Mandan people

“ The Mandans (people of the pheasants) were the first people created in the world, and they originally lived inside of the earth; they raised many179 vines, and one of them had grown up through a hole in the earth, over head, and one of their young men climbed up it until he came out on the top of the ground, on the bank of the river, where the Mandan village stands. He looked around, and admired the beautiful country and prairies about him—saw many buffaloes—killed one with his bow and arrows, and found that its meat was good to eat. ”

“ The Mandan belief in a future state is connected with the tradition of their origin: The whole nation resided in one large village under ground, near a subterraneous lake. Some of the people climbed up to this earth by means of a grape-vine, which broke when a corpulent woman essayed to climb it. Therefore the rest of the people remained in the subterranean village. When the Mandan die they expect to return to the original seats of their forefathers, the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them to cross. ”

“ Most of the American nations, at least, those on the Missouri, are said to have no maledictory words or terms of abuse; the Mandans have nothing of the kind but the expression—"bad people." The article is wanting in the Mandan language, and there is no distinction of gender, except in addressing a man or a woman. For my observations on the Mandan language, I am chiefly indebted to the kindness and patience of Mr. Kipp, who had lived eleven years among that people, had married an Indian wife, and had attained a perfect knowledge of the language. ”

“ Whether my derivation of the word Mandan from Madawgwys be correct or not, I will pass it over to the world at present merely as presumptive proof, for want of better, which, perhaps, this enquiry may elicit; and, at the same time, I offer the Welsh word Mandon, (the woodroof, a species of madder used as a red dye,) as the name that might possibly have been applied by their Welsh neighbours to these people, on account of their very ingenious mode of giving the beautiful red and other dyes to the porcupine quills with which they garnish their dresses. ”

“ August 14th, two days after the reunion of the two parties, they came again to the home of their acquaintances, the Mandans and the Minnetarees. They showed these people every consideration; and the swivel gun, which could not be used on the small boats, was presented to old Le Borgne, who bore it in state to his lodge, thinking his own thoughts. One of the Mandan chiefs joined them here for the journey down the river.
Then occurred another brief conference with the Ricaras, with a renewal of the old pledges of peace and good will toward all men—excepting the Sioux. ”

“ The First Man, it is said, promised the Mandans to be their helper in time of need, and then departed into the West. It came to pass that the Mandans were attacked by foes. One Mandan would send a bird to the great ancestor to ask for help, but no bird could fly so far. ”

“ GHOST LORE.
§ 338. The Mandan believe that each person has several spirits dwelling within him; one of which is black, another brown, and a third light-colored, the last alone returning to the Lord of Life. They think that after death they go to the south, to several villages which are visited by the gods; that their existence there is dependent on their course of life while in this world; that the brave and kind-hearted carry on the same occupation, eat similar food, have wives, and enjoy the pleasures of war and the chase. ”

“ Notwithstanding the long familiarity in which they have lived with the Mandans, and the complete adoption of most of their customs, yet it is almost an unaccountable fact, that there is scarcely a man in the tribe who can speak half a dozen words of the Mandan language ”

“ So highly do Mandan braves and worthies value the honour of being painted; and so little do they value a man, however lavishly Nature may have bestowed her master touches upon him, who has not the pride and noble bearing of a warrior.
I spoke in a former Letter of Mah-to-toh-pa (the four bears) , the second chief of the nation, and the most popular man of the Mandans—a high-minded and gallant warrior, as well as a polite and polished gentleman. Since I painted his portrait, as I before described, I have received at his hands many marked and signal attentions ”

“ I. A Mandan chief, “The-Man-with the-Hat,” becomes noted as a warrior. The character is precisely the same as that often given for white man. Some error in the interpretation is suggested in the absence of knowledge whether there actually was a Mandan chief so named, in which case the pictograph would be consistent.
Battiste Good says: “Wears-the-war-bonnet-died winter,” adding: He did not die this winter, but received a wound in the abdomen from which the arrow head could not be extracted, but he died of the belly-ache years after. ”

“ The Mandan tribe told the strangers about the fierce Sioux, the Shoshones, the Blackfeet, and other tribes farther west. As the great river grew shallower and was obstructed by falls and rapids, Lewis and Clark tried to buy Indian ponies for the trip over the mountains. At Fort Mandan they found a French scout whom they engaged as their guide and interpreter for the rest of the way. ”

“ They always part it in the middle and fill the line of parting with red paint.
The silver gray hair is remarkable for its coarseness, in which respect it seems like a horse’s mane, while the dark colored hair is quite soft. Among the Mandans almost every shade of hair is found between white, brown, and black, but there is never the least tinge of red in it.
The Mandan men have a curious habit of dividing their long hair into flat tresses, two [1275] inches or so in width, and filling each tress at intervals of an inch with vermilion and glue, so as to keep them separate. ”

“ In the year 1834, when Mr Catlin visited these warlike and spirited, yet kindly dwellers of the woods, their number was 2000; three years after, they were infected by the traders with small-pox; and this, with certain suicides committed by individuals who could not survive the loss of all they loved, destroyed the whole tribe, some forty excepted, who were afterwards cut off by their enemies of a neighbouring tribe, so that at this moment not a Mandan exists over the whole wide continent, where, before the baleful appearance of the white man, his free ancestors ranged so happily. ”

“ The population of Mandalay is principally Burmese, as might be expected; but there are great numbers of Chinese living there, and most of the commerce of the place is in their hands. Then there are many Malays, and people from other parts of Asia; as for the Europeans, there are not more than twenty or thirty, and they include a few men engaged in trade, two or three missionaries, and the English resident and his official assistants. At present there is not a single European in Mandalay, as you are already aware, on account of the danger of war with King Theebaw. ”

“ MANDAN CHIEF. At a period late in the twenties, the Mandans, one of the most intelligent tribes of Indians on the continent, were almost swept out of existence by the smallpox. The story comes down to us in the form of a tradition among other savages, but it is nevertheless true, as there are a few old trappers yet living who remember all the particulars of the event. ”

“ Thirty years had passed over Mandu since that strange time of death, when, in a single day and night, a Rajah, his minister, his Ranee, and his favorite slave had perished, each in his own way. During those thirty years Bhavani, the only son of Rai-Khizar-Pál, had been nominal ruler of Mandu. A boy of eleven at the time of his father’s death, he had of his own will placed himself and Mandu under the guardianship of Manava, a minister grown old in service, who acted as regent till, on his twentieth birthday, the young man took the cares of government upon his own shoulders. ”

“ One of the men was sent to investigate, and he found not the Horse Indians but a band known to the Mandans as the Good-looking Indians. Difficulties multiplied. One of the Mandan guides had already deserted them to go back to the Missouri, and the other now told the brothers that he must leave them. He was prompted by fear. The Good-looking Indians were not on friendly terms with the Mandans, and, although they had not offered to do him any harm, he was afraid to remain near these enemies. ”

“ This tradition, however, was not peculiar to the Mandan tribe, for among one hundred and twenty different tribes that I have visited in North, South, and Central America, not a tribe exists that has not related to me distinct or vague traditions of such a calamity in which one or three or eight persons were saved above the waters on the top of a high mountain. ”

“ The news of our arrival in the first Mandan village had spread across the river, and on landing we were met by a crowd of natives, headed by Big Man, a Cheyenne prisoner and now adopted into the tribe—a man of prominence. He shook us warmly by the hand and anxiously asked why we had left all our packs in Black Cat's village. The tedious explanation was given by Flat Mouth and the interest of the assemblage flattened out, and many turned away to resume the work of towing trees and dead buffalo ashore. ”

“ The afternoon of the first day of Mohammedan Mandu was growing late. Yellow shadows lengthened across the fields. To the south, the flat, alluvial plain stretched away, dotted now and then with a mud town, or fringed with the jungle into which, in the India of that day, all civilization sooner or later resolved itself. In the north, not very far distant, rose the great rock of Mandu, crowned with her circle of stone palaces; and back of that, a silent, threatening horde, stood the dark Vindhyas, barriers of the Dekkhan.
Of these things Oman saw none. ”

“ On entering this vast city in its present state of solitude (the natives call it the "dead town") we all experienced a peculiar feeling, not unlike the sensation of a man who enters Pompeii for the first time. Everything shows that Mandu was once one of the wealthiest towns of India. The town wall is thirty-seven miles long. Streets ran whole miles, on their sides stand ruined palaces, and marble pillars lie on the ground. Black excavations of the subterranean halls, in the coolness of which rich ladies spent the hottest hours of the day, peer from under dilapidated granite walls. ”

“ The deserted zenana was opened once more, and a new woman installed there in her loneliness. One week her husband tarried by her side. Then he took his man’s privilege, and left her alone in her state, while he marched away at the head of his little army—fifteen hundred men—into the echoing north. The benedictions and the adoration of all Mandu followed him. Old Bhavani had been a good ruler, the kindest, the most just of men. But, after all, men were made for war, and it was better that the princes of men should be generals than judges. Alas for Mandu! ”

“ When he discovered that the beautiful girl was destined to be the fifth wife of the old chief In-ne-cose—a cross, ugly Indian, and moreover [244] not a full-blooded Mandan—he took pity on her, loved her more than ever, and resolved to win her for himself. Ah-key-nes-tou had often admitted to the "White Medicine," as the band of Mandans called the youthful doctor, that she had a decided predilection for him; that she could never love the old chief ”

“ Fidá el-Asra, thou hast been in Mandu, in my service, scarce half a year as yet; but because thou art of high birth and noble training, I repose confidence in thee. I cannot take thee with me upon my campaign, because I should fear to lose thee in the north. But, in leaving thee behind, I am about to place thee in a position of great trust. Manava, whom thou seest standing upon my right hand, is, in my absence, to be part ruler of Mandu. To Kasya here, my faithful eunuch, I intrust the guardianship of my women. ”

“ Leaving the mercantile and moneyed classes, and coming to the rank and file, there are in Mandalay some thousands of natives from many different parts of India, speaking many languages, and engaging in a great variety of callings. Europeans often think of India as a country, but it is really a continent, and has as great, if not a far greater, variety of peoples and tribes than Europe presents. There is the Bengalee Baboo, probably a clerk, the Hindustanee doorkeeper or messenger, the Tamil overseer or coolie. Even in our Sepoy army in Mandalay one sees great variety. ”

“ The two tribes drove a brisk trade in furs, which the northern Indians offered, and painted plumes, which the Mandans displayed to the envy of Assiniboine warriors.
On the 3d of December, De la Vérendrye's sons stepped before the ragged host of six hundred savages with the French flag hoisted. The explorer himself was lifted to the shoulders of the Mandan coureurs. A gun was fired and the strange procession set out for the Mandan villages. In this fashion white men first took possession of the Upper Missouri. ”

“ Mandan remains. The method of sinking down into the earth for the purpose of obtaining a foundation has, singularly enough, offered a clue as to the authors of all those remains along the Ohio, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio, and along up the Missouri to the present abode of the Mandans. Their earthen works and huts, built in Druidic circles, are exact [Pg 124] counterparts of those along the paths of their migrations. Of course the larger works have no modern counterparts, for those were erected when they were more numerous and able to cope with their foes. ”