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Concept
Mandan
Summary
The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the United States and in Canada.
The Mandan historically lived along both banks of the Upper Missouri River and two of its tributaries—the Heart and Knife rivers—in present-day North and South Dakota. Speakers of Mandan, a Siouan language, they developed a settled, agrarian culture. They established permanent villages featuring large, round, earth lodges, some in diameter, surrounding a central plaza. Matrilineal families lived in the lodges. The Mandan were a great trading nation, trading especially their large corn surpluses with other tribes in exchange for bison meat and fat. Food was the primary item, but they also traded for horses, guns, and other trade goods.
The Mandan population was 3,600 in the early 18th century. It is estimated to have been 10,000–15,000 before European encounter. Decimated by a widespread smallpox epidemic in 1781, the people had to abandon several villages, and remnants of the Hidatsa also gathered with them in a reduced number of villages. In 1836, there were more than 1,600 full-blood Mandans but, following another smallpox epidemic in 1836–37, this number was estimated to have dropped to 125 by 1838.
In the 20th century, the people began to recover. In the 1990s, 6,000 people were enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes. In the 2010 Census, 1,171 people reported Mandan ancestry. Some 365 of them identified as full-bloods, and 806 had partial Mandan ancestry.
The English name Mandan is derived from the French-Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier, Sieur de la Verendrye, who in 1738 heard it as Mantannes from his Assiniboine guides, which call the Mandan Mayádąna. He had previously heard the earth lodge peoples referred to by the Cree as Ouachipouennes, "the Sioux who go underground".
Official source
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