Part 16

In the narrative of the Lewis and Clark expedition appears this record: "June 13, 1804. We passed ... a bend of the river, Missouri and two creeks on the north, called the Round Bend creeks. Between these two creeks is the prairie, in which once stood the ancient village of the Missouris. Of this village there remains no vestige, nor is there any thing to recall this great and numerous nation, except a feeble remnant of about thirty families. They were driven from their original seats by the invasions of the Sauks and other Indians from the Mississippi, who destroyed at this village two hundred of them in one contest." (Lewis and Clark, (1), I, p. 13.) About 5 miles beyond they reached the mouth of Grand River which flows from the northwest, serves as the boundary between Carroll and Chariton Counties, Missouri, and enters the left bank of the Missouri River. Therefore the old village of the Missouri evidently stood at some point in the latter county. It was probably composed of a number of mat and bark covered lodges resembling the village of the Osage which stood a few miles farther up the river. Two days later, June 15, the party identified the site or remains of the former village of the Little Osage, and, so the narrative continues: "About three miles above them, in view of our camp is the situation of the old village of the Missouris after they fled from the Sauks." (Op. cit., p. 15.) From this village the few Missouri Indians appear to have sought refuge among the Oto, then living on the banks of the Platte.

WINNIBAGO.

When first known to Europeans the Winnebago occupied the region west of Green Bay, west of Lake Michigan, where, according to the Jesuit missionaries, they had resided for many generations. There they were living in the year 1634 when visited by Nicollet, and just 35 years later, during the winter of 1669-70, a mission on the shore of the same bay was conducted by Père Allouez, which proved a gathering place for various tribes, including the Winnebago, Sauk and Foxes, Menominee, and Potawatomi. These, with the exception of the Winnebago, were Algonquian tribes.

As already mentioned, the Oto, Iowa, and Missouri appear to have been closely connected with the Winnebago, all speaking dialects understood by one another. And it is also evident that when the Oto, Iowa, and Missouri began their movement westward to the Mississippi and beyond the Winnebago remained behind. However, about the beginning of the last century they reached the banks of the Mississippi, and by successive moves during the next 50 years some arrived in western Minnesota, soon to be removed to lands beyond the Missouri, adjoining the Omaha, in the northeastern part of Nebraska.

While living in the vicinity of Green Bay their villages were groups of mat and bark-covered lodges, typical of the tribes of the wooded country which abounded in lakes and streams. And it is quite evident that during their migration westward, when they made long stops before finally reaching the banks of the Missouri, they continued to erect and occupy structures similar to those which had stood in their old villages generations before.

Typical examples of Winnebago dwellings are shown in plates 36 and 37. The arbor over the entrance is an interesting feature, seldom appearing in the Algonquian villages, although often shown in front of Siouan lodges.

In a forthcoming publication Radin has given a list of the various forms of structures erected by the Winnebago, some of which existed until very recent years. (Radin, (1).)

MANDAN.

As mentioned in the sketch of the Assiniboin, a small party of French accompanied by members of that tribe during the autumn of 1738 went southward from the Assiniboin country to the Mandan towns, where the French remained several weeks. The leader of the expedition, La Verendrye, prepared an account of the journey, this being the earliest record of a visit by Europeans to the Mandans known to exist, although it is easily conceived that French trappers may have been among the tribe earlier in the century.

The expedition arrived among the Mandan November 28, 1738, after a journey of 46 days, but soon pushed forward to a larger village. Fortunately the journal contains references to the ways of life of the Mandan and a brief description of their fortified or protected settlements. At that time the tribe was said to have had six villages, and evidently all were protected by encircling palisades. The village in which the French then rested consisted of 130 lodges, and "all the streets, squares and huts resembled each other." The French were particularly interested in the manner in which the town was protected, but the account in the journal must exaggerate the strength, or rather the size, of the ditch. The palisade was described as being 15 feet in height, and "At fifteen points doubled are green skins which are put for sheathing when required, fastened only above in the places needed, as in the bastion there are four at each curtain well flanked. The fort is built on a height in the open prairie with a ditch upwards of fifteen feet deep by fifteen to eighteen feet wide. Their fort can only be gained by steps or posts which can be removed when threatened by an enemy. If all their forts are alike, they may be called impregnable to Indians.... Both men and women of this nation are very laborious; their huts are large and spacious, separated into several apartments by thick planks; nothing is left lying about; all their baggage is in large bags hung on posts; their beds made like tombs surrounded by skins.... Their fort is full of caves, in which are stored such articles as grain, food, fat, dressed robes, bear skins. They are well supplied with these; it is the money of the country.... They make wicker work very neatly, flat and in baskets. They make use of earthen pots, which they use like many other nations for cooking their food." (La Verendrye, (1), p. 21.) In addition to the six more important villages there appear to have been others, similar but smaller. Referring to these La Verendrye wrote (p. 23): "We noticed that in the plain there were several small forts, of forty or fifty huts, built like the large ones, but no one was there at the time. They made us understand that they came inside for the summer to work their fields and that there was a large reserve of grain in their cellars." Evidently these were nearer their cornfields, away from the river banks, and were occupied only parts of each year.

From this all too brief account of the Mandan it is quite evident that when they were first encountered by the French, living in their earth lodges, their villages strongly palisaded, their caches filled with corn and other food supplies, buffalo robes and bear skins, they were in their most powerful and prosperous state. But what great changes they were destined to undergo during the next hundred years!

On October 19, 1804, the Lewis and Clark party discovered the first of the ruined villages of the Mandan, evidently standing on the left bank of the Missouri, in the southern part of the present Burleigh County, North Dakota. It proved an interesting day. "In walking along the shore we counted fifty-two herds of buffaloe and three of elk, at a single view. Besides these we also observed elk, deer, pelicans, and wolves." The ruined village had been protected by palisades and, according to the Arikara chief, who accompanied them, had been occupied by the Mandan. These, so they wrote, "are the first ruins which we have seen of that nation in ascending the Missouri." During the night of October 19 the expedition encamped on the south, i. e., right, bank of the Missouri, evidently about 2 miles below the mouth of Little Heart River, which flows from the westward and joins the Missouri in the present Morton County, North Dakota. The following day they advanced 12 miles up the Missouri.

October 21, 1804, was cold and bleak. Snow and ice covered the ground, and the wind blew strong from the northeast. That day the expedition advanced only 7 miles. They passed the mouth of Big Heart River and the site of Bismarck, the present capital of the State. Two miles above their camp of the night previous, about opposite the mouth of the Big Heart, they reached "the ruins of a second Mandan village, which was in existence at the same time with that just mentioned. It is situated on the north at the foot of a hill in a beautiful and extensive plain, which is now covered with herds of buffaloes; nearly opposite are remains of a third village on the south of the Missouri, and there is another also about two miles further on the north, a little off the river. At the distance of seven miles we encamped on the south, and spent a cold night." The next day, October 22, they discovered other ruined towns of the Mandan. "In the morning we passed an old Mandan village on the south, near our camp; at four miles another on the same side.... At six we reached an island about one mile in length, at the head of which is a Mandan village on the north in ruins, and two miles beyond a bad sandbar. At eight miles are remains of another Mandan village on the south; and at twelve miles encamped on the south.... These villages, which are nine in number, are scattered along each side of the river within a space of twenty miles; almost all that remains of them is the wall which surrounds them, the fallen heaps of earth which covered the houses, and occasionally human skulls and the teeth and bones of men, and different animals, which are scattered on the surface of the ground." (Lewis and Clark, (1), I, pp. 112-114.) Other deserted villages were passed as they continued ascending the Missouri, to arrive late on the 26th of October, at an old field of the Mandan, about one-half mile below the first of their then occupied villages.

The winter encampment of the expedition, Fort Mandan, was situated on the left bank of the Missouri, about opposite the future Fort Clark, and some 7 or 8 miles below the mouth of Knife River, and consequently several miles from the first Mandan village. Here the expedition remained until April 7, 1805. The lower of the Mandan villages was "Matootonha," the second and smaller was "Rooptahee." The list continues and refers to "the third village which is called Mahawha, and where the Arwacahwas reside." "The fourth village where the Minnetarees live, and which is called Metaharta." A fifth village is mentioned but its name is not given. (Op. cit., pp. 120-121.) Referring to these more in detail the narrative tells something of their origin: November 21, 1804, "The villages near which we are established are five in number, and are the residence of three distinct nations: the Mandans, the Ahnahaways, and the Minnetarees. The history of the Mandans, as we received it from our interpreters and from the chiefs themselves, and as it is attested by existing monuments, illustrates more than that of any other nation the unsteady movements and the tottering fortunes of the American nations. Within the recollection of living witnesses, the Mandans were settled forty years ago in nine villages, the ruins of which we passed about eighty miles below, and situated seven on the west and two on the east side of the Missouri. The two finding themselves wasting away before the small-pox and the Sioux, united into one village, and moved up the river opposite to the Ricaras. The same causes reduced the remaining seven to five villages, till at length they emigrated in a body to the Ricara nation, where they formed themselves into two villages, and joined those of their countrymen who had gone before them. In their new residence they were still insecure, and at length the three villages ascended the Missouri to their present position. The two who had emigrated together still settled in the two villages on the northwest side of the Missouri, while the single village took a position on the southeast side. In this situation they were found by those who visited them in 1796; since which the two villages have united into one. They are now in two villages, one on the southeast of the Missouri, the other on the opposite side, and at the distance of three miles across. The first, in an open plain, contains about forty or fifty lodges, built in the same way as those of the Ricaras: the second, the same number, and both may raise about three hundred and fifty men.

"On the same side of the river, and at the distance of four miles from the lower Mandan village, is another called Mahaha. It is situated in a high plain at the mouth of the Knife river, and is the residence of the Ahnahaways. This nation, whose name indicated that they were 'people whose village is on a hill,' formerly resided on the Missouri, about thirty miles below where they now live. The Assiniboins and Sioux forced them to a spot five miles higher, where the greatest part of them were put to death, and the rest emigrated to their present situation, in order to obtain an asylum near the Minnetarees. They are called by the French, Soulier Noir or Shoe Indians; by the Mandans, Wattasoons, and their whole force is about fifty men.

"On the south side of the same Knife river, half a mile above the Mahaha and in the same open plain with it, is a village of the Minnetarees surnamed Metaharta, who are about one hundred and fifty men in number. On the opposite side of Knife river, and one and a half mile above this village is a second of Minnetarees, who may be considered as the proper Minnetaree nation. It is situated in a beautiful low plain, and contains four hundred and fifty warriors." (Op. cit., pp. 129-131.)

In their journal, kept while in winter quarters at Fort Mandan, are to be found many interesting references to the Mandan. To quote several of these will tend to shed light on the ways of life in the native village. On November 22, 1804, the Mandan sold to the members of the expedition "a quantity of corn of a mixed colour, which they dug up in ears from the holes made near the front of their lodges, in which it is buried during the winter." This had probably been gathered only a few weeks before the arrival of the party at the village, then deposited in the caches for future use. December 19 the weather had moderated, and the Indians were seen playing a game on the level space between the lodges of the first and second chiefs, a distance of about 50 yards. The entry for January 13, 1805, contains an interesting note: "We have a continuation of clear weather, and the cold has increased, the mercury having sunk to 34 below 0. Nearly one half of the Mandan nation passed down the river to hunt for several days; in these excursions men, women and children, with their dogs, all leave the village together, and after discovering a spot convenient for the game, fix their tents; all the family bear their part in the labour, and the game is equally divided among the families of the tribe." And on February 12, it was told how "The horses of the Mandans are so often stolen by the Sioux, Ricaras, and Assiniboins, that the invariable rule now is to put the horses every night in the same lodge with the family. In the summer they ramble in the plains in the vicinity of the camp, and feed on the grass, but during cold weather the squaws cut down the cottonwood trees as they are wanted, and the horses feed on the boughs and bark of the tender branches, which are also brought into the lodges at night and placed near them."

About the year 1797, and consequently a few years before the arrival of the Lewis and Clark expedition at the Mandan villages, John McDonnell, a partner of the North-West Company, made brief mention of the Mandan in his journal. He wrote: "These Indians live in settled villages, fortified with palisades, which they seldom ever abandon, and they are the best husbandman in the whole Northwest. They raise indian corn or maize, beans, pumpkins, squashes in considerable quantity, not only sufficient to supply their own wants, with the help of the buffalo, but also to sell and give away to all strangers that enter their villages." (McDonnell, (1), pp. 272-273.) And in 1804 another representative of the old North-West Company referred to the gardens of the Mandans and said in part:

"In the spring, as soon as the weather and the state of the ground will permit, the women repair to the fields, when they cut the stalks of the Indian corn of the preceding year and drop new seed into the socket of the remaining roots. A small kind of pumpkins which are very productive they plant with a dibble, and raise the ground into hillocks the same as those about Indian corn. Their kidney beans they plant in the same manner. They cultivate a tall kind of sunflower, the seed of which is reckoned good eating dry and pounded with fat and made into balls of three or four ounces; they are found excellent for long journeys." (Mackenzie, Charles, (1), pp. 338-339.) And the narrative continued: "The only implement used among the Mandanes for the purpose of agriculture is a hoe made from the shoulder blade of a buffalo and which is ingrafted upon a short crooked handle. With this crooked instrument they work very expeditiously, and soon do all that is required for their supplies."

As already mentioned, the Lewis and Clark party departed from their winter quarters April 7, 1805, to pursue their journey westward. The next year, on August 14, 1806, when returning, they again arrived at the Mandan villages. They reached Rooptahee, where they were kindly received by the people, but it is interesting to know that during the 16 months which had intervened between the departure and return of the Lewis and Clark party a great change had taken place in the appearance of the native village. As mentioned in the journal, "This village has been rebuilt since our departure, and was now much smaller; a quarrel having arisen among the Indians, in consequence of which a number of families had removed to the opposite side of the river." Such were the changes ever occurring among the people of the upper Missouri. Old villages were abandoned and new ones built, some to be divided and others united, consequently very few of the ruined sites discovered along the course of the river represent towns which were occupied at the same time.

Although the work just quoted contains much of interest pertaining to the Mandan and neighboring tribes, subsequent writers described the appearance of the villages and separate structures more in detail, and from the narratives of Catlin and Maximilian, supplemented by many sketches, it is possible to visualize the primitive earth-lodge villages with their many peculiar features.

Catlin remained among the Mandan for some weeks during the year 1832 and wrote at that time: "They have two villages only, which are about two miles distant from each other.... Their present villages are beautifully located, and judiciously also, for defence against the assaults of their enemies. The site of the lower (or principal) town, in particular is one of the most beautiful and pleasing that can be seen in the world, and even more beautiful than imagination could ever create. In the very midst of an extensive valley (embraced within a thousand graceful swells and parapets or mounds of interminable green, changing to blue, as they vanish in distance) is built the city, or principal town of the Mandans." This was evidently the lower village, the first encountered when ascending the Missouri, the Matootonha of Lewis and Clark, and Mihtutta-hangusch of Maximilian. Describing the position of this town, Catlin continued: "The ground on which the Mandan village is at present built, was admirably selected for defence; being on a bank forty or fifty feet above the bed of the river. The greater part of this bank is nearly perpendicular and of solid rock. The river, suddenly changing its course to a right-angle, protects two sides of the village, which is built upon this promontory or angle; they have therefore but one side to protect, which is effectually done by a strong piquet, and a ditch inside of it, of three or four feet in depth. The piquet is composed of timbers of a foot or more in diameter, and eighteen feet high, set firmly in the ground at sufficient distances from each other to admit of guns and other missiles to be fired between them. The ditch ... is inside of the piquet, in which their warriors screen their bodies from the view and weapons of their enemies." (Catlin, (1), I, pp. 80-81.) This is followed by a description of the earth-covered lodges, "closely grouped together, leaving but just room enough for walking and riding between them." Outside they appeared to be made entirely of earth, but entering he was surprised "to see the neatness, comfort, and spacious dimensions of these earth-covered dwellings." The structures varied in size, some being 40, others 60 feet in diameter. All were of a circular form with the floors 2 feet or more below the original surface. "In the centre, and immediately under the sky-light is the fire-place, a hole of four or five feet in diameter, of a circular form, sunk a foot or more below the surface, and curbed around with stone. Over the fire-place, and suspended from the apex of diverging props or poles, is generally seen the pot or kettle, filled with buffalo meat; and around it are the family, reclining in all the most picturesque attitudes and groups, resting on their buffalo-robes and beautiful mats of rushes." Their beds, or sleeping places, stood against the wall and were formed of poles lashed together and covered with buffalo skins. Each such bed was screened by skins of the buffalo or elk, arranged as curtains, with a hole in front to serve as an entrance. "Some of these coverings or curtains are exceedingly beautiful, being cut tastefully into fringe, and handsomely ornamented with porcupine's quills and picture writings or hieroglyphics." Catlin's sketch of the interior of a lodge, as just described, is reproduced in plate 38, _a_. In this picture the beds resting against the wall are clearly shown, the sunken fireplace is surrounded by the occupants of the lodge, and on the extreme right are two pottery vessels and a bull-boat, so characteristic of the upper Missouri.

Near the center of the large village, surrounded by the lodges, was the open space where games were played and their various ceremonies enacted. Referring to this, Catlin wrote (Op. cit., p. 88): "In the centre of the village is an open space, or public area, of 150 feet in diameter, and circular in form, which is used for all public games and festivals, shows and exhibitions and also for their 'annual religious ceremonies.'... The lodges around this open space front in, with their doors towards the centre; and in the middle of this circle stands an object of great religious veneration.... This object is in form of a large hogshead, some eight or ten feet high, made of planks and hoops.... One of the lodges fronting on this circular area, and facing this strange object of their superstition, is called the 'Medicine Lodge,' or council house. It is in this sacred building that these wonderful ceremonies, in commemoration of the flood, take place." Later Catlin witnessed the remarkable ceremony, as enacted by the Mandan in the midst of their large village, and prepared a series of paintings showing the various phases. The original pictures are in the collection belonging to the United States National Museum, and one, the last, showing what they termed the "last race," is now reproduced as plate 38, _b_. In the center of the open space stands the sacred object, "in form of a large hogshead." An outline drawing of this painting was reproduced as plate 69 in Catlin's work.