Who Are the Mandan?
The Mandan (Numakiki, "People") are a Siouan-speaking people who lived along the Missouri River in present-day North Dakota, developing one of the most sophisticated village cultures of the Great Plains. Today numbering approximately 1,500-2,000 enrolled members as part of the **Three Affiliated Tribes** (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) on the Fort Berthold Reservation, the Mandan are renowned for their permanent earth lodge villages, Okipa ceremony, and their role as hosts to Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-1805. The Mandan suffered one of the most catastrophic population collapses in American history: the 1837 smallpox epidemic reduced them from approximately 1,600 to fewer than 150 people within months—a 90% death rate that nearly ended their existence.
Earth Lodge Villages
The Mandan were not nomadic Plains people but village-dwelling farmers. Their large earth lodges—dome-shaped structures of logs and earth up to 40 feet in diameter—housed extended families and provided protection from harsh Dakota winters. Villages were often fortified with palisades and ditches against enemy raids. Women owned the lodges and controlled agriculture: they cultivated corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers in the rich Missouri River bottomlands, developing crop varieties adapted to the short northern growing season. Mandan villages served as trade centers where agricultural produce was exchanged for products of the hunt—buffalo robes, meat, and hides—brought by nomadic peoples like the Lakota and Crow. This trade network extended far, connecting the Mandan to goods from the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Coast, and eventually European traders. Lewis and Clark wintered with the Mandan in 1804-1805, building Fort Mandan nearby; there they met **Sacagawea**, who would guide them westward.
The Okipa Ceremony
The **Okipa** was the Mandan's most important religious ceremony—a four-day ritual of world renewal, bison calling, and male initiation. During Okipa, young men underwent excruciating ordeals: they were suspended from the lodge ceiling by skewers through their chest or back muscles, hanging until they passed out. Upon revival, some had fingers severed or weights attached before a final race around the village. This suffering honored the creator figure Lone Man and ensured the community's prosperity. The ceremony also included elaborate masked dances representing creation narratives and the bison's return. Artist **George Catlin** witnessed and painted Okipa in the 1830s, bringing it to public attention (though his accounts were initially disbelieved). The US government banned Okipa along with other Native ceremonies; it ceased in the late 19th century but elements have been revived as Mandan communities work to reclaim suppressed traditions.
The 1837 Smallpox Catastrophe
The 1837 smallpox epidemic represents genocide by disease on an almost unimaginable scale. When a steamboat brought smallpox to the Missouri River villages, the Mandan—lacking any immunity—died with horrifying rapidity. Within months, the population dropped from approximately 1,600 to somewhere between 100-150 survivors. Similar devastation struck the Hidatsa and Arikara. The epidemic destroyed not just people but cultural knowledge: elders who knew ceremonies, songs, and histories died before transmitting them. The survivors, too few to defend themselves or maintain separate villages, merged with the Hidatsa in a new village, Like-a-Fishhook. This remnant community struggled to survive raids, further epidemics, and eventual confinement to the Fort Berthold Reservation (established 1870). The Mandan experience demonstrates how epidemic disease could destroy peoples as effectively as military conquest—and how survivors persisted against devastating odds.
Contemporary Mandan Life
Today's Mandan are enrolled in the **Three Affiliated Tribes** (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation) headquartered in New Town, North Dakota, on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The construction of **Garrison Dam** in the 1950s flooded the tribes' most fertile bottomlands and forced relocation of communities—another catastrophic loss after the population had finally begun recovering. Oil development on the reservation (in the Bakken Formation) has brought economic resources but also social challenges and environmental concerns. Cultural revitalization efforts work against the legacy of population collapse: the Mandan language is critically endangered with perhaps only 3-5 fluent first-language speakers remaining. Programs document elders' knowledge, teach language to youth, and revive traditional arts including pottery and quillwork. The annual **Mandan Powwow** brings the community together. From near-extinction to contemporary persistence, the Mandan story exemplifies both the devastation of colonization and indigenous peoples' determination to survive.
References
- Bowers, A. W. (1950). Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. University of Chicago Press.
- Catlin, G. (1867). O-Kee-Pa: A Religious Ceremony. TrĂĽbner and Co.
- Fenn, E. A. (2014). Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People. Hill and Wang.
- Meyer, R. W. (1977). The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. University of Nebraska Press.