History of the Hidatsa (Before 1845)
Early village trade, oral history, how children and adults learned in societies, and the tribes’ origin stories. This reading leaves out the sections on European traders and explorers, Sacagawea, and the 1837–1845 smallpox epidemic.
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Early Villages
Three hundred years ago, and maybe even longer, a successful earthlodge community of Hidatsa people traded with visitors to their villages. People came for garden produce, clothing, moccasins, flint, tools, furs, buffalo hides, and other items. The Hidatsa either made these items or got them through trade. Visitors were given food and drink. Gifts were often exchanged. Then everyone brought out the items they wanted to trade. The Hidatsa saved some of the items to use in trade with other peoples.
Oral History
Before Europeans arrived and began writing about the villagers, the three tribes passed their history along through oral tellings. Family and friends gathered in the evenings to hear the elders tell stories. Stories were seen as valuable teaching tools for young and old. Children heard stories with morals. These stories encouraged some behaviors and discouraged others.
Many stories were based on the idea of respect. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara lived by one basic belief: respect for all things, both animate and inanimate. Outside of storytelling, a person could not hear or tell certain tribal stories without paying for the right to the story. Personal stories belonged to one person. Clan and tribal stories belonged to a group of people. The stories often helped people understand the world around them. In this way, children learned much of their tribal history and values through stories.
Education and Societies
The Mandan and Hidatsa also taught children, teenagers, and adults through groups called societies. A young boy joined a society with children his own age. There he learned basic skills. These included hunting, fishing, warfare, horsemanship, and social duties. As a teenager, he joined a society for teens to keep learning. He got deeper training in his skills. He learned the songs, stories, and ceremonies that went with each one. When he became a man, he joined a society for adults. It helped him become a leader, a healer, or some kind of provider for the community. In old age, a man could join other societies. These were responsible, through ceremonies, for the health and well-being of the people.
The Black Mouth Society was an important men’s society. Its members kept order in the village. They made sure the village was quiet at night so people could sleep without being disturbed. They made sure people kept the outside of their lodges clean and free of litter. This let people walk safely around the village. A Black Mouth painted his mouth and chin black and his forehead red. This let people recognize him as he went around keeping order.
There were also societies for young girls, teens, women, and elderly women. Young girls got ready for their roles as mothers by caring for dolls and very small tipis. These were made for them to play with. At the right time, they joined societies where they learned many skills. They learned how to scrape a hide, sew tipis, clothing, and moccasins, and build an earthlodge. They learned beadwork and quillwork, how to prepare food, how to deliver babies, and how to take part in ceremonies. Women kept the grounds inside and outside their lodges clean with brooms. They learned to make the brooms from buck brush. The most important society was a group of elderly women. It was the White Buffalo Cow Society. It called the buffalo to the village when hunting parties were not successful.
The societies were not free at any age. Family members, or a group interested in seeing a person move ahead, such as a clan, sponsored the person. The sponsors prepared feasts for the society members. They also gave gifts, such as buffalo robes, moccasins, animal skins, tipis, tools, and food. The gifts were payment for the honor of letting the child or person join the society. Some families could not afford to sponsor their children in a society. Those children were taught much the same skills within their earthlodge family. But they did not get all the social connections.
Children were also taught to watch the world around them. They learned lessons by watching the animals, the plants, and the world above. Each year, Mandan children watched the O-kee-pa ceremony. For four days, people acted out events about the origins of the Mandan. The audience took part. Dancers suffered to help the people by having their skin pierced. This yearly reenactment helped tribal members learn about Mandan origins.
Tribal Origins
Each tribe has its own oral history of where its people came from. Here is a short example. The Mandan believe they once lived underground. A young man found a vine and climbed up to the world above. When he came back, he told his story. Then the people began to climb up. They were warned not to climb. But a determined, abundant woman caused the vine to break. Half of the Mandan were left underground, where they live to this day.
The Hidatsa story is similar to the Mandan story. But the Hidatsa lived beneath a lake before they climbed out. Some say it was Spirit Lake. The Arikara story is somewhat similar. They lived below the ground in complete darkness, with the spirits of plants and animals. Each tribal story about where the people came from is very long and complicated. Each one has many animal and bird characters. Scholars cannot say exactly where the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples came from. But archeological evidence suggests this timeline:
1250: The Mandan migrate from the Ohio Valley. Burials like those of the Mandan in the Dakotas have been dug up in the Ohio Valley.
1400: The early Arikara begin moving north from the Central Plains to the Big Bend region of the Upper Missouri. A long drought that caused crop failures across the Great Plains may have caused this move. The Arikara separate from the Skidi Pawnee near the Cannonball River around 1734.
1450–1550: The tribal groups that later become the Hidatsa begin moving west from the northeast. The Awatixa arrive in the Upper Missouri area first. The Awaxawi come next, and later the Hidatsa proper. The three groups are different, but their languages are related. They live in earthlodge villages at the Knife River. In time, they merge into one tribe: the Hidatsa.