Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-10-19
TWkNTY.fOURTn annual
CONTINUED from page ~

4
from the rest of the stock. Indeed
they were one of the most highly
civilized tribes in the northwest,
whether we consider them from the
standpoint of industrial life, their re.
ligious ceremonies, or their peculiar
house architecture. Associated with
them were southwark migratory
tribe. the Hidatsa, and a northward
moving tribe, the Arikara, branch
of the Pawnee.
The Mandans, like the rest of the
Siouan stock, appear to have come
originally from the ocean, and their
whole tribal life had, therefore, un-
dergone a profound transformation.
From being coast jewellers acquainted
with the food there and building
houses of the material to be found in
that vicinity, they had to adapt them
selves to the big game Of the prairie
country, and to build for protection
against the northern billiards. and the
devastating prairie fires. The record
of this great change in their daily
! life is to be. found in their mythology,
in their religious ceremonies, in the
construction and arrangement of their
dwellings and in the household econ
omy of their women.
From Mandan mythology We learn
of their daily contact with waterfowl
and a species of deer, both Of which
seem to have almost the place of do.
nestle animals in their early agri-
, culture We also learn of their once
being a days journey from the sea,
to which every year their chief medi-
cine man goes for the beautiful rose
tinted shells worn at all ceremonial
dances.
| One of the most remarkable Man
dan tales recounts in considerable de-
tail how the Mandans came into their
two main sources of food-buffalo
meat and corn. 1t is told as a story
of the adventures Of young man who
marries two wives, Corn and Buffalo.
and from this union comes the later
omy of his tribe.
| In their religion We discover SINH.
lar evidences of their migration from
the vicinity of the sea to prairie
region. The Oldest and most sacred
object in their religious ceremonial is
the turtle. four of which they tell us
were brought from the sea to protect
the tribe during their wanderings
northward. In their story of creation
the first man finds himself on a vast
sheet of water. walking about with
out knowledge of where he came
from. In the early days whenever a
buffalo was killed and cut up a por-
ton of the neck was cut out and
thrown away on the prairie. The
reason for this was that the buffalo
were first said to be man eaters, but
after time as punishment for his
man-eating propensities the buffalo
was made a grain eater and one of
the chief sources of food supply of
the Mandans. But little bit of the
muscle in fold of its neck did not
fully change its nature and was still
of the colossal change which took
place in the buffalo, however. this por-
ton of the flesh was sacrificed to the
god of the prairies, Coyote Chief
A third evidence of the great
change of location and so of food is
to be found in the village arrange
ments of the Mandans. They have
both summer and winter villages. the
latter being the permanent and elab-
crate structures. The Mandan vii
lage begins as cluster of houses
around holy space with two holy
objects in the center of space. Open
ing on it with a southern frontage is
the church or holy house. Since the
Earliest recorded element in a tribe is
it's religion, so this holy house with
it's doorway opening down stream
points back along the way travelled
Iby these northward moving Mandans.
| In their evolution of pottery, glass
making, pipes and household utensils,
the same conclusive evidence Is found.
But it is in the study of the food of the
Mandans that we may reach conclu-
sions of great ethnological signifi.
canoe and one perfectly in accord
with other facts already observed.
/ We may classify the food Of the
Mandans ss follows:
! ~ Big game, supplemented by fish,
wild fowl, rodents and their domes.
tic dogs.
(2) Garden foods, corn. beans,
: squashes and sunhower seeds.
(3) Wild fruits and vegetables, the