Hidatsa people

The Hidatsa, Gros Ventres, or even Minnetaree of the Missouri called, are a North American Indian people of the Sioux language family. It lived on the Upper Missouri River between Heart River and Little Missouri River in semi-permanent villages.

Culture

The Hidatsa were a sedentary people who lived in round huts with earth-covered roofs; they planted corn, beans and squash ( squash) and operated pottery. In addition to the cultivation of tobacco, which was traded with other tribes, the women made the entire field work. The men hunted the bison and other big game on the prairie and went on the warpath. The social organization of the Hidatsa included altersabgestufte warrior societies, whose membership was purchased; In addition, there were various clans and social societies. The inheritance was in the maternal line. As with other plain tribes of the Sun Dance was the most important ceremony, which included a self- torture.

The language of the Hidatsa is most closely related to the language of Absarokee, with which they were combined before the historical period. Culturally, they were similar to the Mandan, a result of more than 200 years of continued and peaceful community. In the last years of the 18th century there were more than 2,000 Hidatsa, which together occupied a central position in the vast trading network of the Northern Plains with the Mandan. They acquired horses, leather clothing and buffalo robes of the nomadic warrior peoples in the west and exchanged it with European traders against guns, knives and other European products.

History

In 1837, a smallpox epidemic weakened their number so crucial that they only populated a village. The ongoing harassment of the enemy Dakota forced them to relocate 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 1868, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara are collectively known as the "three affiliated tribes " (Three Affiliated Tribes ) and live there together in the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. The census of 2000 showed 624 tribal members of the Hidatsa. In contrast to the languages ​​of the Mandan and Arikara, which are threatened by the disappearance, the Hidatsa language is still spoken by a count of 2000 by 508 people.