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Mandan

Location:

The homeland of the Mandan includes lands along the Missouri, and Knife Rivers. They settled down in present day North Dakota.

Traditions:

In the summer, a Mandan lodge could contain anywhere from 10 to 30 people per lodge, and there were usually 120 lodges to a community. The Mandans would place their communities in a defensive type of a position, so as to be protected by a natural boundary, such as a river or bluff. When winter arrived the tribe would retreat to a place that had trees, so that the trees would block the cold prairie winds, and to have firewood for the long winter. The most important place in a Mandan village was the ceremonial lodge.

Though this page has been carefully researched, the author does not claim expertise on the Mandan.

Please send questions, comments, and corrections to emuseum@mnsu.edu and include the web address of this page.

If you are Mandan, your feedback is much appreciated.

 

Website of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara): http://www.mhanation.com/main/main.html

References:

  • National Park Service, National Historic Site, Stanton, North Dakota-"Knife River Indian Villages"
    • www.nps.gov/knri/overview.htm February 19, 1999.
  • "Lewis and Clark Expedition, Wintering with the Mandans"
    • www.lewis-clark.org/journal_aug3-1804_more.htm February 19, 1999.
  • "Mandan"