HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Hidatsa ( ) are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the
federally recognized This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes are legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States.
Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in
North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...
. Their language is related to that of the
Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly, a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not linked scientifically to any certain trait but is rathe ...
, and they are sometimes considered a parent tribe to the modern Crow in
Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
.


Name

The Hidatsa's autonym is Hiraacá. The word itself is a corruption of the term meaning 'house or lodge made with willows'. The present name ''Hidatsa'' was formerly borne by one of the three tribal villages. When the villages consolidated, the name was adopted for the tribe as a whole. They are called the ('to cross the water') by their allies, the
Mandan The Mandan () are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still ...
; in
Assiniboine The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins when plural; Ojibwe: ''Asiniibwaan'', "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda ...
, the Assiniboine (called by the Hidatsa) know them as: Occasionally they have also been confused with the
Gros Ventres The Gros Ventre ( , ; meaning 'big belly'), also known as the A'aninin, Atsina, or White Clay, are a historically Algonquian languages, Algonquian-speaking Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe located in northcentral Monta ...
in present-day
Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
and
Prairie Provinces The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
of Canada, which were part of the
Arapahoan languages The Arapahoan languages are a subgroup of the Plains group of Algonquian languages: Nawathinehena, Arapaho, and Gros Ventre. Nawathinehena and Gros Ventre are extinct and Arapaho is endangered. Besawunena, attested only from a word list coll ...
speaking peoples. The
nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
Gros Ventre were called ''Minnetarees of Fort de Prairie, Minnetarees of the Prairie, Minnetarees of the Plains'' or ''Gros Ventres of the Prairie'' while the semisedentary Hidatsa were known as ''Minnetarees of the Missouri'' or ''Gros Ventres of the Missouri''.


History


Until 1850

For hundreds of years the Knife River area in present North Dakota was the home of the Hidatsa and their ancestors. The first villages date back to the 13th century. Accounts of recorded history in the early 18th century identify three closely related village groups to which the term Hidatsa is applied. What is now known as the Hidatsa tribe is the amalgamation of these three groups, which had discrete histories and spoke different
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
s; they came together only after settling on the Missouri River (Awati /Awáati). The Awaxawi ("Village on the Hill") or Amahami ("Broken Land", "Mountainous Country") have a creation tradition similar to that of the Mandan, which describes their emergence long ago from the Earth, at Devil's Lake (Miri xopash / Mirixubáash / Miniwakan) ("Holy Water there"). Later they moved westward to the Painted Woods (near Square Buttes or Awakotchkesshesh) and settled near a village of Mandan and another of Awatixa. The Awatixa ("Village of the Scattered Lodges") or Awadixá (″High Village″) originated not from the earth, but from the sky, led by Charred Body. According to their tradition, their first people lived near Painted Woods, "where they were created." After that they always lived between the Heart River (Naada Aashi / Naadáashishh) and Knife River (Mee ecci Aashi / Mé'cii'aashish) along the Middle Missouri River (Awati / Awáati). The Hidatsa proper or Hiraacá / Hiratsa ("People of the Willows"), largest of the three, were a confederation of numerous nomadic Hidatsa bands from the north, who separated from the ''Awaxawi/Amahami'' in what is now western Minnesota. First they settled to the north, then later moved south to Devil's Lake. In their travels they met the Mandan (Adahpakoa / Aróxbagua) (sometimes also called: Araxbakua Itawatish) and then moved westward and settled with these distant relatives north of the Knife River, where they adopted agriculture and permanent villages. Later they moved to the mouth of Knife River. Their territory ranged upstream along the Missouri River, its tributary regions to the west, and the Mouse River and Devils Lake regions to the northeast. They were initially part of those who would become the River Crow. The Hidatsa called the Crow Nation ''Gixaa'iccá / Gixáa-iccá'' ("Those Who Pout Over Tripe"). The Hidatsa originally lived in ''Miri xopash / Mirixubáash / Miniwakan'', the Devils Lake region of North Dakota, before being pushed southwestward by the Lakota (Itahatski / Idaahácgi). As they migrated west, the Hidatsa came across the Mandan at the mouth of the Heart River. The two groups formed an alliance, and settled into an amiable division of territory along the area's rivers. Prior to the epidemic of 1782, they had few enemies. The Hidatsa hunted upstream from the earthlodge villages at and below the Knife River. Here, between the Knife and Yellowstone River (Mii Ciiri Aashi /Mi'cíiriaashish), they were numerous enough to withstand attacks of the Assiniboine (Hidusidi / Hirushíiri), who hunted in the area but rarely wintered on the Missouri River, as part of the mighty Iron Confederacy (which was dominated by the Cree (Sahe / Shahíi) and Assiniboine) they were an opponent the Hidatsa had to pay attention to. A remarkable siege of the village Big Hidatsa by the Sioux around 1790 ended with a major victory for the inhabitants. They killed 100 or more retreating Sioux in a counterattack, according to the sources. Around 1795, John Tanner was present among the Mandan when they attempted to organize a concerted war against the Hidatsa, with allies from as far away as the Great Lakes, including Tanner's adopted
Odawa The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ) are an Indigenous North American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Their territory long prec ...
family from Michigan. However, the attack fell apart in its planning stages. The Hidatsa played a central role in the Great Plains Indian trading networks based on an advantageous geographical position combined with a surplus from
agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
and
craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...
. Historical sources show that the Hidatsa villages were visited by
Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...
,
Assiniboine The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins when plural; Ojibwe: ''Asiniibwaan'', "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda ...
,
Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly, a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not linked scientifically to any certain trait but is rathe ...
,
Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the (also spelled Tsitsistas, The term for th ...
,
Arapaho The Arapaho ( ; , ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed t ...
,
Kiowa Kiowa ( ) or Cáuigú () people are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colora ...
,
Plains Apache The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan tribe who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are headquartered in Southwestern Oklahoma and are federally ...
and
Comanche The Comanche (), or Nʉmʉnʉʉ (, 'the people'), are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe from the Great Plains, Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the List of federally recognized tri ...
. White traders from the north, like North West Company man David Thompson, began to visit the Hidatsa and Mandan villages during the 1790s. In 1800, a group of Hidatsa abducted Sacagawea and several other girls in a battle that resulted in death among the Shoshone (Maabúgsharuxbaaga) ("Snake People") of four men, four women and several boys. She was taken as a captive to a Hidatsa village near present-day
Washburn, North Dakota Washburn is a city in southern McLean County, North Dakota, McLean County, North Dakota, United States. Located along the upper Missouri River, it is the county seat of McLean County. The population was 1,300 at the 2020 United States census, 202 ...
. In 1804,
Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohe ...
came to the Hidatsa (they referred to them as the ''Minnetaree'' in their records) in three villages at the mouth of the
Knife River The Knife River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 120 mi (193 km) long, in North Dakota in the United States. Knife is an English translation of the Native American name. It rises in west central North Dakota, in ...
, and the Mandan in two villages a few miles lower down on the Missouri River. In July 1825, the "Grovonters idatsascame into council & treaties of peace & Trade & friendship were concluded" with the United States. The tribe – in the document called "Belantse-Etoa or Minitaree" – also recognized the supremacy of the United States, whether it understood it or not. The peace treaty was never broken. "We have always been friends to the whites", emphasized Wolf Chief in 1888, and it never came to fights with the United States Army. Tribal appearance and customs have been documented by the visits of two artists of the American west. The allied tribes were first visited by American
George Catlin George Catlin ( ; July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the American frontier. Traveling to the Wes ...
, who remained with them several months in 1832. He was followed by
Karl Bodmer Johann Carl Bodmer (11 February 1809 – 30 October 1893) was a Switzerland, Swiss-France, French printmaker, etcher, lithographer, zinc engraver, draftsman, draughtsman, painter, illustrator, and hunter. Known as Karl Bodmer in literature and p ...
, a
Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...
painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
accompanying German explorer Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied on a Missouri River expedition from 1832 to 1834. Catlin and Bodmer's works record the Hidatsa and Mandan societies, where were rapidly changing under pressure from encroaching settlers, infectious disease, and government restraints. In the spring of 1834, the Awaxawi and Awatixa settled in Big Hidatsa by necessity. The Sioux had attacked the Hidatsa villages and reduced "the two lower ones to ashes". Both before and after the smallpox epidemic in 1837, bloody fights took place between the Hidatsa and foes like the Assiniboine and the Yanktonai Sioux. Each tribe gave and took. The
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...
epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infection ...
of 1837–1838 reduced the Hidatsa to about 500 people. The remaining Mandan and Hidatsa united, and moved farther up the Missouri in 1845. "Bands of Sioux waylaid hunting parties or came prowling around our villages to steal horses", explained Buffalo Bird Woman the reason for leaving their native land through centuries along Knife River. They eventually settled at Like-a-Fishhook Village (Mua iruckup hehisa atis, Mu'a-idu'skupe-hi'cec) near Fort Berthold, a trading post. They were joined there by the Arikara (Adakadaho / Aragárahu) in 1862.


1851–1900

The Hidatsa tribe was one party in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851. Along with the Mandan and the Arikara, they got a treaty on land north of Heart River. Eleven years later, the Three Tribes would not inhabit a single summer village in the treaty area. The Lakota had more or less annexed it, although a participant in the peace treaty. Encouraged by Karl Bodmer, Swiss artist Rudolph F. Kurz traveled the Northern Plains in the early 1850s. He left an account as well as sketches of the village tribes. Four Bears, outstanding Hidatsa war chief after the smallpox epidemic of 1837, (was one of the people who started Like-A-Fishhook Village for the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara – and is not to be mistaken with the famous Mandan chief Mato-tope (Four Bears)), was killed along with other villagers by attacking Yankton Sioux in 1861. In December 1862, some Sioux burned parts of Like a Fishhook Village and they may have lifted cached corn at the same time. Attacks made on their homes like this made the Three Tribes call for the United States Army to intervene. Already in 1857, the Hidatsa chief Long Hair had accused the Sioux of trying to be "the strongest and most powerful people on the Earth". Years later it would be chief Crows Breast's turn to raise hard-worded complaints about the Sioux. The Hidatsas were not idle themselves, at times even raiding Lakotas south of Heart River. Around 1870 a band of "dissident" Hidatsas led by Bobtail Bull and later Crow Flies High left the orthodox or conservative group in Like a Fishhook Village. For protection, they build a new village just two miles west of the military post Fort Buford. At times the men scouted for the Army. By keeping a low profile while hunting deer and other small game along the Little Missouri, they succeeded as non-reservation Indians until 1894. The Three Tribes sold a segment of land to the United States in 1870. The last treaty that diminished the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation was signed in 1886 (ratified in 1891). In the next century, the tribes would win a claims case and receive payment for some of the land lost by executive order fifty years before. The all-overshadowing troubles with the Lakotas faded after the conclusion of a peace agreement in 1875, with Colonel G. A. Custer as mediator. From then on, the Hidatsa would focus more and more on disagreements with the officials in the capital city. Good Bear performed the Naxpike (Sun Dance of the Hidatsa) in 1879. He was the final Hidatsa to do so.


Culture

The Hidatsa are a
matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...
people, with descent determined through the maternal line. As the early Mandan and Hidatsa heavily intermarried, children were taught to speak the language of their mother, but understand the dialect of either tribe. A short description of Hidatsa-Mandan culture, including a grammar and vocabulary of the Hidatsa language, was published in 1877 by Washington Matthews, a government physician assigned to the
Fort Berthold Indian 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 ...
. During the early 20th century, Gilbert Livingston Wilson carried out extensive ethnographic work with the elderly Hidatsa woman, Buffalo Bird Woman. He also interviewed members of her immediate family at Fort Berthold. From his information gathered from them, Wilson described traditional economy, ceremony, and day-to-day practices as remembered by Buffalo-Bird Woman, who lived at Like-a-Fishhook Village. Frances Densmore recorded a number of ceremonial and personal songs of the Hidatsas before 1920.
Archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
investigations have provided evidence for the presence of multiple genders in Hidats society pre-colonisation.


Gallery

File:Hidatsa (Gros Ventre) chiefs Crow's Breast and Poor Wolf.jpg, Hidatsa (Gros Ventre) chiefs Crow's Breast and Poor Wolf. Crow's Breast was head chief of the Hidatsa in the mid-1870s.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 129. File:Milwaukee Public Museum March 2023 36 (North American Indians- A Tribute to Survival--Dog Dancers, Hidatsa Indians, North Dakota, 19th century).jpg, ''The Dog Dancers, Hidatsa Indians, North Dakota, 19th century'' diorama at the
Milwaukee Public Museum The Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin (formerly known as Milwaukee Public Museum) is a natural and human history museum in the Westown neighborhood of Downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The museum was chartered in 1882 and opened to the public ...


See also

*
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 bands of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians, in North Dakota. This area was a major trading and agricultur ...
* White Buffalo Cow Society


Notes


External links


Minnesota State Historical Society Inventory of G.L. and F.N. Wilson's Papers
*

{{Authority control Native American tribes in North Dakota Plains tribes