Plains

Connect the river, rich soil, cottonwood, clay, river travel, spring floods, and villages.

Explore grasslands, mountain ranges, river corridors, bison, and the Native homelands of the Plains.

See how villages were placed on terraces and bluffs above the river, and where people moved in winter (see “A Way of Life”).

See how architecture could also be sacred through posts, offerings, and shrines (see “A Sacred Structure”).

Visions, sacred bundles, ceremonies, and the Mandan Okipa (see “Spirit and Ritual”).

Read Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara origin stories, and how oral history passed them on (see “Tribal Origins” and “Oral History”).

Study how an earthlodge was built, its size and materials, and how food was stored (see “Construction” and “Food Storage”).

Explore tools, materials, clothing, and Knife River flint technology.

Age-grade societies that helped police villages, organize hunts, and maintain social order (see “A Way of Life”).

How a war chief took leadership when conflict was near, and how hunts were planned (see “The Battle and the Hunt”).

See how societies taught skills and kept order, including the Black Mouth Society (see “Education and Societies”).

Study garden produce, clothing, flint, tools, furs, hides, and trade with visitors (see “Early Villages”).

Farming, women’s control of the land, and a trade network that moved obsidian, copper, shells, and flint (see “The Village Economy”).

Trace prehistoric trade goods and routes across the Plains. Links directly to the map image.

Study women’s ownership of earthlodges, extended families, generations, and clans.

Property passing through the female line, clans, marriage, extended families, roles of men and women, and age-grade societies.