Mandan Hidatsa Cultural Landscape Perspective
Prepared by Mike Barthelemy
Director of Native American Studies
Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College
MAAH DAAH HEY TRAIL
Maah Daah Hey Trail is a recent creation, but the land on which the trail resides is incredibly important for surrounding tribes, most notably the Mandan and Hidatsa. This Trail is situated within the traditional eagle trapping territory of the Hidatsa and later the Mandan. Even before the movement up the river to sites like Nightwalker Butte and Fishhook Village, the people of the Heart and Knife River confluences would travel from their respective trade epicenters to trap eagles in the Little Missouri Badlands. Trapping eagles was exclusively for those who had purchased the rites, and it was a replication of the practice that both tribes had acquired from the black bears. Within Mandan and Hidatsa tradition, practices, rites and ceremonies all came from a progenitor figure or entity and in the later period there were rites acquired or purchased from other tribes. The rite of eagle trapping was of special significance to the tribes. Anthropologist James Mooney noted that while documenting tribes up the Missouri river, each tribe in turn told of the parent tribe of whom the rite was purchased until finally he came into Mandan country. When posed the same questions regarding rite acquisition, the Mandan responded, “It came from the black bears”. This signified to Mooney that this must be the origin place of the rite. This speaks to the strong spiritual dimension of the practice and the strict adherence to protocol. This also tells of the Mandan and Hidatsa sense of place and belonging. It is in this badlands landscape that the tribes came to find themselves.
Cultural Complex
The surrounding topography is dotted with cultural sites that are important to both tribes. The Maah Daah Hey Trail traverses the Hidatsa and Mandan cultural complex. Most notable in this complex are the buttes that make up the Earthnaming Bundle Sites. One of the most important sources for these sites is the ethnographic study from Alfred Bower’s eminent work, Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. With the help of Hidatsa consultant Bears Arm, Bowers created a map that showcased this territory. Among the Hidatsa, the Killdeer Mountains or Singer Buttes, are considered the Hidatsa cultural epicenter, and this understanding coincides with the Hidatsa Earthnaming Bundle narrative. The Maah Daah Hey Trail crosses the path of a butte called Lone Butte, which the Hidatsa and Mandan call Buffalo Comes Out. Hidatsa people would travel from their villages in the Knife River complex to Singer Butte, offering the feathers of the speckled eagle to ensure the population proliferation of the buffalo herds. These places are the dwelling places of the buffalo spirits. Buffalo spirits are not the only spirits that dwell in this area, but they are one of the most notable. The entirety of the region is a storied and peopled landscape. To tell the story of this place, you have to tell the story of the people who belong to it. There is an evolutionary process by which tribal nations and people come into their own. They come to define themselves through their experiences in landscape.
This area of the Badlands ecosystem was referred to by the Hidatsa as “awashiibish” or the land of the thickets. This name describes the importance of this region in foraging and gathering. Medicines were gathered in these Little Missouri badlands ecosystems by tribal people traveling from their village dwellings. A series of camps are dotted along the Little Missouri bottoms, along with the network of eagle trapping lodges that were constructed in the fashion of the black bears. Paints were gathered by men who had obtained the rites to do so. These paints were used most often in ceremonial rites but also were utilized to denote men’s adoption into specific age-grade societies. Men painted themselves when they went to war.
Movement
While the modern Maah Daah Hey Trail does follow the trajectory of the Little Missouri River bottom, historic trails would have followed the canyon’s rim and meandered through the upland spring network. Historic Hidatsa and Mandan would have relied very heavily on topographic features and landmarks to guide their movements. Oftentimes this would appear to outside observers as though Mandan and Hidatsa scouts moved haphazardly or were hopscotching between buttes. It is important to understand movement through this area and to understand indigenous movement, you must come to understand how the native people understood this landscape. Along the river is a major thoroughfare by which tribes would travel back and forth between the Missouri River Trench and the lands to the west. This pathway was viewed by the Hidatsa as the doorway to the Crow country. This path was traversed quite often in the 19th century with the intention of war. Hidatsa elder Four Dancers told the narrative of his grandfather, Guts, who used a trail through the badlands to the Yellowstone River to make war against the Cheyenne. Because Anthropologists have classified the Mandan and Hidatsa as “semi- sedentary” the lay audience oftentimes interprets that to mean that Mandan and Hidatsa people are a people with very little movement. The Hidatsa and Mandan are constantly moving from their epicenters in their village trade hubs to surrounding regions and sites. The badlands are the perfect case study into this movement.
Modern Misconception
From the western vantage point there is oftentimes this misunderstanding concerning resource allocation and resource extraction. Mandan and Hidatsa people have a symbiotic relationship with the landscape. The land is but another layer of connection and belonging that is akin to the relationship with lodge groups, clans, societies, larger tribal identities like villages and then it extends to the natural world. People who came into this place were transformed by it. The rite of eagle trapping mentioned earlier was but one of many ceremonies that took place here. This is an acknowledged fasting region. The young men would be suspended from buttes with ties of sinew suspended by their flesh and the spirits would pity them and bring them down. These men were not here seeking individual power but rather they were seeking help for their people. They understood through this ritualistic fasting that the man who entered this region was different from the man who walked out. Anthropologist Gilbert Wilson described this phenomenon as “finding one’s gods”. Flesh is but a small offering for the larger continued well-being of the village. The place of the Little Missouri badlands was a place of spiritual renewal. A place that provided the clarity of self, and the clarity of purpose.