The captains had some contact with the Awaxawi Hidatsas of Mahawha through Tatuckcopinreha, or White Buffalo Robe Unfolded, the most prominent village chief.Īlong the Knife River, Lewis and Clark found the two major Hidatsa settlements. French traders nicknamed them the "soulier" Indians and Lewis and Clark occasionally termed the Awaxawis as the Shoe or Moccasin people. The Awaxawis called themselves Ahaharways or Ahnahaways Wattasoon was their Mandan name. Although the Awaxawis were linguistically distinct from their Hidatsa neighbors on the Knife River, they were not a separate tribe as Lewis and Clark believed. The captains knew these people as the Amahami, Ahaharway, or Wattasoon Indians and always distinguished them in their records from the two other Hidatsa groups. Built on a terrace overlooking the confluence of the Knife and the Missouri rivers, Mahawha had about fifty warriors in 1804. Known as Mahawha, the village was established about 1787 by the Awaxawi Hidatsas. Cargarnomakshe, or Raven Man Chief, was made Second Chief of Rooptahee by the captains.ĭirectly across the Missouri from Rooptahee was a Hidatsa village so distinct from the two other Hidatsa towns that virtually every European visitor noted the differences. Because it was the home of Posecopsahe, or Black Cat, the civil chief designated Grand Mandan Chief by the explorers, Rooptahee took on special significance for the expedition's diplomacy. Lewis and Clark often called Rooptahee the "upper" or "second" Mandan village. Rooptahee was a mispronunciation of Nuptadi, one of the four Mandan subtribes existing before the 1781 smallpox epidemic. Throughout the expedition's records this town of about forty or fifty earth lodges was called Rooptahee. The captains named Kagohhami, or Little Raven, also a civil chief, as Second Chief.įarther up the Missouri, directly north of Mitutanka and on the east bank of the river, was the second Mandan settlement. Sheheke, known to Lewis and Clark as Big White, was the most prominent civil chief in Mitutanka. Because Mitutanka was the closest Mandan village to the expedition's winter quarters, the explorers became very familiar with both the town and its leading chiefs. Ordway reported that the village had about forty earth lodges. In most of their notes, the explorers referred to Mitutanka as the "lower" or "first" Mandan village. Clark described Mitutanka as "situated on an eminance of about 50 feet above the water in a handsome plain." Like its sister village across the river, Mitutanka was built by the More correctly named Mitutanka, this village was located on the west bank of the Missouri. Past the Heart River, the first town was the Mandan village known to Lewis and Clark as Matootonha. Louis in 1804 would have found five Indian settlements-two Mandan and three Hidatsa-strung out along the river in what is now central North Dakota. Those long Dakota months were an apprenticeship during which each group probed the other and formed lasting impressions.Ī traveler coming up the Missouri from St. At the same time, the Mandan and Hidatsa people would get their first long look at the coming wave of American traders and bureaucrats. The winter would try the expedition's diplomatic skill and expand its ethnographic horizons. The winter at Fort Mandan would expose Lewis and Clark to much of that variety and diversity. In the arena of frontier culture, few places gave more evidence of the varied objects and diverse peoples making up North America than the Mandan and Hidatsa towns. , Kiowas, Arapahoes, and, after midcentury, with whites representing the North West Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and St. At trading times, especially during the late summer and early fall, the villages were crowded with the The Mandan and Hidatsa towns were the center of northern plains trade, attracting Indian and white merchants over vast distances. The American explorers were only the latest in a long series of traders and travelers making the journey to the earth lodge villages along the Missouri. As the fall days of 1804 grew colder and shorter, the Lewis and Clark expedition struggled toward what has been called "the keystone of the Upper Missouri region"-the Mandan and Hidatsa villages.
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