Arikara people

The Arikaree ( horned elk, and Arikara ) are a Native American tribe of the Caddo language family, who lived around the year 1800 on the Missouri River between the Cheyenne River in South Dakota and Fort Berthold in North Dakota. The cultural roots of the Arikaree can be found among the tribes of the lower Mississippi Valley. The Arikara were culturally related with the Pawnee, from which they seceded, hiked in stages to the north, and thus became the northernmost Caddostamm.

The Arikaree were experts in corn, which they traded with other tribes against flesh and buffalo robes. They also bred beans, pumpkin ( squash), tobacco and sunflowers. In the usual on the Plains sign language the Arikaree were therefore designated as eaters Corn (maize eaters ). The women made the farm work, the men hunted deer, elk and buffalo. They were excellent swimmers, who had developed a special method to hunt the buffalo during their crossing of the rivers. Even their stock of wood they brought in reckless actions of the rivers, where the logs were driven down at the spring flood. Her round boats they made from sewn together buffalo hides that were stretched with the fur side inward over a frame of willow branches. Such a very light boat had a diameter of 90 to 120 cm and could carry up to three men across the river.

The semi - nomads living in temporary populated villages of earth-covered huts. The village activities were monitored by questioning the sacred bundle, which was in the possession of a priest. This Office and the post of chief seem to have been the hereditary privilege of a few leading families. With the warrior, dance and medicine frets lower offices were connected. Like other Plain tribes also practiced the Arikaree the self- torture in the sun dance ceremonies.

The Arikaree were an obstacle to the Missouri river in boats traveling up trading companies. A skirmish with American dealers, in which 13 whites were killed, sparked in 1823 the first campaign of the U.S. Army against a Plain stem from. Although the Arikaree at the end of the 18th century included between 3000 to 4000 tribesmen, reduced wars and smallpox epidemics their population considerably during the following century. In the 1860s, they joined forces with the Mandan and Hidatsa at Fort Berthold and the government there set up for them a reservation. Around 1885 they started with the farm work on scattered family farms. In the wake of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, the Arikaree joined officially with the Mandan and Hidatsa Three Affiliated Tribes and formed the (three related strains). In the 1950s, the construction of the Garrison Dam and the discovery of oil in the Williston Basin required a further move to new homes. In 1990 there were only 90 people who spoke Arikaree - Caddo. The census of 2000 gave 775 tribesmen of the Arikaree.