Oftentimes when we have visitors they will simply refer to Fort Union’s trading partners as “the tribes” or “the Indians.” But which tribe in particular are they referring to? Hey fur trade fans, I’m Leif Halvorson, summer seasonal ranger at Fort Union Trading Post National Historic site and thank you for joining us today for this week’s dose of bite sized history, right here, on “Five Minute Fur Trade.”
One of the things that made Fort Union the special place that it was, was the diverse meeting of cultures that took place. When it came to Fort Union’s trading partners of the Northern Plains tribes, the big players were the Assiniboine, Crow, Blackfeet, Plains Cree, Plains Chippewa, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and three different bands of the Sioux, the Dakota, the Lakota, and the Nakota. While it’s true that they are all “Indian Tribes”, geographically speaking “Northern Plains Tribes” you’re actually looking at nine distinctive nations, and while there may be similaries, they each have their own unique culture. This week, the Northern Plains Tribe we’re looking at in particular, is the Hidatsa.
Now keep in mind, there’s a LOT of things that I cannot cover in a 5 minute or so podcast, so what I’m sharing with you today is a short series of highlights, rather than an exhaustive history.
The Hidatsa were an earth lodge dwelling people. In fact they had two different kinds: Larger summer lodges, and smaller winter ones. (It’s true that they used a type of tipi as well, but that was more for when the Hidatsa were out hunting buffalo.) The summer lodges were typically on the bluffs or terraces along the river, which had access to bottoms where their vegetable fields were, and the winter lodges were typically in the thick woods along the Missouri river bottoms. Oftentimes during the spring rise, the river would wash the winter lodges down stream.
Their construction was seen to primarily by the Hidatsa women. Using a combination of cottonwood logs and planks, dried grass, willows, and lots of dirt, the finished circular domed earthlodges would be between thirty and sixty feet in diameter, ten to fifteen feet high, and took approximately seven to ten days to complete from start to finish. They would have to be rebuilt about every ten years. They’d typically be able to house 10 – 20 people. Behind the buffalo skin door, to which was attached hollow buffalo hooves, which acted like a “door bell” so to speak, you’d find platform beds to sleep on with skin pillows stuffed with antelope fur, a corral for your best horses, a sweat lodge, a food prep platform, a storage cache in the floor, a shrine, an open, circular fireplace, and an “atuka” or couch.
The Hidatsa had massive gardens. They thought their fields sacred, and did not like to quarrel about them. A family’s right to a field once having been set up, no one thought of disputing it. If anyone tried to seize land belonging to another, they thought some evil would come upon them: such as a member of the offending party’s family would die or have some bad sickness.
Often the ground was prepared by digging sticks or even iron hoes that were acquired through trade. The closest trading post to what gets referred to today as the Knife River Indian Villages was Fort Clark.
Crops like corn, squash, beans were grown in these gardens, which would need to be protected. To do so, watcher stages were built. They were basically a platform build above the ground, to the height of what the corn would be, that would be sat upon by the women to keep an eye out for crows, ground squirrels, the horses, and even young boys, who would enter the garden to eat. According to Maxidiwiac, also called Waheenee or “Buffalo Bird Woman”: “We cared for our corn in those days as we would care for a child; for we Indian people loved our fields as mothers love their children. We thought that the corn plants had souls, as children have souls, and that the growing corn liked to hear us sing, as children like to hear their mothers sing to them.” These songs sung from the watcher’s stage were called meedaheeka, or gardener’s songs.
Next to their fields, the Hidatsa would build shaded booths. They were many times made of young willows that were stuck into the ground in a circle, with their leafy tops bent over and tied to form a shady roof. Inside these booths they would prepare and cook their meals while they were tending to their gardens and singing from the watcher stages.
During the growing season, the Hidatsa would send a party out to the plains for their annual buffalo hunt. They would then return to their summer villages in time for the harvest.
When it was time to harvest the corn, families would prepare a feast at their fields. Oftentimes the women would wear their best dresses. People would come and help harvest that family’s field, would feast, and then move to the next family’s field and do the same thing.
Well, as I said, we only hit a few highlights about the Hidatsa. For a couple of good starting points to continue learning more them, I would strongly encourage you to check out the book “Waheenee” by Gilbert Wilson, which is a brief recounting of life through the eyes of Maxidiwiac, or “Buffalo Bird Woman”. For learning about their farming practices, check out “Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden”, also by Gilbert Wilson. And if you’d like to see the farming, an earthlodge, visit the location of some of the previous Hidatsa villages, as well as speak to people who can do a much better job of explaining things than myself, please, plan yourself a visit to see our friends at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, outside of present day Stanton, North Dakota.
Well, hopefully you now know a little bit more about the Hidatsa’s than you did before. Next week we’ll back for what is, to me at any rate, sadly, our final episode of the 2020 summer season. I’m Ranger Halvorson at Fort Union Trading Post where it’s always a great day on the Upper Missouri, and this ends your weekly dose, of Five Minute Fur Trade.
