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Mandan [archive]

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Mandan

Location:

The homeland of the Mandan includes lands along the Missouri, and Knife Rivers. They settled down in present day North Dakota.

Traditions:

In the summer, a Mandan lodge could contain anywhere from 10 to 30 people per lodge, and there were usually 120 lodges to a community. The Mandans would place their communities in a defensive type of a position, so as to be protected by a natural boundary, such as a river or bluff. When winter arrived the tribe would retreat to a place that had trees, so that the trees would block the cold prairie winds, and to have firewood for the long winter. The most important place in a Mandan village was the ceremonial lodge.

References:

National Park Service, National Historic Site, Stanton, North Dakota-"Knife River Indian Villages" www.nps.gov/knri/overview.htm February 19, 1999.
"Lewis and Clark Expedition, Wintering with the Mandans" www.lewis-clark.org/journal_aug3-1804_more.htm February 19, 1999.
"Mandan" www.fargo.k12.nd.us/project/ndwebsite/mandan.htm

Additional Reading

Mandan People
Mandan Language
Siouan Tribes
North Dakota Native Americans