AGRICULTURE OF THE HIDATSA INDIANS
AN INDIAN INTERPRETATION
FOREWORD
The Hidatsas, called Minitaris by the Mandans, are a Siouan linguistic tribe. Their language is closely akin to that of the Crows with whom they claim to have once formed a single tribe; a separation, it is said, followed a quarrel over a slain buffalo.
The name Hidatsa was formerly borne by one of the tribal villages. The other villages consolidated with it, and the name was adopted as that of the tribe. The name is said to mean “willows,” and it was given the village because the god Itsikama´hidic promised that the villagers should become as numerous as the willows of the Missouri river.
Tradition says that the tribe came from Miniwakan, or Devils Lake, in what is now North Dakota; and that migrating west, they met the Mandans at the mouth of the Heart River. The two tribes formed an alliance and attempted to live together as one people. Quarrels between their young men caused the tribes to separate, but the Mandans loyally aided their friends to build new villages a few miles from their own. How long the two tribes dwelt at the mouth of the Heart is not known. They were found there with the Arikaras about 1765. In 1804 Lewis and Clark found the Hidatsas in three villages at the mouth of the Knife River, and the Mandans in two villages a few miles lower down on the Missouri.
In 1832 the artist Catlin visited the two tribes, remaining with them several months. A year later Maximilian of Wied visited them with the artist Bodmer. Copies of Bodmer’s sketches, in beautiful lithograph, are found in the library of the Minnesota Historical Society. Catlin’s sketches, also in lithograph, are in the Minneapolis Public Library.
Smallpox nearly exterminated the Mandans in 1837-8, not more than 150 persons surviving. The same epidemic reduced the Hidatsas to about 500 persons. The remnants of the two tribes united and in 1845 removed up the Missouri and built a village at Like-a-fishhook bend close to the trading post of Fort Berthold. They were joined by the Arikaras in 1862. Neighboring lands were set apart as a reservation for them; and there the three tribes, now settled on allotments, still dwell.