Mandan

Mandan, North American Plains Indians who traditionally lived in semipermanent villages along the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. They spoke a Siouan language, and their oral traditions suggest that they once lived in eastern North America. According to 19th-century anthropologist Washington Matthews, the name Numakiki means “people.”

In the 19th century the Mandan lived in dome-shaped earth lodges clustered in stockaded villages; their economy centred on raising corn (maize), beans, pumpkins, sunflowers, and tobacco and on hunting buffalo, fishing, and trading with nomadic Plains tribes. The Mandan also made a variety of utilitarian and decorative items, including pottery, baskets, and painted buffalo robes depicting the heroic deeds of the tribe or of individuals. At this time Mandan culture was one of the richest of the Plains; the tribe hosted many prominent European and American travelers, including American explorers Lewis and Clark, Prussian scientist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, and artists Karl Bodmer and George Catlin.

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Traditional Mandan villages consisted of 12 to 100 or more earth lodges. Each village generally had three chiefs: one for war, one for peace, and one as the day-to-day village leader. Mandan social organization was built upon the ties of kinship and of age sets. It included a wide variety of age- and gender-based societies in which membership was obtained by apprenticeship or purchase; these included social, shamanistic, warrior, harvest, and other groups.

Mandan religion included many ceremonies and rituals that were performed by the various societies. The Okipa was the most complex of these; a four-day ritual requiring lengthy preparation and self-sacrifice by participants, it was an elaboration of the Sun Dance common to many Plains tribes. The Okipa had at least three equally important purposes: to commemorate the tribe’s divine salvation from a primordial flood, to call the buffalo and other creatures through communication with their spirit avatars, and to provide a vehicle through which individuals could complete vows made to the Almighty (e.g., in thanks or exchange for curing the sick or preventing death in childbirth or battle). It emphasized community prayer and was punctuated by a series of performances (some ribald) to call powerful spirit-beings to the ritual locale, by self-sacrifice through fasting, exertion, and piercing, and by the giving of gifts from supplicants to their spiritual mentors.

In 1750 there were nine large Mandan villages, but recurrent epidemics of smallpox, pertussis (whooping cough), and other diseases introduced through colonization reduced the tribe to two villages by 1800. In 1837 another smallpox epidemic left only 100 to 150 Mandan survivors. Some of these accompanied the Hidatsa to a new settlement near Fort Berthold in 1845; others followed later, as did members of the Arikara tribe. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara eventually became known as the Three Affiliated Tribes (also called the MHA Nation).

In the mid-20th century, the Three Affiliated Tribes lost a considerable portion of their reservation to the waters of Lake Sakakawea, which rose behind the newly built Garrison Dam. With the flooding of the river bottoms, on which had been the best agricultural land, many tribal members shifted from agriculture to ranching or off-reservation pursuits.

Beadwork, quillwork, and hide paintings are among the arts for which the Mandan are known. Population estimates indicated approximately 1,300 Mandan descendants in the early 21st century.