Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies

Melvin Gilmore

Melvin R. Gilmore

Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies

MAP TO SHOW THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIVE TRIBES IN WHAT IS NOW THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA AND ADJACENT STATES

The native tribes of North Dakota are of three different linguistic stocks or races. These are the Algonkian, Siouan and Caddoan. The Algonkian race is represented in North Dakota by one nation, the Chippewa or Ojibwa. The Siouan race is represented within our state boundaries by three nations, the Dakota (sometimes called Sioux), the Mandan, and the Hidatsa (who are also called Gros Ventre and Minnetari). The Caddoan race is represented by one nation, the Arikara. Other nations of the Caddoan race are the Pawnees, the Wichita and the Waco farther south.

The domain of the Dakota nation comprised southern Minnesota, northwest Iowa, almost all of South Dakota, part of northwest Nebraska, eastern Wyoming, and the southern part of North Dakota.

The Chippewa domain was around the west end of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, and part of northeastern North Dakota.

The Mandans, Hidatsas and Arikaras were three nations allied together for mutual protection against the encroachments of their common enemies who pressed upon them from all sides. The Mandan as an independent nation held domain along both sides of the Missouri River in what is now the central part of North Dakota. The Hidatsa were to the east of the Mandan. The Arikara were, some centuries ago, in northern Nebraska, but migrated gradually up the river. Finally they were so pressed by the incursion of the Dakotas from the east that they joined forces with the Mandans, who allowed them place in their country in exchange for the added strength which their numbers gave against the common enemy. The Hidatsas and the Mandans had already, before this, made alliance, so now the three nations were allied in the region of the upper Missouri River within what is now North Dakota, extending westward a little into what is now Montana.

The several domains of the various native tribes or nations within North Dakota and adjacent states are represented on this map as follows:

DEDICATION

To the Real Pioneers of the Great Plains: to those whose questing spirit first sought out the wonders and the beauties of this land; – its vast reaches, league upon league, of grassland, verdant in springtime, sere and red and brown in autumn; its inviting valleys and its forbidding buttes; – to those whose moccasined feet made the first human footprints upon the turf of these prairies and upon the sands of these river margins; whose self-reliance made them the first to breast the current of these streams; whose humble footpaths over the land have now become the transcontinental highways of the world’s travel and trade; to those who first slaked thirst at these cool, clear watersprings, whose hunger was first satisfied by the fruits of this land, and who, in eating and in drinking, devoutly gave thanks to our tender Mother Earth for her bounties, receiving them gratefully as sacred gifts to be prudently used and thankfully enjoyed, and never to be wasted; who knew and loved this land in all its spacious extent, east to west and south to north; who reverenced its sacred places, the holy watersprings, the grand and silent hills, the mysterious caves, the eery precipices, – all places where their fathers had with prayer and fasting sought and obtained the favour of the gods, and where the gods had granted revelations and given wisdom to their fathers; to those whose eyes first beheld this land in its virgin beauty, fresh and joyous, unscarred and unspoiled, clean and wholesome, animated with exuberance of life of many species of both plant and animal in wonderful balance and adjustment, spontaneously replenished; and who held it a form of sacrilege to violate or in any way endanger the overthrow of that delicate balance of nature; – to those first inhabitants of t