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General facts• LIVING in North Dakota
the Upper Midwestern region of the United States
• the POPULATION of the tribe is fewer than 6,000 people half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the
United States and in Canada
• they speak 3 LANGUAGES: Mandan , Hidatsa , English
• hunting, farming and gathering wild plants, corn, beans and squash
Languages• belongs to the Siouan language family linguists classify Mandan most
often as a separate branch of the Siouan family
• different grammatical forms that depend on gender of the addressee
• has elements of sound symbolism in their vocabulary
• Mandan has two main dialects N u p t a re N u e t a re - only the Nuptare variety survived into the 20th century
Lodges & Villages
• circular with a dome-like roof and a square hole at the apex of the dome through which smoke could escape
• designed, built and owned by the women of the tribe, and ownership was passed through the female line
• several families, up to 30 or 40 people
• villages usually had around 120 lodges
• villages were usually oriented around a central plaza in the center of the plaza was a tree surrounded by a wood enclosure. It represented the "Lone
Man", one of the main figures in Mandan religion
Family Life
• 4 clans
• children were named ten days after their birth in a naming ceremony• Boys hunting and fishing & girls domestic duties, farming, and how to keep a home
• Death erect a scaffold near the village to contain the body mourning for 4 days body rottened bones buried , skull kept in the village
• family members talking to the skull
Dress
• clothing made from the hides of buffalo, deer, sheep
tunics, dresses, buffalo-fur robes, moccasins, gloves, loincloths and leggings
• Men clothes ornamented with quills and bird feathers
• men wore the scalps of enemies• hair were long waist-length at the back and shoulder length at the front
• Various ornaments in hair, like bird feathers
• women wore ankle-length dresses made of deerskin or sheepskin• ornamented with pieces of buffalo hoof
• hair was worn straight down in braids
Religion
• myth : the world was created by the First Creator and the Lone Man
• each person possessed four different, immortal souls.
• O k i p a ceremony .. T h e b r u t a l t r i b a l c e r e m o n y• Opened with Bison dance then torturous ordeals
• young men not eating, drinking, or sleeping for four days
• they had to sit with smiling faces while the skin of their chest and shoulders was slit and wooden skewers were thrust behind the muscles
• suspended from the roof of the lodge to hang there until they fainted awaken proving the spirits' approval
• offer the left little finger to the Great cut off Spirit,