Edwin James Benson (; ''Ma-doke-wa-des-she'', modern Mandan orthography: ''Wéroke Wáatashe'', Iron Bison) was a Native American educator and the last native speaker of the

Mandan language Mandan (endonym: ) is an extinct Siouan language of North Dakota in the United States. Use and revitalization efforts By 2009, there was just one fluent speaker of Mandan, Edwin Benson (1931–2016). The language is being taught in local ...

. He was born in

Elbowoods, North Dakota Elbowoods is a ghost town that was located in McLean County, North Dakota, United States, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. It was founded in 1889 along the Missouri River as the agency seat for the reservation of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and ...

, on the

Fort Berthold Reservation The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is a U.S. Indian reservation in western North Dakota that is home for the federally recognized Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes. The reservation includes lands on ...

McLean County, North Dakota McLean County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,771. Its county seat is Washburn. History The Dakota Territory legislature created the county on March 8, 1883, with areas partition ...

. When the

Garrison Dam Garrison Dam is an earth-fill embankment dam on the Missouri River in central North Dakota, U.S. Constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1947 to 1953, at over in length, the dam is the fifth-largest earthen dam in the world. The res ...

was built, Benson and his family were relocated to Twin Buttes, North Dakota. He taught Mandan at Twin Buttes Elementary School, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the

University of North Dakota The University of North Dakota (UND) is a Public university, public research university in Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States. It was established by the Dakota Territory, Dakota Territorial Assembly in 1883, six years before the establishm ...

in 2009. He was involved in efforts to teach the basics of Mandan to youth. When he died on December 9, 2016, the Mandan language became

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. The documentary ''To Save a Language'' (2020) showed the efforts of the Estonian linguist who tried to learn and save the Mandan language.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Edwin 1931 births 2016 deaths 20th-century Native American people Schoolteachers from North Dakota Language teachers Last known speakers of a Native American language Native American history of North Dakota Native American language revitalization People from McLean County, North Dakota Mandan people 21st-century Native American people 20th-century American educators 21st-century American educators Three Affiliated Tribes people