(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Photo Diary: Knife River Indian Villages National Historical Site, North Dakota [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-08-02 This national park commemorates the site of the Knife River Native American village, inhabited by the Hidatsa and Mandan Nations. For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. According to their oral traditions, the Hidatsa people originally lived in what is now the eastern United States, perhaps in the northeast. Sometime before the late 15th or early 16th century they began to migrate west, until they reached the area near the Missouri River in North Dakota. This account is supported by the fact that the Hidatsa are the only Great Plains people to play the stick-and-ball game known as “chun-key”, which was commonly played by Native Nations in the Great Lakes area and the Northeast. On the banks of the Missouri River, the Hidatsa encountered the Mandan Nation and adopted much of their culture, moving into settled sedentary villages with earthen-dome lodges and outdoors gardens in which they grew corn, beans, squash and sunflowers for food. The lodges were typically built by the men and maintained by the women, and it was the women who tended the gardens and produced most of the food, while the men hunted, fished, and protected the village from raiders. During the winter, temporary lodges would be built along the river, and these were abandoned when the summer rains came and flooded the camps. According to some traditions, the name “Hidatsa” means “willows”. The Mandan referred to the new arrivals as the “Minnetari”, “those who crossed the water”—likely a reference to the Hidatsa origin on the far side of the Missouri River. The early French traders referred to the Hidatsa as “Gros Ventres”—“big belly”—and that name appears in most early accounts. According to the Hidatsa historical stories, however, one group did not want to settle into village life and, reportedly after an argument over a hunted buffalo, preferred to live a nomadic lifestyle out on the open plains instead, and they went their separate ways, forming the Crow Nation. The Hidatsa and Crow languages today are still very similar to each other. The agricultural lifestyle of the Hidatsa and Mandan allowed them to accumulate a steady and abundant food supply, which was supplemented by fishing in the river and hunting in the surrounding countryside. But this large store of food also attracted attention from the surrounding nomadic peoples, including the Arikara and especially the large and powerful Lakota. In times of hard weather when the hunting failed, these nomadic people were tempted to obtain food by raiding the Hidatsa/Mandan villages. It was a source of long enmity between them. In 1781, a smallpox epidemic swept through the Hidatsa and Mandan Nations, and within a few years the surviving members had moved to a complex of five new villages near the junction of the Knife River (named after the abundant flint deposits there) and the Missouri. The Mandan lived in two of the villages, and the three Hidatsa camps were inhabited by bands known as the Hidatsa (the largest band which gave their name to the tribe), the Awatixa, and the Awaxawi. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached this spot in 1804, they found about 2000 people living there. Lewis and Clark found the Hidatsa and Mandan to be friendly and helpful, and they spent the winter here trading cloth and metal implements for food. When it left, the American Expedition was accompanied by a French fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea (“Bird Woman”), a young Shoshone woman who had been captured by a Hidatsa raiding party years before and who lived in one of the Knife River villages. In 1837 another smallpox epidemic swept through the northern plains, carried to the Natives by American steamboats plying the Missouri River. The Mandan and Hidatsa were hard hit and with a death rate of over 90% they were reduced to just several hundred people. The neighboring Arikara were also reduced to such low numbers that, although they had been traditional enemies, they were compelled to join with the two agrarian tribes in order to survive. Abandoning the Knife River villages, the three peoples moved about 40 miles further north on the Missouri to a spot known as “Like a Fishhook”. Here, raids by the Lakota continued as the powerful tribe pushed its way into the area, and in 1870 the US Army established Fort Berthold nearby, as a trading post and also to protect the Three Nations villages from Lakota war parties. Today, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, and have a reservation near Fort Berthold. The abandoned Knife River villages decayed over time, as the earthen lodges collapsed and the wooden structures rotted away. In 1974 the site was obtained by the National Park Service as the “Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site”. Some photos from a visit: Visitors Center Inside the museum A replica “bull boat”, made from willow saplings and buffalo hide Hidatsa moccasins A grass-stuffed leather ball used for a game similar to today’s “hacky-sack” Bone fish hooks Reconstructed Hidatsa lodge Inside the lodge Gardens. The Hidatsa grew corn, beans, squash and sunflower seeds. Stretching and drying rack The village site. The bowl-shaped depressions are the remains of earthen lodges. These low hills are “middens”, or trash piles There were at least 50 lodges in the town In winter, temporary lodges were put up in the river’s floodplain [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/2/2179853/-Photo-Diary-Knife-River-Indian-Villages-National-Historical-Site-North-Dakota Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/