans
live underground to this day.
The storyteller also had another version of the beginning of things. At
first the world was entirely water, inhabited by no living creature but
a swan, which in some unaccountable way produced a crow, a wolf, and a
water hen. Through the unsparing efforts of the crow to improve their
situation the water hen was finally sent to the bottom of the waters
to fetch some earth. Taking a small quantity of this in her bill, the
crow made the earth. Later, persevering in her labor of improving their
lot, she assumed the form of an Indian, and made all the beasts, birds,
fishes, and insects, and became the first of all Indians.
If the aged narrator had been an Arikara, his story would have been
similar to that of the Mandan. The Arikara believed that they together
with all other living things existed first in an embryo state deep
within the earth. There they gradually developed, and after many
generations of patient struggle were at last successful in their
attempt to get to the surface. As they emerged, they were directed by
a Voice, which remained with them, comforting and guiding them until
after many hardships and vicissitudes they came to a fair land. Here
there came to them a beautiful woman--the one whose voice had led them.
She was Mother Corn, the protective spirit of the agricultural tribes,
and the one who gave them their staple food grain.
As the hunters passed along they heard through the village the sound of
music--crude flutes, whistles, and drums. All the North Dakota tribes
were musical, even though their product was hampered by the limitations
of their scale, which had only five notes. Frances Densmore has placed
hundreds of their songs in notation, copies of which are published in
the bulletins of the Smithsonian Institution.