Hidatsa
The Hidatsa , also known as Minitari or Gros Ventres of the Missouri , are a North American Indian people from the Sioux language family . It lived in semi-permanent villages on the upper Missouri River between the Heart River and Little Missouri River.
Culture
The Hidatsa were a sedentary people who lived in round huts with earth-covered roofs; they planted corn, beans and squash (squash) and made pottery. Except for the tobacco cultivation , which was traded with the other tribes, the women did all the field work. The men hunted bison and other big game on the grasslands and went on the warpath. The social organization of the Hidatsa comprised age-graded warrior associations, whose membership was purchased; there were also various clans and social societies. The inheritance took place in the maternal line. As with other Plains tribes, the sun dance was the main ceremony that involved self-torture.
The language of the Hidatsa is most closely related to the language of the Absarokee , with whom they were associated prior to historical times. Culturally they were similar to the Mandan , a result of more than 200 years of enduring and peaceful communion. In the last years of the 18th century there were more than 2,000 hidatsa who, together with the Mandan, occupied a central position in the extensive trade network of the northern plains . They bought horses, leather clothing and buffalo robes from the nomadic warlike peoples in the west and exchanged them with European traders for rifles, knives and other European products.
history
In 1837 a smallpox epidemic weakened their numbers so significantly that they only populated one village. The continued harassment of the enemy Dakota forced them to move the village to Fort Berthold and to unite with the Mandan in 1845 and the Arikara in 1862 for defense reasons. Since the establishment of a permanent Indian office in 1868, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara have been known collectively as the "Three Affiliated Tribes" and live there together on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota . The 2000 census found 624 Hidatsa tribesmen. In contrast to the Mandan and Arikara languages, which are in acute danger of disappearing, the Hidatsa language was still spoken by 508 people according to a census from 2000.
See also
literature
- Raymond J. DeMallie (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 13: Plains. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 2001. ISBN 0-16-050400-7
- Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied : Journey to Inner North America from 1832 to 1834 . 2 volumes with illustrations by Karl Bodmer , Koblenz, 1840–41. Reprint by L. Borowsky, Munich, 1979.
