Grammar and Dictionary of the Language of the Hidatsa

3f<rlm (LWfrr #n>hm Entrant Jhxttocrsttn . : i E?" V « SHEA'S AMERICAN LINGUISTICS SERIES II NO. I. s. ESP* GRAMMAR AND DICTIONARY LANGUAGE OF THE HIDATSA ( MINNETAREES, GROSVENTRES OF THE MISSOURI). INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE TRIBE. WASHINGTON MATTHEWS, NEW YORK: CRAMOIS Y PRESS. 1873. P l I Edition of 100 Copies. No.. JOEL M UN SELL ALBANY. BUT INTRODUCTION The Hidatsa, Minnetaree, or Grosventre Indians are one of the three tribes which at present inhabit the permanent village at Fort Berthold, Dakota Territory, and hunt on the waters of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, in north-western Dakota and eastern Montana. The history of this tribe is so intimately connected with that of the politically allied tribes of the Arickarees and Mandans that we cannot well give an account of one without making some mention of the other. In the general account of the village and its inhabitants, which follows, all the tribes are included. A level terrace of prairie land, some four miles wide, extends from the base of the high bluffs, which form the western edge of the " Coteau du Missouri," southward to the Missouri. It becomes gradually narrower as it ap- proaches the river and terminates in a steep bluff of soft rock and lignite which overhangs the river; on the south- ern extremity of this terrace, near the brow of the bluff, stand the Indian village and the old trading-post of Fort Berthold. This is on the left bank of the Missouri in latitude 47° 34' north, and longitude about 101° 48' west. Eastward and westward from the bluff, along the river, extend the bottom-lands, which are so low as to be occa- sionally entirely overflowed by the spring floods of the Missouri. In the neighborhood of the fort the bottoms are covered partly with forest trees, willows and low brush, but chiefly with the little fields or gardens of the tribes who dwell in the village. In these fields they are cultivat- ^ <f VI INTRODUCTION. ing now the same plants which they have cultivated proba- bly for centuries,— beans, sunflowers, tobacco, little round squashes and Indian corn. Their fields are cleared among the willows in various irregular shapes and sizes. Each woman in the village owns her own patch of ground, and except in cases where those of the same family "join farms," the little gardens are separated by trifling willow fences or by allowing some of the brush to remain uncut as bounda- ries. The way in which agriculture is conducted is of the most primitive character, the ground is turned up with hoes, and five years ago the aboriginal hoe made from the shoulder blade of the buffalo Was still largely in use. Nothing know they, of course, of the science of agriculture and year after year the unchanged seed of the same plant is stuck down, not only in the same piece of ground, but in the very same hole out of which the roots of last year's plant were pulled. Add to the imperfect modes of cultivation the further dis- advantages of a cold and dry climate, a short season, an inferior soil, the frequent incursions of hordes of grasshop- pers, and the dangers from the attacks of inimical tribes, and it may readily be conjectured that the rewards of hus- bandry are but poorly proportioned to the labor expended; and such is the case, their crops only partly aid in sustain- ing them. Hunting, and the scanty annuities received from the government make up the balance of their meager subsistence. The village consists of a number of houses, built very closely together and without any attempt at regularity of position, the doors face in every possible direction, and there is so much uniformity in the appearance of the lodges that it is a very difficult matter to find your way among them. Most of the houses are the peculiar, large, earth-covered lodges, such as were built by various tribes of Indians of the plains in the valley of the Missouri, and so often and accurately described by various early travellers ; Lewis and INTRODUCTION. Vll Clarke, Prince Maximilian and others. These lodges, con- sist of a wooden frame, covered with willows, hay and earth ; a hole in the top of each lodge lets in the light and lets out the smoke; there is a door-way on one side, and these are the only apertures in the building. In the door- way hangs a door of bull-hide or " puncheons " and it is protected by a narrow shed or storm door some six or eight feet long. The floor is of hardened earth ; and in its centre is a circular depression about a foot deep and three or four feet wide, with an edging of flat rocks, this is the fire place. The frame of a lodge is thus made.— A number of stout posts, from ten to fifteen, according to the size of the lodge, and rising to the height of about five feet above the surface of the earth, are set about ten feet apart in a circle on the ; tops of these posts solid beams are laid ex- tending from one to another. Then toward the centre of the lodge four more posts are erected, these are of much greater diameter than the outer posts and rise to the height of ten or more feet above the ground. These four posts stand in the corners of a square of about fifteen feet, and their tops are connected with four heavy logs or beams laid horizontally. From the four central beams, to the smaller external beams, long poles, as rafters, are stretched at an angle of about 30° with the horizon, and from the outer beams to the earth a number of shorter poles are laid at an angle of about 45°. Finally a number of saplings or rails are laid horizontally to cover the space between the four central beams leaving only a hole for the combined skylight and chimney. This frame is then covered with willows, hay and earth as before mentioned ; the covering being of equal depth over all parts of the frame. From this description it will be seen that the outline of the elevation of a lodge is an irregular hexagon while that of its ground plan is polygonal, its angles being equal in number to the shorter uprights. Prince Maximilian's artist usually sketches these lodges very correctly, but Mr. Catlin, although a good observer, and although he describes the Vlll INTRODUCTION. construction of a lodge well, and pictures its interior with much accuracy, invariably gives an incorrect representa- Mandan, tion of its exterior. Wherever he depicts a Arickaree or Minnetaree lodge he makes it appear as an almost exact hemisphere and always omits the storm-door. adopted the It would seem that in filling in his sketches he hemisphere as a convenient symbol for a lodge. These dwellings, being from thirty to fifty feet in diameter, from ten to fifteen feet high, in the centre, and from five to seven feet high at the eaves are quite commodious. The labor of constructing them is performed mostly by the women, but in lifting and setting the heavier beams the men assist. whites, the If, by the aid of steel axes obtained from the task of building sach a house is no easy one at this day, the how difficult it must have been a century ago, when stone axe was their best implement and when the larger logs had to be burned through in order that pieces of suita- ble length might be obtained ! Every winter, until 1866, the Indians left their permanent village and, moving some distance up the Missouri valley, built temporary quarters, usually in the centre of heavy forests and in the neighborhood of buffalo. The objects of this movement were that they might have fuel convenient and not exhaust the supply of wood in the neighborhood of the permanent village. It was also advis- able that, during a portion of the year at least, they should not harass the game near home. The houses of the winter villages resembled much the log cabins of our own western pioneers. They were neatly built, very warm, had regular fire-places and chimneys built of sticks and mud, and square holes in the roofs for the admission of light. Seven or eight years ago there were some cabins of this description in the permanent village at Fort Berthold, every year since they are becoming gradually more numerous and threaten to eventually supplant the original earth-covered lodges that were built in the due and ancient form. The practice of building winter quarters is now abandoned. INTRODUCTION. As game has recently become very scarce in their country they are obliged to travel immense distances, and almost constantly, when they go out on their winter hunts. Re- quiring, therefore, movable habitations they take with " them, on their journeys, the ordinary skin lodges or "tipis such as are used by the Dakotas, Assiniboines and other nomadic tribes in this region. In the accounts, given by historians, of the early wars of our people with the red race, we find that a common and usually successful plan of reducing them to submission was, on entering their country, to set fire to their granaries and destroy their stores of corn. Such a plan of warfare would utterly fail if tried on the agricultural tribes of the upper Missouri. More than once have their Dakota enemies entered their villages and burned their houses to the ground, but they have never yet been able to touch a single grain of the garnered product of their fields, for that was securely hidden beyond a hope of discovery in their underground caches.

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