Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi

by David I. Bushnell

Bradbury, who was also present at the gathering on June 12, entered in his journal:

"I quitted the feast, in order to examine the town, which I found to be fortified all round with a ditch, and with pickets or pallisadoes, of about nine feet high. The lodges are placed without any regard to regularity, which renders it difficult to count them, but there appears to be from 150 to 160, and they are constructed in the same manner as those of the Ottoes, with the additional convenience of a railing on the eaves: behind this railing they sit at their ease and smoke. There is scarcely any declivity in the scite of the town, and as little regard is paid to cleanliness, it is very dirty in wet weather." (Bradbury, (1), pp. 114-115.) Later he wrote (pp. 165-166): "I am not acquainted with any customs peculiar to this nation, save that of having a sacred lodge in the centre of the largest village. This is called the Medicine lodge, and in one particular, corresponds with the sanctuary of the Jews, as no blood is on any account whatsoever to be spilled within it, not even that of an enemy; nor is any one, having taken refuge there, to be forced from it. This lodge is also the general place of deposit for such things as they devote to the Father of Life."

On the following day, June 13, 1811, Brackenridge "rambled through the village," which he found "excessively filthy," with innumerable dogs running about. Then he proceeded to describe the habitations: "The lodges are constructed in the following manner: Four large forks of about fifteen feet in height, are placed in the ground, usually about twenty feet from each other, with hewn logs, or beams across; from these beams, other pieces of wood are placed slanting; smaller pieces are placed above, leaving an aperture at the top, to admit the light, and to give vent to the smoke. These upright pieces are interwoven with osiers, after which, the whole is covered with earth, though not sodded. An opening is left at one side, for a door, which is secured by a kind of projection of ten or twelve feet, enclosed on all sides, and forming a narrow entrance, which might be easily defended. A buffalo robe suspended at the entrance, answers as a door. The fire is made in a hole in the ground, directly under the aperture at the top. Their beds elevated a few feet, are placed around the lodge, and enclosed with curtains of dressed elk skins. At the upper end of the lodge, there is a kind of trophy erected; two buffalo heads, fantastically painted, are placed on a little elevation; over them are placed, a variety of consecrated things, such as shields, skins of a rare or valuable kind, and quivers of arrows. The lodges seem placed at random, without any regularity or design, and are so much alike, that it was for some time before I could learn to return to the same one. The village is surrounded by a palisade of cedar poles, but in a very bad state. Around the village, there are little plats enclosed by stakes, intwined with osiers, in which they cultivate maize, tobacco, and beans; but their principal field is at the distance of a mile from the village, to which, such of the females whose duty it is to attend to their culture, go and return morning and evening. Around the village they have buffalo robes stuck up on high poles. I saw one so arranged as to bear a resemblance to the human figure, the hip bone of the buffaloe represented the head, the sockets of the thigh bones looked like eyes." (Op. cit., pp. 247-248.)

On June 14 they walked together to the upper of the two villages, which were separated by a narrow stream. They entered several lodges and were always pleasantly received by the occupants and offered food, which included fresh buffalo meat served in wooden dishes or bowls, and "homony made of corn dried in the milk, mixed with beans, which was prepared with buffalo marrow." This latter, according to Bradbury, was "warmed on the fire in an earthen vessel of their own manufacture." Later, when he returned to the same village, he wrote (p. 158): "I noticed over their fires much larger vessels of earthenware than any I had before seen, and was permitted to examine them. They were sufficiently hardened by the fire to cause them to emit a sonorous tone on being struck, and in all I observed impressions on the outside seemingly made by wicker work. This led me to enquire of them by signs how they were made? when a squaw brought a basket, and taking some clay, she began to spread it very evenly within it, shewing me at the same time that they were made in that way. From the shape of these vessels, they must be under the necessity of burning the basket to disengage them, as they are wider at the bottom than at the top. I must here remark, that at the Great Salt Lick, or Saline, about twenty miles from the mouth of the Wabash, vast quantities of Indian earthenware are found, on which I have observed impressions exactly similar to those here mentioned. From the situation of these heaps of fragments, and their proximity to the salt works, I am decidedly of opinion that the Indians practised the art of evaporating the brine, to make salt, before the discovery of America."

It was the custom of the people of the village to gather in the evenings on the tops of their lodges, there to sit and converse, and "every now and then the attention of all was attracted by some old men who rose up and declaimed aloud, so as to be heard over the whole village." Within the village women were often seen busily engaged in dressing buffalo robes, stretched on frames near the lodges. Men, playing at various games, or sitting in groups smoking and talking; children and dogs innumerable. Such was the appearance of an Arikara village a little more than a century ago.

On the 18th of June Bradbury visited the bluffs southwest of the village and on one discovered 14 buffalo skulls placed in a row, and in describing them said: "The cavities of the eyes and the nostrils were filled with a species of artemisia common on the prairies, which appears to be a non-descript. On my return I caused our interpreter to enquire into the reason for this, and found that it was an honour conferred on the buffaloes which they had killed, in order to appease their spirits, and prevent them from apprising the living buffaloes of the danger they run in approaching the neighbourhood." (Op. cit., p. 125.)

An interesting observation was made at this time by Brackenridge concerning a temporary encampment of a small party of Arikara when away from their permanent, well-protected villages. He said (Op. cit., pp. 254-255): "To avoid surprise, they always encamp at the edge of a wood; and when the party is small, they construct a kind of fortress, with wonderful expedition, of billets of wood, apparently piled up in a careless manner, but so arranged as to be very strong, and are able to withstand an assault from a much superior force." Many such inclosures were discovered and mentioned by the early explorers of the Upper Missouri Valley, and several instances have been cited on the preceding pages when treating of the Siouan tribes.

In 1832 Catlin went up the Missouri, and when he arrived at the Arikara village he made a sketch of the town as it appeared from the deck of the steamboat. The original painting is now in the National Museum, Washington, and is reproduced in plate [53]. This was engraved and presented as plate 80 in his narrative. Writing of this sketch he remarked: "Plate 80, gives a view of the Riccaree village, which is beautifully situated on the west bank of the river, 200 miles below the Mandans; and built very much in the same manner; being constituted of 150 earth-covered lodges, which are in part surrounded by an imperfect and open barrier of piquets set firmly in the ground, and of ten or twelve feet in height. This village is built upon an open prairie, and the gracefully undulating hills that rise in distance behind it are everywhere covered with a verdant green turf, without a tree or a bush anywhere to be seen. This view was taken from the deck of the steamer when I was on my way up the river." (Catlin, (1), I, p. 204.) At this time the Arikara were very hostile to all the traders who passed and repassed along the Missouri. They had attacked many canoes and caused the death of their occupants. Fearing the outcome of their actions they soon left the banks of the Missouri and moved westward. One year after Catlin passed the villages Maximilian arrived there while on his way to the far upper waters of the Missouri. On June 12, 1833, Maximilian wrote: "Moreau's River ... is called the southern boundary of the territory of the Arikkaras, though they often make excursions far beyond it.... On the morning of the 12th our cannon, muskets and rifles were loaded with ball, because we were approaching the village of the hostile Arikkaras. We came to Grand River, called in Lewis and Clarke's map Wetarko River. As we here touched the bottom, we crossed to the east bank, and in half an hour reached Rampart River, which issues from a narrow chain of hills, called Les Remparts; and soon afterwards an island covered with willows, which, on the large special map of Lewis and Clarke, has an Arikkara village, of which there are now no traces. From the hills we had a fine prospect over the bend of the river, on which the villages of the Arikkaras are situated, and which we reached after a short run of only two miles. The two villages of this tribe are on the west bank, very near each other, but separated by a small stream. They consist of a great number of clay huts, round at the top, with a square entrance in front, and the whole surrounded with a fence of stakes, which were much decayed, and in many places thrown down. It was not quite a year since these villages had been wholly abandoned, because their inhabitants, who were extremely hostile to the Whites, killed so many Americans, that they themselves foresaw that they would be severely chastised by the United States, and therefore preferred to emigrate. To this cause was added, a dry, unproductive season, when the crops entirely failed; as well as the absence of the herds of buffaloes, which hastened their removal.... The principal chief of the Arikkaras, when they retired from the Missouri, was called Starapat (the little hawk, with bloody claws)." (Maximilian, (1), pp. 166-167.) The Arikara at this time appear to have left the banks of the Missouri and removed to the vicinity of the Pawnee.

Fort Clark, on the upper Missouri, at the villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa, was erected by the American Fur Company during the year 1829.

In 1837 the Mandans suffered from the dreaded smallpox, losing more than 90 per cent of their number, and the few who survived abandoned their large village below Fort Clark and settled a short distance above. And, so wrote Hayden in 1855, "About the time that the Mandans left the lower village, the Arikaras came and took possession, the former readily consenting to this arrangement, because it placed a large body of strangers between them and the Dakotas, with whom, in their now feeble state, they were unable to contend." (Hayden, (1), p. 434.)