Mandan ("Man dan) is a Dakota word. Their self-designation was Numakiki, "People."
Location For centuries before the coming of non-Indians, Mandans lived along the upper Missouri River and near the mouth of the Heart River, in central North Dakota. Today, most Mandans live in Dunn, McKenzie, McLean, Mercer, Mountrail, and Ward Counties, North Dakota.
Population The early-eighteenth-century Mandan population was around 3,600. In the mid-1990s, enrollment in the Three Affiliated Tribes was about 6,000.
Language Mandan, related to but unintelligible with Hidatsa, is a Siouan language.
Historical Information
History The Mandan arrived in the Missouri River region from the southeast (Ohio Valley) between about 1000 and the thirteenth century, perhaps as early as the seventh century. They gradually moved upriver and away from other Siouan-speaking people.
The first smallpox epidemics arrived in the early sixteenth century. The acquisition of horses in the early to mid-eighteenth century allowed the Mandan to expand their buffalo hunting, but they did not give up their sedentary lifestyle. During the mid-eighteenth century, the Mandan became intermediaries between French and Indian traders, dealing in furs, horses, guns, crops, and buffalo products.
The Mandan suffered a gradual decline beginning in the late eighteenth century, owing primarily to smallpox and warfare with the Dakota and other tribes. In the early nineteenth century, Mandans were friendly to non-Indians, even allowing visitors to study their religious ceremonies. In 1837, a major smallpox epidemic dropped the Mandan population by over 90 percent, to just about 125 people. In 1845, surviving Mandans joined the Hidatsa people to establish Like-a-Fishhook village on the Missouri. They were joined by the Arikara in 1862. Like-a-Fishhook was a significant commercial center at this time.
Although the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty recognized native holdings of more than 12 million acres, the 1870 Fort Berthold Reservation, created for the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) consisted only of eight million acres, which was reduced, mostly by allotment, to about one million during the 1880s. By that time, the people had abandoned Like-a-Fishhook to form communities along the Missouri River.
In 1910, the United States unilaterally removed a large section of land from the reservation. During the 1950s, the United States built the Garrison Dam on the Missouri, against the tribes’ vehement opposition. The resulting Lake Sakakawea covered much of their land, farms, and homes. This event destroyed the tribe’s economic base and severely damaged its social structure as well as its infrastructure.
Religion Sacred or medicine bundles (called "Mother") symbolized fertility and crop productivity. They were owned by individual men who passed them down to their descendants or sold them. All bundles had a mythological component and were considered so sacred that the welfare of the entire village depended on their safety and proper care. They were associated with specific ceremonies, songs, and activities
The four-day Okipa ceremony, similar to and a likely precursor of the Sun Dance, was a ritual enactment of their worldview. Its dual purpose was tribal renewal and bringing the buffalo. Prompted by their vision, individuals pledged to offer the summer ceremony, which included periods of fasting and ritual self-torture. The preparation period lasted several months at least. The ceremony contained masked performers representing animals, and required a special lodge fronting the village plaza. Creation legends were told during this time but in an unintelligible language; the uninformed could pay for a translation. Participants hoped to receive a vision afterward.
People accepted as Okipa Makers (those entitled to sponsor the Okipa ceremony) were required to give feasts and to possess a certain quantity of material goods. In acquiring these goods they were assisted by members of their kin group, because individual honor reflected on the group.
Other agricultural and hunting festivals included the women’s Corn Dance and the men’s Buffalo Dance. Clan chiefs were in charge of ceremonial activities, aspects of which were overseen by dual (summer and winter) divisions. The Mandans also had secret religious societies.
The men’s Buffalo Dance, depicted in this early-nineteenth-century engraving, was one of several agricultural and hunting festivals. The acquisition of horses in the early to mid-eighteenth century allowed the Mandans to expand their buffalo hunting.
Government There were nine villages in the early nineteenth century. Villages had two hereditary chiefs, one from each division, roughly the same as a war and a peace chief. The people were also governed by a council of older males who made decisions by consensus. In the eighteenth century there were about five bands, each speaking slightly different dialects. There was also a police group called the Black Mouth Society.
Customs Women grew the crops and processed animal skins into clothing. Descent was matrilineal, and residence was matrilocal. Households controlled the garden plots, but the land was actually held by lineages composed of several extended families. About 13 matrilineal clans, composed of extended family lineages, were loosely ranked by status, depending on their ritual importance. The tribe was also divided into two groups, each producing a village leader, which competed against each other in games and contests.
Social class determined status to a far greater degree than did war deeds. High individual rank was affirmed through lavish giveaways and brave personal acts, but a high inherited status did not always need this sort of affirmation. Similarly, a commoner could not rise to be a chief despite the most extensive gift giving and remarkable personal exploits.
Age-graded societies and ranked social clubs united nonrelatives. Organized around hunting, dancing, or curing, membership was purchased from existing members, who then purchased their way up to the next level. Only a few reached the highest level, which in any case was open by invitation only.
Grandparents largely brought up the children. Marriage, which consisted of an exchange of gifts between the two families, took place outside of the division and clan. Corpses were buried in the earth, although the people adopted scaffold burial in later times. After a four-day mourning period, and when the bones had dried, people placed skulls in circles around the village.
Dwellings People lived where there was arable land and a supply of wood. Permanent villages, composed of between a dozen to as many as 150 earth lodges, were on high bluffs overlooking the river, often where tributary streams joining the Missouri were protected on two sides by the steep riverbanks. Heavily fortified with wooden stockades and barrier ditches, they were fairly impervious to attack. The central plaza was the focus of the village, the place where games were played and ceremonies took place. In the depth of winter, people sought shelter in more protected, wooded areas, where they built smaller, cruder earth lodges. They also used skin tipis for hunting and traveling.
The main lodges were semi excavated. A heavy wooden frame was overlaid with willow branches and overlapping strips of sod and covered with an outer layer of earth. These lodges sheltered as many as 50 people but usually about 20-40 extended family members. The lodges were about 40 feet or more in diameter. A set of planks in front of the rawhide door further protected against cold winds. Animals occasionally stayed in the lodges as well.
Rawhide beds on raised platforms were placed next to the outer wall. The fire was in the center. Roofs were strong enough so that people regularly congregated on them and used them for storing and drying maize. Deep pits, wider at the base, were dug into the earth for crop storage. An altar and weapons storage area was located on the righthand side of the lodge. Furniture included willow back rests and buffalo-robe couches.
Diet Men hunted elk, deer, and smaller mammals. Buffalo were hunted communally in summer as well as individually. Before the people acquired horses, they hunted buffalo by driving the herd into a channel made of wood and stone that led to the edge of a cliff or an enclosure.
Women grew maize, sunflowers, beans, squash, and tobacco. Burned trees provided additional soil fertilizer to the already rich bottomlands. Mandan maize was a variety adapted by the people to their short growing season. Women parched sunflower seeds and then ground them into meal used for thickening boiled dishes. Men also ate balls of this meal as travel food.
Green corn was eaten freshly boiled and dried for the winter. Squash was sliced and sun dried. The people also ate fish and gathered a variety of wild foods. Dogs were eaten in times of want, although puppy stew was considered a delicacy. Tobacco was considered sacred and grown only by the older men.
Key Technology Material items included willow fish weirs, buffalo horn and bone utensils, pointed digging sticks, antler or willow rakes, hoes made from the shoulder blade of a buffalo or elk, and clay and stone pipes. Women made baskets (twilled plaited carrying and coiled gambling) and pottery.
Trade Mandan villages on the Knife River were a major center of aboriginal trade. They traded surplus agricultural products to the Assiniboine and other nomadic tribes for hides and meat. As early as 1738, the Mandan had obtained guns from the Assiniboine as well as horses, which they used mostly for trade. They traded with the Kiowa from the late eighteenth into the first years of the nineteenth century.
Notable Arts Mandans were famous for their painted buffalo robes. They also made fine baskets. Painted skins depicted battles and other significant events.
Transportation Horses began pulling sleds or travois toboggans around 1745. Bull-boats were made of hide stretched over a wooden framework. They were paddled across rivers laden with a cargo of people, meat, and/or hides.
Dress Women made the clothing, such as blankets, robes, and moccasins. In addition to buffalo, deer, and elk, they also used white weasel or ermine skin. The Mandan wore animal skin head wraps in winter.
War and Weapons Traditional allies were the Hidatsa and the Crow. Enemies included Dakota tribes from the eighteenth century on. Weapons included bows and arrows, clubs, and buffalo-hide shields.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations The Three Affiliated Tribes (Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan) live on the Fort Berthold Reservation (roughly 900,000 acres in Dunn, McKenzie, McLean, Mercer, Mountrail, and Ward Counties, North Dakota). The 1990 reservation Indian population was 2,999. More than half of the reservation is owned by non-Indians. The Indian Reorganization Act constitution provides for government by a business council.
Economy Tribal government and the federal government are the largest employers. A few people own farms or ranches. The tribe opened a high-stakes casino in 1993. Unemployment remains very high.
In 1992, the tribe received $143 million in additional compensation (on top of $12 million previously awarded) for damages caused by the Garrison Dam.
Legal Status The Three Affiliated Tribes is a federally recognized tribal entity.
Daily Life Most Mandans live on the west side of the reservoir, near the town of Twin Buttes. Their lives are similar to those of their non-Indian neighbors.
The annual powwow held by each reservation community has become a focus for tribal activities. Ceremonies called Warbonnet Dances help maintain an Indian identity. Some Indians practice sweat lodge ceremonies and are members of the Native American Church. Most consider themselves Christians.
Only elders speak the native language well, despite the attempt to institute regular language classes. The tribes operate several reservation schools and publish the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Times. Craft workers make quilts and beadwork. There is a museum at New Town.
