Mandan-Hidatsa Myths and Ceremonies
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish live in the Missouri River area. Historians document the first tribe, to occupy this area was the Mandan with the Hidatsa, and the Sahnish moving up the river later. The Mandan and Hidatsa people were originally woodland people who moved to the plains at various times. One theory is the Mandan moved from the area of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa to the plains in South Dakota about 900 A.D., and slowly migrated north along the Missouri River to North Dakota about 1000 A.D. The Hidatsa moved from central Minnesota to the eastern part of North Dakota near Devils Lake, and moved to join the Mandan at the Missouri River about 1600 A.D. The Mandan and Hidatsa believe they were, created in this area and have always lived here. According to anthropologists, the Sahnish people lived in an area that extended from the Gulf of Mexico, across Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota. Dates of migrations all Three Tribes have been, determined by archeological investigation of village sites constructed along the Missouri and elsewhere.
In the first record of European contact in 1738, La Vérendrye, reported nine villages of Mandan People living near the Heart River in present-day North Dakota. When Lewis and Clark passed that river, they saw only the ruins of those villages. After the 1781 smallpox epidemic, the Mandan had moved into to a more defensible position in two villages immediately south of the Hidatsas at the Knife River. The Mandan-Hidatsa alliance had developed many years prior, and the two tribes previously shared their large hunting territory to the west.
The Tribes believe their presence in North America is from the beginning of time. The Mandan call themselves “the People of the First Man.” The Hidatsa were known as Minnetaree or GrosVentre. “Hidatsa” was formerly the name of a village occupied by these tribes. The term “Hidatsa” became a corruption of the word “midah-hutsee-ahti” translated meaning “house/ lodge made with willows.” The name Minnetaree, spelled in various ways means, “to cross the water.” Oral and written history says the names “Arikara, Arickara, Ricarees and Rees” were given to them by the Pawnee and other informants to describe the way they wore their hair. The name “Sahnish” is the chosen name used among themselves which means “the original people from whom all other tribes sprang.” For purposes of this guide, the name of “Arikara” and its derivations which appear in treaties and in reference to legal documents will be used to preserve historical accuracy. All other references to these people will use the term “Sahnish.” Although sharing cultures and histories for so long, the people keep a distinct sense of tribal relationships.
Hidatsa, (Hidatsa: “People of the Willow”) also called Minitari or Gros Ventres of the River (or of the Missouri), North American Indians of the Plains who once lived in semipermanent villages on the upper Missouri River between the Heart and the Little Missouri rivers in what is now North Dakota. The Hidatsa language is a member of the Siouan language family. Until the reservation period began in the late 19th century and limited the tribe’s access to its traditional territory, the Hidatsa were a semisedentary people who lived in dome-shaped earth-berm lodges; they raised corn (maize), beans, squash, and tobacco and made pottery. Hidatsa women raised all the food crops, while tobacco was grown and traded by men. Men also hunted bison and other large game and engaged in warfare.
Prior to departing from winter camp at Wood River, the Hidatsa were relatively well-understood by Lewis and Clark, but not known by that name. One of their St. Louis informants, Jean Baptiste Truteau, called them by their French name Gros Ventre which literally translates as Big Belly. They didn’t have bigger bellies than any other Native Americans, but that meaning was translated by French traders from a Plains Sign Language gesture for the tribe where the hand moves in the shape of an extended stomach.
THE MANDAN AND HIDATSA ESTABLISH MISSOURI VALLEY VILLAGES
Origin of Mahto
The name mahto originally came from Mato-tope. He was also known as Ma-to-toh-pe or Four Bears. Mato-tope was a chief of the Mandan tribe. He became friends with artist Karl Bodmer in 1833, and became chief in the year 1836. Around that time, a smallpox epidemic wiped out most of his tribe, leaving 125 survivors out of a population of formerly 1,600. He died on July 30, 1837. Many believed that he died of smallpox, but George Catlin claimed that he starved himself to death out of grief from the death of his family.
Mandan Invite Hidatsa to Live Close By
It would be better if you went upstream and built your own village, for our customs are somewhat different from yours. Not knowing each other’s ways the young men might have differences and there would be wars. Do not go too far away for people who live far apart are like strangers and wars break out between them. Travel north only until you cannot see the smoke from our lodges and there build your village. Then we will be close enough to be friends and not far enough away to be enemies. – Crows Heart
The Hidatsa are a Siouan tribe living, since first known to the whites, in the vicinity of the junction of the Knife and Missouri Rivers in North Dakota. Although having a long-standing connection with the Mandan and Arikara, their language is closely akin to that of the Crow, with whom they claim to have been united before the historic period. At this time the two tribes separated due to a quarrel over the division of game, the Crow then drawing off farther to the west. The name Hidatsa has been said, with doubtful authority, to mean “willows,” and is stated to have been originally the name only of a principal village of the tribe in their old home on Knife River. It probably came to be used as the tribe name after the smallpox epidemic of 1837 and the consolidation of the survivors of the three villages. By the Mandan they are known as Minitarí, signifying “they crossed the water,” traditionally said to refer to their having crossed Missouri River from the east.
The American Indians known as the Hidatsa traditionally lived along the upper Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Their name means “people of the willow,” referring to the willows that grew along the banks of the Missouri. They have also been called the Gros Ventre of the River (or the Missouri) to distinguish them from the Gros Ventre of the Prairie, an unrelated tribe that is also known as the Atsina or simply the Gros Ventre. The Hidatsa were Plains Indians who spoke a language of the Siouan language family. They lived in dome-shaped lodges consisting of a wooden frame covered with dirt. Women of the tribe raised crops of corn, beans, and squash and made pottery. Men grew tobacco, which was traded to other tribes, hunted bison (buffalo) and other large game on the grasslands, and engaged in warfare. The language of the Hidatsa is most closely related to that of the Crow tribe, with whom they were once united. In the late 1600s or early 1700s the Crow left their villages to live as nomadic bison hunters, but the two tribes continued to trade with each other. In other cultural traits the Hidatsa closely resembled the Mandan, a result of more than 400 years of continuous and peaceful relations.
Hidatsa Tribe Culture and History
Grammar and Dictionary of the Language of the Hidatsa
Hidatsa Language
Ethnology and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians
ND Tribe Working to Preserve Hidatsa Language
Apsaroke and Hidatsa Comparative Vocabulary
The Three Affiliated Tribes — Mandan , Hidatsa , and Arikara — live on the Ft. Berthold Reservation in the northwestern part of the state of North Dakota. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara all have distinct cultures and long histories, but they eventually became allies and created a stronger unified nation living in villages in their homelands along the banks of the Missouri River and its tributaries. There the people farmed and hunted wild game, especially the bison. Their location along the Missouri River helped the Three Affiliated Tribes operate a large trade system for which they were widely known. Many other tribes traveled to Three Affiliated villages to trade for food and other items.
The Arikara, or Sahnish, trace their origins to Central America and then migrated through present day Texas and Louisiana. Archeological evidence supports oral history accounts of extensive migration up and down the Missouri River. Explorers and traders found the Arikara living in fortified earthlodge villages at various points along the Missouri River from Nebraska to the North Dakota state line. In 1804, Lewis and Clark encountered the Arikara living in three villages at the mouth of the Grand River in northern South Dakota. They estimated a population of 3,000 individuals. The death of an Arikara chief on a diplomatic mission to Washington D.C. increased hostilities between the Arikara and whites at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Arikara also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
1. First Creator and Lone Man
2. The Flood
3. The Sacred Arrow
Part 1. Charred Body
Part 2. Lodge Boy and Spring Boy
3. Unknown One, son of Two Men
4. The big Wind-Bag; Old woman’s garden
5. Split-Wing-Feather; corn wife and buffalo wife
Variant a. Red Cloud
Variant b. Old Stone Man and his son-in-law
6. The burning of the Earth; a bird ceremony story
7. Packs Antelope; Thunderbird and Water monster
8. Sticks-a-feather-in-his-head; witch sister
9. Black Wolf; eagle-trapping medicine story
10. The hunter who lost his scalp
11. The lost boy
12. Crow Necklace; a medicine ceremony
13. Old Woman’s Grandson; arrow and basket ceremony
14. Dog Man from Dog Den
15. Yellow Dog; a Dog Den story
16. Black Wolf and White Owl; a Dog Den story
17. The Flood; a buffalo and corn story
Part 1. Magpie
Part 2. Spring Buffalo
3. Stiff Robe
18. Four Wings; a Corn Silk story
19. Brown Bank Village; story of a snake ceremony
20. Snake Village and Buffalo Village
21. Ceremony of Giving-away-wives
Part 1. Wedge Calf
Part 2. High Hawk and Sun
22. Sun and the gambler
23. Bald Eagle; a corn and buffalo story
24. The pet Magpie; a corn and buffalo story
25. Eagle trapping ceremony
26. Origin of Eagle trapping ceremony
27. Chief-while-young; origin of Old Women’s society
28. Hawk and Swallow; a bird ceremony origin story
29. Gives-away-his-arrow; wolf ceremony origin story
30. Story of Hungry Wolf; a wolf mystery story
31. Bringing Wolf into the Lodge
32. Story of the Bear ceremony
33. Medicine Men and Medicine ceremonies
34. Coyote and Sun
35. Coyote and Circle
36. Coyote turns Buffalo
37. Coyote has a race with Buffalo
38. Coyote and two blind men
39. Coyote marries his own daughter
40. Coyote and Whirlwind Woman
41. Coyote caught by the nose
42. Coyote and the rolling stone
43. Coyote feeds two women
44. Coyote teaches the Prairie Dogs to dance
45. Coyote and the Striped Gopher
46. Coyote corrects his world
47. Geography of a war party
48. Mandan Winter Count
Indigenous Peoples Literature 