Mandan

The young girl thus seeking the intruder was the affianced bride of Inokos, the Iron Horn, principal chief of the Mandans, old enough to be her grandfather.

She, the handsome Indian maiden, was known as Akinostu, the Red Rose, and was the pride of the Mandan nation.

The young man who had with impatience waited for her coming all the morning was of course an American, an incipient doctor, who had enlisted in the service of the great fur company a year before, whose agency was at the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers near the Mandan village.

He had imagined himself in love many times in St. Louis, where was his home, but was now satisfied that he had really never felt the tender passion until he saw Akinostu at the general store one day, some months before the story of their fate commences.

When he discovered that the beautiful girl was destined to be the fifth wife of the old chief Inokos, a cross, ugly Indian, and moreover not a full-blooded Mandan, he took pity on her, loved her more than ever, and resolved to win her for himself.

Akinostu 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, but as her father had been paid for her by the present of two horses, she felt bound to the bargain according to Indian usage.

The doctor in a dozen interviews had told Akinostu of his deep love, that he was willing to leave his home forever for her sake, and marrying her would become an adopted son of the tribe.

But poor Aki, as her white admirer always called her, considered herself in honor bound to become the wife of Inokos.

Chapter 11, The Wooing of Akinastu.

At a period in the late 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.

The Mandans resided in the vicinity of the mouth of the Yellowstone, where their villages were permanent for untold centuries, and at the time of the visitation of the fell disease which nearly annihilated them, they comprised about three thousand families.

Shortly after sunrise one morning in June 1828, a young white man was reclining idly on one of the grassy knolls overlooking the village, the great river, and the vast prairie stretching westwardly from the bank.

He was intently watching certain movements in the town, where the warriors were preparing for a grand hunt.

In a few moments she purposely separated herself from the rest and directed her steps toward the mound on which the young man was lying.

He smiled when he saw her evident intention, and a flush of pride swept over his bronzed cheeks as he came down to the base of the elevation to await her approach.

This bipedal creature seems to be similar to West Virginia's sheep squatch.

The mini is seven to eight feet tall, has tough bison-like head, hide, and fur, has a single eye and a single bison horn set above its eye, elk-like hooves, human hands, In a jagged and spiny backbone, much like a chupacabra's, natives to the area, such as the Mandan tribes, would say that the mini would control spring breakup by smashing the river ice as the temperatures would rise and the creature was more active in the warming temperatures.

A Legend of the Dakota Nation tells the story of Minnie, a Missouri River monster of terrifying appearance and effect.

Author Melvin Randolph Gilmore, one-time curator for the North Dakota State Historical Society, wrote about Minnie in 1921.

one of the periogues also was left at this place securely hidden while this work was going on captain lewis with several of the men proceeded to explore the southern stream more minutely seeking to devise means for passing the canyon at the mouth of which the party was encamped june thirteenth he heard in the distance the roar of the great falls of the missouri and after pushing on for several miles he stood at the foot of the lower cascade.

Relying upon descriptions which had been given by the Indians at the Mandan villages, he now felt assured that the right way had been chosen.

He seated himself before the roaring sheet of water and endeavored to put a description of it upon paper, but then he added helplessly, after writing this imperfect description i again viewed the falls and was so much disgusted with the imperfect idea which it conveyed of the scene that i determined to draw my pen across it and begin again but then reflected that i could not perhaps succeed better than penning the first impressions of the mine i wished for the pencil of a salvador rosa or the pen of a thompson that i might be enabled to give to the enlightened world just some idea of this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man but this was fruitless and vain.

I most sincerely regretted that I had not brought a chemie obscura with me by the assistance of which I could have hoped to have done better, but alas, this was also out of my reach.

CHAPTER X OF LEWIS AND CLARK CHAPTER X. HOMEWARD IN THE MOUNTAINS Before the end of January, plans were being formed for the homeward journey.

The men were dressing skins and making them into clothing and moccasins, and curing such meat as they could get, so as to be able to vary the fish diet of the Columbia.

In February, Captain Clark completed a map of the country between Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop, and sketched a plan he had conceived for shortening the route from the mountains east of the Nez Perce villages to the falls of the Missouri.

His sagacity in this was marvelous.

This tribe also received me very kindly.

On the sixth of October we started from the Mandan village for Fort Pierre on the Little Missouri.

A Canadian whose destination lay in the same direction accompanied us.

The commandant of the fort had recommended to us in a special manner to be on our guard against the Jantanois, the Santees, Janitous, Ancapetines, Ampapas, Ogallalas, and Black Feet Sioux, who have often proved very troublesome to white strangers On the third day of our journey we fell in with an ambuscade of the Chantoinoys and Santees.

Shame upon my enemies! They have not even the power to force from me a tear.

In order to take me they supplied their weakness by strategy; and now, to revenge themselves, they have assembled an entire people against one man, and they are unable to triumph over him.

The cowards! Oh, if they were in my place how I would devour them! How I would sip from their accursed skulls the last drop of their blood!" The great village of the Arikaras is only ten miles distant from that of the Mandans.

I was surprised to see, around their habitations, large and well cultivated fields of maize.

And so they needed to figure out how to find a water passage all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

So when they wintered in North Dakota's tri-- Mandan tribe, the tribal elders told Lewis and Clark there is no water route, and that you're going to have to take horses across the Rocky Mountains, and it's going to take you at least 18 months.

And so they were quite shocked because they had expected it would only take six months.

They thought the Rockies were like the Appalachian Mountain Trail.

It was a two-year expedition, and so she got very close to the expeditioners.

And oh, and they got close to her, and they ended up being very attached to her and her baby.

And Clark wanted to bring the baby up, and she travels after the return to the Mandans.

She decides that she's going to allow Clark to bring the baby up, and the story continues from there.

Then we jump ahead to 1995.

Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara boxing champion Virgil Hill faces Drake Thadze.

The fight goes the full 12 rounds.

When the judges' scorecards are announced, Hill earns the victory by unanimous decision.

After four rounds, the bout is scored a draw.

Fast forward to 1987.

Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara boxer Virgil Hill is fighting Leslie Stewart for the WBA Light Heavyweight World Championship.

Hill doesn't leave the decision to the judges.

finding their way up the Mississippi in this time frame and running into these different tribes.

And I go a lot into the Mandans just because I covered the Dakotas quite recently.

Obviously, those are my last few states.

And, you know, I could do a whole YouTube channel with just on content on the Mandan Indians.