August 5, 2009
This is the site where the Mandans lived for over 300 years from 1575 to 1781 and it is believed that over 70 lodges once occupied this site along the Missouri River. Lewis and Clark’s expedition visited this village in 1804 and is mentioned in their journals. Today we saw only six lodges which had been rebuilt by the CCC in the 1930’s.
The interpretive guides here are Native American. Dianne, our interpreter, was very articulate and very knowledgeable about the Mandan life style, although I suspected she was not Mandan, but Sioux. Nevertheless, Dianne was very sharp and informative.
The Mandans were not nomads, but agricultural. They lived in these huge lodges, owned and managed by women. They hunted buffalo, but that only took place once a year. Blood lines were tracked according to the mothers, not the fathers. In this matriarchal society, there was no divorce; men were simply turned out of the lodge if the lady of the house was no longer pleased with him.
The stationery life of the Mandans decimated their numbers when the traders and settlers came along with their European diseases, like smallpox. Nomadic people, like the Sioux, were not as affected. It is believed by some historians that the Mandans were intentionally infected with smallpox in order to get rid of them, making way for the white man.
This is the site where the Mandans lived for over 300 years from 1575 to 1781 and it is believed that over 70 lodges once occupied this site along the Missouri River. Lewis and Clark’s expedition visited this village in 1804 and is mentioned in their journals. Today we saw only six lodges which had been rebuilt by the CCC in the 1930’s.
The interpretive guides here are Native American. Dianne, our interpreter, was very articulate and very knowledgeable about the Mandan life style, although I suspected she was not Mandan, but Sioux. Nevertheless, Dianne was very sharp and informative.
The Mandans were not nomads, but agricultural. They lived in these huge lodges, owned and managed by women. They hunted buffalo, but that only took place once a year. Blood lines were tracked according to the mothers, not the fathers. In this matriarchal society, there was no divorce; men were simply turned out of the lodge if the lady of the house was no longer pleased with him.
The stationery life of the Mandans decimated their numbers when the traders and settlers came along with their European diseases, like smallpox. Nomadic people, like the Sioux, were not as affected. It is believed by some historians that the Mandans were intentionally infected with smallpox in order to get rid of them, making way for the white man.
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