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Mandan



 
 
The Mandan are a Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
 tribe that historically lived along the banks of the Missouri River
Missouri River

The Missouri River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, and the longest river in the United States of America. The Missouri begins at the confluence of the Madison River, Jefferson River, and Gallatin River rivers in Montana, and flows through Missouri River Valley south and east into the Mississippi north of St....
 and two of its tributaries—the Heart
Heart River

The Heart River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 180 mi long, in western North Dakota in the United States.Course...
 and Knife River
Knife River

This article is about the river in North Dakota. For other meanings, see Knife River The Knife River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 120 mi long, in North Dakota in the United States....
s—in present-day North
North Dakota

North Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and Western United States regions of the United States of America. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the US; it is the 48th most populous, with just over 640,000 residents as of 2006....
 and South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
. Speakers of Mandan
Mandan language

Mandan is an endangered language Siouan languages language....
, a Siouan language, the Mandan were in contrast with other tribes in the Great Plains
Great Plains

The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie and steppe which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada....
 region in the establishment of permanent villages instead of leading a nomad
Nomad

Nomadic people, , also known as nomads, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than Settler in one location....
ic existence tracking herds of buffalo
American Bison

The American Bison is a bovinae mammal, also commonly known as the American buffalo. "Buffalo" is somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffaloes", the Wild Asian Water Buffalo and the African buffalo....
. These permanent settlements featured round, earthen lodges surrounding a central plaza.






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Encyclopedia


The Mandan are a Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
 tribe that historically lived along the banks of the Missouri River
Missouri River

The Missouri River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, and the longest river in the United States of America. The Missouri begins at the confluence of the Madison River, Jefferson River, and Gallatin River rivers in Montana, and flows through Missouri River Valley south and east into the Mississippi north of St....
 and two of its tributaries—the Heart
Heart River

The Heart River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 180 mi long, in western North Dakota in the United States.Course...
 and Knife River
Knife River

This article is about the river in North Dakota. For other meanings, see Knife River The Knife River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 120 mi long, in North Dakota in the United States....
s—in present-day North
North Dakota

North Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and Western United States regions of the United States of America. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the US; it is the 48th most populous, with just over 640,000 residents as of 2006....
 and South Dakota
South Dakota

South Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota people and Sioux Sioux Native Americans in the United States tribes....
. Speakers of Mandan
Mandan language

Mandan is an endangered language Siouan languages language....
, a Siouan language, the Mandan were in contrast with other tribes in the Great Plains
Great Plains

The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie and steppe which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada....
 region in the establishment of permanent villages instead of leading a nomad
Nomad

Nomadic people, , also known as nomads, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than Settler in one location....
ic existence tracking herds of buffalo
American Bison

The American Bison is a bovinae mammal, also commonly known as the American buffalo. "Buffalo" is somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffaloes", the Wild Asian Water Buffalo and the African buffalo....
. These permanent settlements featured round, earthen lodges surrounding a central plaza. While the buffalo was key to the daily life of the Mandan, it was supplemented by agriculture and trade.

Archaeological research suggests the Mandan people migrated from the Ohio River
Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
 valley to the banks of the Missouri River. They were first encountered there by Europeans in 1738 and their friendliness and willingness to trade brought many traders and fur trappers
Fur trade

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur....
 to their villages over the next century. By the turn of the 19th century, attacks by neighboring tribes and epidemics of smallpox
Smallpox

Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple"....
 and whooping cough, significantly diminished the Mandan's population. A major smallpox outbreak in 1837 reduced their numbers to approximately 125. With such meager numbers, the Mandan banded together with two neighboring tribes, the Arikara
Arikara

Arikara refers to a group of Native Americans in the United States that speak a Caddoan languages. They were a semi-nomadic group that lived on the Great Plains of the United States of America for several hundred years....
 and Hidatsa
Hidatsa

The Hidatsa are a Siouan languages people, a part of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. The Hidatsa name for themselves is Nuxbaaga ....
.

Over the next few decades, the three tribes saw their land holdings reduced by various treaties. In an effort to establish good relations, the U.S. government founded the Fort Berthold Agency to care for the combined tribes. The Agency soon set up the Fort Berthold Reservation
Fort Berthold Reservation

The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is a U.S. Indian reservation in North Dakota that is home for the Three Affiliated Tribes which consists of the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa peoples....
 originally consisting of some 8 million acres (32,000 km²), but by 1910, the size of the reservation was about 900,000 acres (3,600 km²) of land. With the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act

The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934, also known as the Wheeler-Howard Act or informally, the Indian New Deal, was a List of United States federal legislation which secured certain rights to indigenous peoples of the United States, including Alaska Natives....
, the Mandan officially merged with the Hidatsa and the Arikara into the "Three Affiliated Tribes
Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation

Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, are a Native Americans in the United States group comprising a union of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, whose native lands ranged across the Missouri River basin in the Dakotas....
," known as the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. The last full blooded Mandan died in 1971, with the remaining members of mixed ancestry. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation, the rest residing around the United States and in Canada.

Synonymy

The English name Mandan is derived from similar exonyms from surrounding Siouan languages, such as Teton
Lakota language

Lakota is one of the three languages of the Sioux, of the Siouan languages family. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages, and is considered by most linguists one of the three major Variety of the Sioux language....
 Miwátani, Yanktonai Miwátani, Yankton Mawátani or Mawátani, Dakota
Sioux

Sioux are a Native Americans in the United States and First Nations people. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many dialects....
 Mawátana or Mawátada, etc. The Mandan have used several terms at different times to refer to themselves:

  • Ruwa´?ka·ki "men, people": before 1837 (transcribed by Westerners as Numakaki, Numangkake)
  • Wi´?ti U´tahakt "East Village" (after the village of the same name): late 19th century (transcribed by Westerners as Metutahanke or Mitutahankish)
  • Ru´?eta "ourselves, our people" (originally the name of a specific division): the currently-used term


The Mandan probably used Ruwa´?ka·ki to refer to a general tribal entity. Later, this word fell to disuse and instead two divisions names were used, Nuweta or Ruptare (i.e. Mandan Ru´?eta). Later the term, Ru´?eta was extended to refer to a general tribal entity. The name Mi-ah´ta-nes recorded by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden in 1862 reportedly means "people on the river bank", but this is may be a folk etymology. Various other terms and alternate spellings that occur in the literature including: Mayátana, Mayátani, Mawádani, Mawádadi, Huatanis, Mandani, Wahtani, Mantannes, Mantons, Mendanne, Mandanne, Mandians, Maw-dân, Meandans, les Mandals, Me-too´-ta-häk, Numakshi, Ruwa´?kši, Wíhwatann, Mevatan, Mevataneo. Gloria Jahoda in her book Trail of Tears states that they also call themselves the "Pheasant people."

Language

The Mandan language
Mandan language

Mandan is an endangered language Siouan languages language....
 belongs to the Siouan language family
Siouan languages

The Siouan languages are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian....
. It was initially thought to be closely related to the languages of the Hidatsa
Hidatsa

The Hidatsa are a Siouan languages people, a part of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. The Hidatsa name for themselves is Nuxbaaga ....
 and the Crow. However, since the Mandan language has been in contact
Language contact

Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics....
 with Hidatsa and Crow for many years, the exact relationship between Mandan and other Siouan languages (including Hidatsa and Crow) has been obscured and is currently undetermined. For this reason, Mandan is most often considered to be a separate branch of the Siouan family.

Mandan has two main dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s: Nuptare and Nuetare. Only the Nuptare variety survived into the 20th century, and all speakers were bilingual in Hidatsa. Linguist Mauricio Mixco of the University of Utah
University of Utah

The University of Utah is a public university research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of ten institutions that make up the Utah System of Higher Education and Utah's premier research school currently enrolls 21,526 undergraduate and 6,684 graduate student students and has 1,419 regular Faculty members....
 has been involved in fieldwork with remaining speakers since 1993. As of 1999, there were only six fluent speakers of Mandan still alive, though there are currently programs in local schools to encourage the use of the language.

The Mandan and their language received much attention from Euro-Americans because of their lighter skin color, causing some to speculate they were of European origin. In the 1830s, Prince Maximilian of Wied spent more time recording Mandan over all other Siouan languages and additionally prepared a comparison list of Mandan and Welsh
Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
 words (he thought that the Mandan may be displaced Welsh). The theory of the Mandan/Welsh connection, now discounted, was also supported by George Catlin
George Catlin

George Catlin was an United States Painting, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States in the Old West....
.

Mandan has different grammatical forms that depend on gender
Gender

Gender comprises a range of differences between man and woman, extending from the biological to the social. Biologically, the male gender is defined by the presence of a Y-chromosome, and its absence in the female gender....
 of the addressee
Addressee

In linguistics, an addressee is an intended direct recipient of the speaker's communication. A listener is either an addressee or a bystander....
. Questions asked of men must use the suffix
Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
  while the suffix is used when asking of women. Likewise the indicative
Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
 suffix is when addressing men and when addressing women, and also for imperatives
Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
: (male), (female). Mandan, like many other North American languages, has elements of sound symbolism
Sound symbolism

Sound symbolism or phonosemantics is a branch of linguistics and refers to the idea that vocal sounds have meaning. In particular, sound symbolism is the idea that phonemes carry meaning in and of themselves....
 in their vocabulary. A sound often denotes smallness/less intensity, denotes medium-ness, denotes largeness/greater intensity:

  • síre "yellow"
  • šíre "tawny"
  • xíre "brown"


  • sró "tinkle"
  • xró "rattle"


Culture


Lodges and villages

Mandan Lodge
One of the most recognizable features of the Mandan was their permanent villages made up of earthen lodges. Each lodge was circular with a dome
Dome

A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
-like roof and a square hole at the apex of the dome through which smoke could escape. The exterior was covered with a matting made from reeds and twigs and then covered with hay and earth. The lodge also featured a portico
Portico

A portico is a porch that is leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls....
-type structure at the entrance. The interior consisted of four large pillars upon which crossbeams supported the roof. These lodges were designed, built and owned by the women of the tribe, and ownership was passed through the female line. They could hold up to 30 or 40 people and villages usually had around 120 lodges. Reconstructions of these lodges may be seen at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park near Mandan, North Dakota
Mandan, North Dakota

Mandan is a city in Morton County, North Dakota, North Dakota in the United States. It is the county seat of Morton County. It is a core city of the Bismarck-Mandan Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, and the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site
Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, which was established in 1974, preserves the historic and archaeological remnants of the Northern Plains Indians....
. Originally lodges were rectangular, but around 1500 CE
Common Era

Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used in the Western world, and also internationally, for numbering the year part of the calendar date....
, lodges began to be constructed in a circular form. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Mandan began constructing small log cabin
Log cabin

A log cabin is a small house built from loggings. It is a simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." "Log cabin" generally denotes a simple one, or one-and-one-half story structure, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less architecturally sophisticated....
s, usually with two rooms. When traveling or hunting, the Mandan would use skin tipi
Tipi

A tipi is a conical tent originally made of animal skins or birch bark and popularized by the Native Americans in the United States of the Great Plains....
s. Today, Mandan live in modern dwellings.

Villages were usually oriented around a central plaza
Plaza

Plaza is a Spanish language word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be incorporated in a wing...
 that was used for games(chunkey
Chunkey

Chunkey is a game of Native Americans in the United States origin. It was played by rolling disc shaped stones across the ground and throwing spears at it in an attempt to place the spear as close to the stopped stone as possible....
) and ceremonial purposes. In the center of the plaza was a tree surrounded by a wood enclosure representing the Lone Man, one of the main figures in Mandan mythology
Mythology

The word mythology refers to a body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity....
 who built a wooden wall thus saving the people of the world from a deluge. Villages were often situated on high bluffs over the river. Often, villages would be constructed at the meeting of tributaries in order to use the water as a natural barrier. Where there were few or no natural barriers, the villages utilized some type of fortification including ditches and palisade
Palisade

A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure....
s.

Family life

The Mandan were originally divided into thirteen clans organized around successful hunters and their kin. Each clan was expected to care for its own, including orphans and the elderly, from birth to death. Clans held a sacred bundle, which consisted of a few gathered objects believed to hold sacred powers. Those in possession of the bundles were considered to have sacred powers bestowed to them by the spirits and thus were considered the leaders of the clan and tribe.

Children were named ten days after their birth in a naming ceremony, which also officially linked the child with their family and clan. Girls would be taught domestic duties, farming, and how to keep a home, while boys were taught hunting and fishing, and would begin fasting
Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. A fast may be total or partial concerning that from which one fasts, and may be prolonged or intermittent as to the period of fasting....
 at the age of ten or eleven. Marriage among the Mandan was generally arranged by members of one's own clan, though occasionally it would take place without the approval of the couple's parents. Divorce could be easily obtained.

Kniferiverindianvillagesnhs1
Upon the death of a family member, a scaffold would be erected near the village to contain the body. The body would be placed with the head towards the northwest and feet to the southeast. (Southeast is the direction of the Ohio River Valley, from whence the Mandan came. The Mandan would not sleep in this orientation, because it invited death.) After a ceremony to send the spirit away, the family would mourn at the scaffold for four days. After the body rotted and the scaffold collapsed, the bones would be gathered up and buried except for the skull, which was placed in a circle near the village. Family members would visit the skulls and talk to them, sometimes bearing their problems or regaling the dead with jokes. After the Mandan moved onto the Fort Berthold Reservation, they resorted to placing the bodies in boxes or trunks or wrapped them in fur robes and placed them in rocky crevices.

Subsistence

Mandan Hunter With Buffalo Skull
The Mandan survived by hunting, farming and gathering wild plants, though some food came from trade. Mandan gardens were often located near river banks, where annual flooding would leave the most fertile soil, sometimes in locations miles from villages. The gardens were owned and tended by the women, and they would plant corn
Maize

Maize , known as corn in some countries, is a cereal domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents....
, beans and squash
Squash (fruit)

Squashes generally refer to four species of the genus Cucurbita native to Mexico and Central America, also called marrows depending on variety or the nationality of the speaker....
, usually enough to last a single year.

The buffalo which the Mandan hunted played an important part in Mandan rituals; calling the buffalo near to the village was one of the main objectives of the Okipa ceremony at the beginning of each summer. In addition to eating the flesh, the Mandan used all remaining parts of the buffalo, so nothing went to waste. The hides were used for buffalo-fur robes or were tanned, and the leather used for clothing and other uses. The Mandan were known for their painted buffalo hides that often recorded historic events. The bones would be carved into items such as needles and fish hook
Fish hook

A fish hook is a device for catching fish either by impaling them in the mouth or, more rarely, by snagging the body of the fish. Fish hooks have been employed for centuries by fisherman to catch fresh and saltwater fish....
s. Bones were also used in farming, such as the scapula
Scapula

In anatomy, the scapula, omo, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus with the clavicle .The scapula forms the posterior part of the shoulder girdle....
, which was used as a hoe
Hoe (tool)

A Hoe is an agricultural tool used to*agitate the surface of the soil around plants, to remove weeds*pile soil around the base of plants ;*create narrow furrows and shallow trenches for planting seeds and bulbs;...
-like device for breaking the soil. Besides buffalo, the Mandan trapped small mammals for food and hunted deer
Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae . A number of broadly similar animals from related families within the order even-toed ungulate are often also called deer....
. Deer antlers were used to create rake
Rake (tool)

A rake is an agriculture and horticulture implement consisting of a toothed bar fixed transversely to a handle, and used to collect leaf, hay, grass, etc., and, in gardening, for loosening the soil, light weeding and levelling, and generally for purposes performed in agriculture by the harrow ....
-like implements used in farming. Birds were hunted for feathers, which were used for adornment.

Dress

Mandan Girls Gathering Berries
Up until the late 19th century when they began adopting Western-style dress, the Mandan commonly wore clothing made from the hides of buffalo as well as deer and sheep. From the hides, tunic
Tunic

A tunic is any of several types of clothing for the body, with or without sleeves, and of various lengths reaching from the shoulders to somewhere between the hips and the ankles....
s, dresses, buffalo-fur robes, moccasins
Moccasin (footwear)

A Moccasin is a shoe made of deerskin or other soft leather, consisting of a sole and sides made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp ....
, gloves, loincloths and leggings
Leggings

Leggings are any of several sorts of fitted clothing to cover the legs. Originally leggings were two separate garments, one for each leg.In contemporary usage, leggings refers to tight, form-fitting trousers that extend from the waist to the ankles; in the United States, they are sometimes referred to as tights ....
 could be made. These items were often ornamented with quills and bird feathers and sometimes even the scalps
Scalping

Scalping is the act of removing the scalp, usually with the hair, as a portable proof or trophy of prowess in war. Scalping is also associated with frontier warfare in North America, and was widely practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, colonists, and frontiersmen over centuries of violent conflict....
 of enemies.

Mandan women wore ankle-length dresses made of deerskin or sheepskin
Sheepskin (material)

File:Sheep skin for sale.jpgSheepskin is the Hides of a Domestic sheep, sometimes also called lambskin or lambswool. Unlike common leather, sheepskin is tanned with the fleece intact, as in a pelt....
. This would often be girded at the waist with a wide belt. Sometimes the hem of the dress would be ornamented with pieces of buffalo hoof
Hoof

File:Horse rear hooves.jpgA hoof is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick horny covering. The hoof consists of a hard or rubbery sole, and a hard wall formed by a thick Nail rolled around the tip of the toe....
. Underneath the dress, leather
Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
 leggings would be worn with ankle-high moccasins. Women's hair was worn straight down in braids.

During the winter months, men would commonly wear deerskin tunics and leggings with moccasins. They also kept themselves warm by wearing a robe of buffalo fur. During the summer months, however, a loincloth of deerskin or sheepskin would often suffice. Unlike the women, men would wear various ornaments in their hair. The hair was parted across the top with three sections hanging down in front. Sometimes the hair would hang down the nose and would be curled upwards with a curling stick. The hair would hang to the shoulders on the side, and the back portion would sometimes reach to the waist. The long hair in the back would create a tail-like feature, as it would be gathered into braids then smeared with clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
 and spruce
Spruce

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth....
 gum then tied with cords of deerskin. Headdresses of feathers were often worn as well.

Religion

Of the tribes living on the Great Plains, the Mandan's religion was one of the more complex. Much of their mythology centered on a figure known as Lone Man. Lone Man was involved in many of the creation myths as well as one of the deluge myths. In their creation myth, the world was created by two rival deities, the First Creator and the Lone Man. The Missouri River divided the two worlds that the beings created. First Creator created the lands to the south of the river with hills, valleys, trees, buffalo, antelope
Pronghorn

The pronghorn , also pronghorn antelope or prong buck, is a species of ungulate mammal native to interior western and central North America....
 and snakes. To the north of the river, Lone Man created the Great Plains, domesticated animals, birds, fish and humans. The first humans lived underground near a large lake. Some of the more adventurous humans climbed a grapevine to the surface and discovered the two worlds. After returning underground they shared their findings and decided to return with many others. As they were climbing the grapevine it broke and half of the Mandan were left underground.

According to pre-Christian Mandan beliefs, each person possessed four different, immortal souls. The first soul was white and often seen as a shooting star. The second soul was colored a light brown and was seen in the form of the meadowlark
Western Meadowlark

The Western Meadowlark is a medium-sized icterid, very similar in appearance to the Eastern Meadowlark.Adults have yellow underparts, with a black "V" on the breast, and white flanks which are streaked with black....
. The third soul, called the lodge spirit, remained at the site of the lodge after death and would remain there forever. The final soul was black and after death would travel away from the village. These final souls existed as did living people; residing in their own villages, farming and hunting.

One notable feature of the Mandan's religious life was the Okipa, which was first recorded by George Catlin. The ceremony opened with a Bison Dance followed by a variety of torturous ordeals through which warriors proved their courage and gained the approval of the spirit
Spirit

The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin "spiritus" . The term is commonly used to refer to a supernatural being which is transcendence and therefore metaphysical in nature....
s. The Okipa began with the young man not eating, drinking, or sleeping for four days. Then they were lead to a hut, where they had to sit with smiling faces while the skin of their chest and shoulders was cut off and wooden skewers were thrust behind the muscles. Using the skewers to support the weight of their bodies, the warriors would be suspended from the roof of the lodge and would hang there until they fainted. To add agony, heavy weights were added to the initiates legs. After fainting, the warrior would be pulled down and the men (women were not allowed to attend this ceremony) would watch the warrior until he awoke, proving the spirits' approval. After awakening, the warrior would sacrifice the little finger on both hands, each finger being severed by the initiate with a hatchet
Hatchet

Hatchet from the French hachette a diminutive form of the word hache, French for axe.The hatchet is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade used to cut and split wood....
. Finally, the warrior would be taken outside where he would run around the central plaza of the village a number of times. Those finishing the ceremony were seen as being honored by the spirits; those completing the ceremony twice would gain everlasting fame among the tribe. Chief Four Bears, or Ma-to-toh-pe
Mato-tope

Mato-tope was the second chief of the Mandan tribe to be known to whites as four bears, a name he earned after charging the Assiniboine tribe during battle with the strength of four bears....
, completed this ceremony twice. The last Okipa ceremony was performed in 1889 but the ceremony was resurrected in a somewhat different form in 1983. The version of the Okipa as practiced by the Lakota may be seen in the 1970 film A Man Called Horse
A Man Called Horse

A Man Called Horse was originally published as a short story in Collier's magazine, Jan. 7, 1950, and was reprinted in 1968 as a short story in a book called Indian Country by Dorothy M....
 starring Richard Harris.

History


Origins and early history


Like all Native American peoples, the exact origins and early history of the Mandan is unknown. Early studies by linguists gave evidence that the Mandan language may have been closely related to the language of the Ho-Chunk
Ho-Chunk

The Ho-Chunk, or Winnebago , are a tribe of Native Americans in the United States, native to what are now Wisconsin and Illinois....
 or Winnebago people of present-day Wisconsin
Wisconsin

Wisconsin is one of the fifty U.S. state in the United States of America, located in the north central part of the United States. It borders two of the five Great Lakes and four U.S....
, which has given rise to the theory that they may have settled in the region at one time. This idea is possibly confirmed in their mythology, where reference is made to having come from an eastern location near a lake.

Ethnologists and scholars studying the Mandan subscribe to the theory that, like other Sioux
Sioux

Sioux are a Native Americans in the United States and First Nations people. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many dialects....
 people (possibly including the Hidatsa), they originated in the area of the upper Mississippi River
Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
 and the Ohio River
Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
 in present-day Ohio
Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
. If this is the case, the Mandan would have migrated north towards the Missouri River valley and its tributary the Heart River in present-day North Dakota
North Dakota

North Dakota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States and Western United States regions of the United States of America. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the US; it is the 48th most populous, with just over 640,000 residents as of 2006....
, where Europeans first encountered them. This migration is believed to have occurred possibly as early as the 7th century but probably between 1000 CE and the 13th century.

After their arrival on the banks of the Heart River, the Mandan constructed nine villages, two on the east side of the river and seven on the west side. At some point during this time, the Hidatsa people also moved into the region. Mandan tradition states that the Hidatsa were a nomadic tribe until their encounter with the Mandan, who taught them to build stationary villages and agriculture. The Hidatsa continued to maintain amicable relations with the Mandan and constructed villages north of them on the Knife River.

European encounter

The first encounter with Europeans occurred with the visit of the French Canadian trader Sieur de la Verendrye in 1738. It is estimated that at the time of his visit there were approximately 15,000 Mandan residing in the nine villages on the Heart River. Horses were acquired by the Mandan in the mid-18th century and were used for transportation and hunting. The horses helped with the expansion of Mandan hunting territory. The encounter with the French in the 18th century created a trading link between the French and the Native Americans of the region with the Mandan serving as middlemen in the of trade in furs, horses, gun
GUN

Gun is a Revisionist Western-themed video game developed by Neversoft. It was published by Activision for the Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2....
s, crops and buffalo products.

In 1796 the Mandan were visited by the Welsh explorer John Evans
John Evans (explorer)

John Thomas Evans was a Wales explorer who produced an early map of the Missouri River.John Evans was born in Waunfawr, near Caernarfon. In the early 1790s there was an upsurge of interest in Wales in the story of Madog having discovered America, and there were persistent rumours in North America of the existence of a tribe of Welsh Nativ...
, who was hoping to find proof that their language contained Welsh words. Evans spent the winter of 1796–97 with the Mandan but found no evidence of any Welsh influence. In July 1797 he wrote to Dr. Samuel Jones "Thus having explored and charted the Missurie for 1,800 miles and by my Communications with the Indians this side of the Pacific Ocean from 35 to 49 degrees of Latitude, I am able to inform you that there is no such People as the Welsh Indians".

By 1804 when Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition , headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark , was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back....
 visited the tribe, the number of Mandan had been greatly reduced by smallpox epidemics and warring bands of Assiniboins, Lakotas and Arikaras (with whom they would later join together to fight against the Lakota). The nine villages at this point had consolidated into two villages. The Lewis and Clark expedition met with such hospitality in the Upper Missouri River villages that the expedition stopped there for the winter. In honor of their hosts, the expedition dubbed the settlement they constructed Fort Mandan. It was here that Lewis and Clark first met Sacagawea
Sacagawea

For the Sacagawea $1 coin, see Sacagawea dollar.Sacagawea Reliable historical information about Sacagawea is extremely limited, but she has become an important part of the Lewis and Clark mythology in the American public imagination....
, a Shoshone
Shoshone

The Shoshone are a Native Americans in the United States in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
 woman who had been captured by the Hidatsa. Sacagawea guided the expedition westward towards the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
. Upon their return to the Mandan villages, Lewis and Clark took the Mandan Chief Sheheke (Coyote or Big White) to Washington to meet with President Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States , the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence , and one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States....
. Chief Sheheke was killed in a battle with Hidatsa Indians in 1812.

In 1833, artist George Catlin
George Catlin

George Catlin was an United States Painting, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States in the Old West....
 visited the Mandan near Fort Clark
Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site

Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site was once the home to a Mandan and later an Arikara settlement. Over the course of its history it also had two trading posts....
. Catlin painted and drew scenes of Mandan life as well as portraits of chiefs including Four Bears or Ma-to-toh-pe. His skill at rendering so impressed Four Bears that Catlin was the first man of European descent to be allowed to watch the Okipa ceremony. The winter months of 1833 and 1834 brought Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer
Karl Bodmer

Karl Bodmer was a Swiss painter of the American West. He accompanied German explorer Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied from 1832 through 1834 on his Missouri River expedition....
 to stay with the Mandan.

Speculation about pre-Columbian European contact
18th century reports about characteristics of Mandan lodges, religion and occasional physical features among tribal members, such as blue and grey eyes along with lighter hair coloring, stirred speculation about the possibility of pre-Columbian European contact. Catlin believed the Mandan were the "Welsh Indians" of folklore, descendants of Prince Madoc
Madoc

Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to folklore, a Wales prince who discovered Americas in 1170, over three hundred years before Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492....
 and his followers who emigrated to America from Wales
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
 in about 1170. This view was very popular at the time but has since been disputed by the bulk of scholarship.

Later speculation has suggested the Mandan may have had pre-Columbian contact with Viking
Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
 explorers. Controversial interpretations of the Kensington Runestone
Kensington Runestone

The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke covered in Runic alphabet on its face and side which, if it is genuine, would suggest that Scandinavian explorers reached the middle of North America in the 14th century....
, found in 1898 in the largely rural township of Solem, Douglas County, Minnesota
Douglas County, Minnesota

Douglas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of 2000, the population was 32,821. Its county seat is Alexandria, Minnesota....
, have cited the runestone as evidence of Viking presence there. However there is no known evidence of Mandan-Viking contact and this interpretation has very little support among anthropologists and professional historians.

Smallpox epidemic of 1837–38

Catlin Chief Four Bears
The Mandan were first plagued by smallpox in the 16th century and had been hit by similar epidemics every few decades. Between 1837 and 1838, another smallpox epidemic swept the region. In June 1837, an American Fur Company
American Fur Company

The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopoly the fur trade in the United States, and became one of the largest businesses in the country....
 steamboat traveled westward up the Missouri River from St. Louis. Its passengers and traders aboard infected the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes. There were approximately 1,600 Mandan living in the two villages at that time. The disease effectively destroyed the Mandan settlements. Almost all the tribal members, including the chief
Tribal chief

A traditional tribal chief is the leadership of a tribe, or the head of a tribal form of self-government.The notion of a "tribal chief" is rather vague and arbitrary; neither chief nor tribe is clearly defined, so in many cases other designations are used for the same institution, such as petty ruler or even headman ....
, Four Bears, died. Estimates of the number of survivors vary from only 27 individuals to up to 150, though most sources usually give the number 125. The survivors banded together with the nearby Hidatsa in 1845 and created Like-a-Fishhook Village
Like-a-Fishhook Village

Like-a-Fishhook Village was an Indian village in North Dakota established by members of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa....
.

Mandan chief Four Bears reportedly stated “a set of Black harted Dogs, they have deceived Me, them that I always considered as Brothers, has turned Out to be My Worst enemies”. Francis Chardon, in his "Journal at Fort Clark 1834–1839", wrote that the Gros Ventres (ie. Hidatsa), “swear vengeance against all the Whites, as they say the small pox was brought here by the S[team] B[oat].” (Chardon, Journal, p. 126). In the earliest detailed study of the event, in The American Fur Trade of the Far West (1902), Hiram M. Chittenden
Hiram M. Chittenden

Hiram Martin Chittenden is the Seattle District Engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers for whom the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle, Washington are named....
 blamed the American Fur Company for the epidemic. Oral tradition of the affected tribes continue to claim that whites were to blame for the disease. R. G. Robertson in his book Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian places blame on Captain Pratte of St. Peter’s for failing to quarantine once the epidemic broke out, stating that while “not guilty of premeditated genocide, but he was guilty of contributing to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The law calls his offence criminal negligence. Yet in light of all the deaths, the almost complete annihilation of the Mandans, and the terrible suffering the region endured, the label criminal negligence is benign, hardly befitting an action that had such horrendous consequences”.

Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill

Ward LeRoy Churchill is an American writer and political activism. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007....
 has alleged that the US Army gave smallpox infected blankets to the Mandan Indians in 1837, as part of a genocidal conspiracy. No historian specializing in that event has agreed with Churchill's accusations against the Army. A University of Colorado investigation into Churchill's research found that in this instance he had misrepresented his sources and "created myths under the banner of academic scholarship."

Late 19th and the 20th centuries

The Mandan joined with the Arikara in 1862. By this time, Like-a-Fishhook Village had become a major center of trade in the region. By the 1880s, though, the village was abandoned. With the second half of the 19th century there was a gradual decrease in the holdings of the Three Affiliated Tribes (the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara). The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 recognized 12 million acres (49,000 km²) of land in the territory owned jointly by these tribes. With the creation of the Fort Berthold Reservation by Executive Order on 12 April 1870, the federal government recognized the holdings as only being 8 million acres (32,000 km²). On 1 July 1880, another executive order deprived the tribes of 7 million acres (28,000 km²) lying outside the boundaries of the reservation.

With the arrival of the 20th century, the government seized more land, and by 1910, the reservation had shrunk to a mere 900,000 acres (3,600 km²). This land is located in Dunn
Dunn County, North Dakota

Dunn County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 3,600. Its county seat is Manning, North Dakota....
, McKenzie
McKenzie County, North Dakota

McKenzie County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 5,737. Its county seat is Watford City, North Dakota....
, McLean
McLean County, North Dakota

McLean County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 9,311. Its county seat is Washburn, North Dakota....
, Mercer
Mercer County, North Dakota

Mercer County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 8,644. Its county seat is Stanton, North Dakota....
, Mountrail
Mountrail County, North Dakota

Mountrail County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 6,631. Its county seat is Stanley, North Dakota....
 and Ward
Ward County, North Dakota

Ward County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of 2000, the population was 58,795. Its county seat is Minot, North Dakota; the seat was in Burlington, North Dakota until 1888....
 counties in North Dakota. In 1951, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of Garrison Dam
Garrison Dam

Garrison Dam is a major earth embankment dam on the Missouri River in central North Dakota. At over two miles in length, it is the fifth-largest earthen dam in the world, constructed by the U.S....
 on the Missouri River. This dam created Lake Sakakawea
Lake Sakakawea

Lake Sakakawea is a reservoir in the Missouri River basin in central North Dakota. Named for the Shoshone-Hidatsa woman Sakakawea, it is the third largest man-made lake in the United States, after Lake Mead and Lake Powell....
, which flooded portions of the Fort Berthold Reservation including the villages of Fort Berthold and Elbowoods as well as a number of other villages. The former residents of these villages were moved and New Town
New Town, North Dakota

New Town is a city in Mountrail County, North Dakota, North Dakota in the United States. The population was 1,367 at the 2000 United States Census....
 was established for them.

While a new town was constructed for the displaced tribal members, much damage was done to the social and economic foundations of the reservation. The flooding claimed approximately one quarter of the reservations land. This land contained some of the most fertile agricultural land upon which the agricultural economy had been constructed. In addition, the flooding claimed the sites of historic villages and archaeological sites.

Present day

The Mandan and the two related tribes while being combined have intermarried but do maintain, as a whole, the varied traditions of their ancestors. The last full-blood Mandan died in 1971. The tribal residents have recovered from the trauma of their displacement in the 1950s and part of their recovery has been aided by two recent additions to New Town. The Four Bears Casino and Lodge was constructed in 1993 drawing tourists and money to the impoverished reservation. The most recent addition to the New Town area has been the new Four Bears Bridge
Four Bears Bridge

Four Bears Bridge is one of two bridges built over the Missouri River on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the U.S. state of North Dakota. The current bridge which opened in 2005 is the second largest bridge in the state and replaces an earlier bridge built in 1955....
, which was built in a joint effort between the three tribes and the North Dakota Department of Transportation. The bridge, spanning the Missouri River, replaces an older Four Bears Bridge that was built in 1955. The new bridge—the largest bridge in the state of North Dakota—is decorated with medallions celebrating the cultures of the three tribes. The bridge was opened to traffic 2 September 2005 and was officially opened in a ceremony on the 3 October.

Books and articles


  • Hayden, Ferdinand Vandeveer. (1862). Contributions to the ethnography and philology of the Indian tribes of the Missouri Valley: Prepared under the direction of Capt. William F. Reynolds, T.E.U.S.A., and published by permission of the War Department. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 12 (2), 231–461. Philadelphia: C. Sherman and Son.
  • Hodge, Frederick Webb, Ed. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Originally published by the Bureau of American Ethnology and the Smithsonian Institute in 1906. (Reprinted in New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1971. ISBN 1-58218-748-7)
  • Jahoda, Gloria. Trail of Tears: The Story of the American Indian Removals, 1813–1835. New York: Wings Books, 1975. ISBN 0-517-14677-0
  • Newman, Marshall T "The Blond Mandan: A Critical Review of an Old Problem", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Autumn, 1950), pp. 255-272
  • Potter, Tracy A., 'Sheheke: Mandan Indian Diplomat, The Story of White Coyote, Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark, Farcountry Press and Fort Mandan Press, Helena, 2003. ISBN 1-56037-255-9
  • Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture and Peoples. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-513877-5
  • Robertson, R. G. (2001). Rotting Face. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press. ISBN 0870044192.
  • Wood, W. Raymond, & Lee Irwin. "Mandan". In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94–114). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001. ISBN 0-16-050400-7
  • Zimmerman, Karen. "Mandan". In The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Vol. III. Detroit: Gale, 1998. ISBN 0-7876-1088-7


Language

  • Chafe, Wallace. (1976). The Caddoan, Iroquoian, and Siouan languages. Trends in linguistics: State-of-the-art report (No. 3). The Hague: Mouton. ISBN 90-279-3443-6.
  • Hollow, Robert C. (1970). A Mandan dictionary. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).
  • Hollow, Robert C.; & Parks, Douglas. (1980). Studies in plains linguistics: A review. In W. R. Wood & M. P. Liberty (Eds.), Anthropology on the Great Plains (pp. 68–97). Lincoln: University of Nebraska. ISBN 0-8032-4708-7.
  • Kennard, Edward. (1936). Mandan grammar. International Journal of American Linguistics, 9, 1–43.
  • Lowie, Robert H. (1913). Societies of the Hidatsa and Mandan Indians. In R. H. Lowie, Societies of the Crow, Hidatsa, and Mandan Indians (pp. 219–358). Anthropological papers of the American Museum Of Natural History (Vol. 11, Part 3). New York: The Trustees. (Texts are on pp. 355–358).
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
  • Mixco, Mauricio C. (1997). Mandan. Languages of the world series: Materials 159. Münich: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 3-89586-213-4.
  • Parks, Douglas R.; Jones, A. Wesley; Hollow, Robert C; & Ripley, David J. (1978). Earth lodge tales from the upper Missouri. Bismarck, ND: Mary College.
  • Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94–114). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
  • Will, George; & Spinden, H. J. (1906). The Mandans: A study of their culture, archaeology and language. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University (Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 81–219). Cambridge, MA: The Museum. (Reprinted 1976, New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation).
  • Williams, Gwen A., Madoc, the Making of a Myth, Eyre Methuen, 1979


Online sources

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  • (accessed 18 October 2005)
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  • from the Bismarck Tribune (accessed 9 December 2005)