Mandan And Hidatsa Villages In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

This paper attempts to specify, as precisely as possible, whichvillages the Mandan 11nd Hidatsa occupied in the period c. 1675 to c. 1800, how long each one was occupied, and the reasons why movement from one to another took place. It isbased primarily on the literary sources, but also makes considerable use of archaeological data, particularly unpublished material supplied by D. J. Lehmer. The evidence relating to the Mandan villages in the century or so before the greatsmallpox epidemic of 1781 is examined in detail, and it is demonstrated that there were about half-a-dozen of these villages in the Heart River district, and two or three others further up the Missouri. There follows a short accountC of the Hidatsa sites of the same period. The paper then details what is known of the northward movement of the Mandan and Hidatsa villages between 1781 and 1787, by which last date most of them had settled near the Knife River. Several accounts ofthese villages in the years before the arrival of Lewis and Clark (1804) are analyzed. The two tribes continued to live near the Knife until after the second great smallpox epidemic, in 1837. New dates are proposed for changes of villagelocations in this period (1804-1837), and it is shown that after 1834 there was only one Hidatsa village near the Knife. The paper ends with brief comments on the obscure period 1837-1845 and with a discussion of the site of the last independent Mandan village, Nuptadi, which was 11bandoned in about 1860.