Mandan Tribe

by Vizsolyi Alexandra

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,

Thank you for theattention!