Arts, Crafts, Clothing and Appearance
Tools, materials, and clothing of the villages on the Knife and Missouri Rivers, including Knife River flint. This reading keeps the sections on flint, pottery, parfleche, basketry, clothing, and footwear. It leaves out the sections on painting, quillwork, appearance, singing and dancing, and home life today, and the last part of the clothing section, which describes changes after traders arrived.
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Flint
Like all American Indian groups, the villagers of North Dakota made tools, house wares, clothing, toys, and musical instruments. Their villages were where the Knife and Missouri Rivers meet. They used materials that were available nearby. Sometimes they used materials from farther away, if the material was important for making the item.
Knife River flint is a dark brown, glassy quartz material. The Knife River villagers used it a lot to make chipped stone tools. The largest amounts are found in Dunn and Mercer counties in western North Dakota. Knife River flint chipped in a predictable pattern. This made it a valuable raw material for making stone tools. It was gathered from deposits from before the Ice Age. Many Native American groups have used flint to make tools for the past 11,000 years, not only the villagers. Arrowheads are what we think of when we think of stone tools. But Native Americans also made tools from flint for scraping hides and shaping wood and bone. They made piercing tools, like awls and drills. They made cutting tools, like knives. They made chopping tools, like axes. People traveled great distances to gather the raw material.
It is believed that tools were shaped in advance, and these were called blanks. People near the flint made the blanks locally. Then they traded them to people who lived farther from the quarries. Flint was such an important trade item that points made from it have been found as far away as Missouri and Ohio.
The main flint gathering areas were about 50 miles west of the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. They were in what is now Dunn County. Archaeological study of these areas may answer questions about how people lived thousands of years ago.
There were several different ways to shape tools from stone. Two basic ways are chipping and pecking. Chipped stone tools are made from a piece of material that has already been thinned. Pecking means pounding one stone with another stone that is as hard or harder. People used this technique to make grooved mauls, hammers, and war clubs.
Pottery
The Hidatsa and Mandan made pottery as far back in time as their villages can be traced. They kept making it until the major smallpox epidemic of 1837. Making pottery was a protected right of certain women of the tribe. They made pots that were very useful and also artistic. They built up the sides of the pots a little at a time with rolled coils of clay. One hand held a smooth stone or anvil inside the pot. The other hand beat the outside with a paddle.
Designs were often carved into the paddle. People could also add designs in other ways. They pressed twisted cords into the clay. They pressed their fingers into the wet clay. They used sharpened sticks or bones. They scratched designs deeply into the clay. The clay came from deposits along the Little Missouri River and from other deposits in the Knife River area. The clay was mixed with water. Then people added temper of sand, crushed granite, clam shells, or broken bits of pottery. This kept the pots from cracking when they were fired.
Parfleche
Parfleche were containers made out of rawhide. They were made in many sizes to hold many kinds of objects. These containers are usually folded over. The edges are sewn together with sinew or with strings made of rawhide. The containers are decorated with natural paints in contrasting colors. The designs are usually geometric shapes or pictures of flowers, animals, and other things in nature. Some parfleche were made to fit over a horse, so a storage case hung on each side of the horse.
Women used parfleche cases to carry their belongings on their backs. The cases held clothing, moccasins, dried foods, sacred objects, and any other items a person wanted to store or protect.
Basketry
The three tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara) made baskets called “burden baskets.” People used them to carry burdens such as garden produce, berries, firewood, or dirt to put on the earth lodge. The baskets were made from the inner bark of elm, ash, or box elder. The bark was woven onto a framework of willow sticks. First the framework and the weaving strips, called weavers, were prepared. Then a light-colored weaver was wrapped around and around the upright sticks of the frame.
Darker weavers were added. They wove down one side, across the bottom, and back up the other side. This made a checkerboard effect. To make more complicated designs, the darker weavers did not go over and under every light one. Instead they skipped in and out. The light weavers were the inner bark of the box elder, which is almost white. The dark weavers were made by soaking bundles of prepared bark in pools of clay mixed with water. The water made the clay the right thickness. After several days the bark picked up the color from the clay pool. Then the dark weavers were rinsed and were ready to be woven into a basket. People also made small flat baskets, seven or eight inches across. These were used for a dice game and in certain ceremonies.
Clothing
The clothing of the Hidatsa and Mandan was much the same as that of other tribes on the Upper Great Plains. The buffalo gave much of the raw material for clothes, as well as thread. The buffalo robe was the basic piece of clothing. In summer the robe was worn with the hair side out. It was not used much in the warmer months unless there was a formal council or other gathering of important people. A person could show an attitude by changing the position and fold of a robe. For example, a man speaking to a group might pull his robe up under his shoulders. He would hold it with his left hand. In his right hand he would hold an eagle wing fan. Pulling the robe over his whole body and head showed anger or disapproval of some action. It was also a sign of shame.
There were traditional patterns that showed whether a robe belonged to a man or a woman. A typical women’s pattern was the “box and border” design. It had a colorful border of geometric figures around a highly colored and patterned box-like design on one side. A man’s robe might use a design called the “black war bonnet.” It was a series of circles inside circles with small figures spreading out from them, made into a long diamond shape. These stood for an eagle feather. People often added drawings around the outer parts of the robe. These showed horses or other activities linked to the man, such as buffalo hunts. In this way, the man could show his “war record” and other deeds to others.
During the first few years of life, an infant often had no clothing. Sometimes an infant wore part of a robe that someone had already worn. Infants were placed in hide bags, where they spent much of their first year. Cattail or milkweed down was used for diaper material. Sometimes warm sand was packed around the feet to keep them warm in winter. At the age of one, children were expected to start walking. Small girls usually wore simple dresses, moccasins, and leggings. These were often plain, but the leggings sometimes had a horizontal strip of quillwork on the edge. The moccasins might have a small strip of beadwork or quillwork over the top of the foot. Small boys wore shirts, moccasins, and leggings, and sometimes a breechcloth.
Footwear
The Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara all wore moccasins. Moccasins are thought to be a very comfortable kind of footwear. The moccasin is still the basis for many shoe designs used today. The Hidatsa used the basic Plains pattern, with a hard sole and a soft upper part. Sometimes they used the soft-soled moccasin.
The top section of an old tipi cover was a good material for moccasin soles. It had soaked up the “smoke-from-many-fires” and was almost waterproof. The upper part of the moccasin was made from soft, tanned buckskin of elk, deer, or sometimes antelope. This upper part could be decorated with quills or beads. Awls made from sharpened bones, often rib sections, were used to punch holes for stitches. Sinew was used for thread. Sinew is the fibrous tissue that runs next to the spine and down the legs of four-footed animals. Buffalo, elk, or deer sinew was commonly used. It was removed when the animal was butchered. Then it was dried and worked by beating and pounding to loosen the fibers.
When sinew thread was needed, a strand was pulled from the bundle. It was usually held in the mouth to soften it. An inch or two at the end was usually left dry to make a stiff, needle-like end. This fiber is strong and lasts a long time. Some moccasins more than 100 years old are perfectly usable today. Sinew was used not only for sewing. It was also used to attach quillwork and beading and to strengthen the backs of bows.
In winter, moccasins were made larger than usual. This left room for an inner lining of furs or grasses, which kept the foot warm. These moccasins had higher flaps. Leggings might be attached to protect the foot and ankle from deep snow.