216 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



date and were better armed than their western neighbors. To the 

 south, the Sioux (Dakota) had immediate access to trading posts on 

 the Missouri and Mississippi and endeavored to prevent trade with the 

 earth lodge groups. Other Siouan (Dakota) groups traded regularly 

 with the posts in Minnesota. Even as late as 1800 traders found it 

 difficult to reach the Missouri to trade with the Hidatsa and Mandan. 

 On the other hand, due to their northern and eastern position in the 

 Plains, the horse reached them rather late ; raids by mounted Indians 

 from the southwest were of common occurrence by 1780 although the 

 Hidatsa were probably not completely mounted by that time. The 

 first result of these factors — horses and White trade — was a concentra- 

 tion of the population into compact villages. Whereas their village 

 sites of prehorse times, with the exception of the Awatixa, were com- 

 posed of widely scattered lodges and small clusters of lodges (as seen 

 at the Upper Sanger, Gaines, and Fort Clark Station sites below the 

 Knife) or the temporary campsites (as the Energy or Stanton Ferry 

 sites, and elsewhere to the mouth of the Yellowstone River), the 

 population now either went into strongly fortified sites (Big Hidatsa 

 35, Lower Hidatsa 34, Rock Village 53, or Awaxawi 32), or completely 

 abandoned the region above the Knife River for summer villages and 

 united with the River Crow, Not only were the post-1780 vUlages 

 reduced in size by compactly arranging the lodges, but they were 

 very strongly fortified with ditches and walls. After one attempt to 

 maintain a village — Rock Village — some miles north of the Knife 

 River, the population united at the mouth of the Knife River and 

 built the three villages observed by Lewis and Clark in 1804. 



There was a comparable concentration of the Mandan population 

 a few miles downstream from the Hidatsa villages. When the Mandan 

 originally abandoned the Heart River region, the east side or Nuptadi 

 Mandan sought to move above the Hidatsa on the Missouri and thus 

 violate a long-standing arrangement of village groups. These Mandan 

 had been intimately associated with the Awaxawi and the Mandan of 

 Painted Woods while living farther downstream and had intermarried 

 with them. Nevertheless, the Hidatsa refused them permission to 

 move above the mouth of the Kjiife River in territory claimed as 

 exclusive Hidatsa hunting territory. The Hidatsa welcomed the 

 Mandans, however, as close neighbors and the entire Mandan popu- 

 lation finally united into two village groups downstream from the 

 Hidatsa where they were found by Lewis and Clark in 1804. A period 

 of close cooperation between these vUlage groups in all matters of 

 common interest followed. They assisted each other in warfare at 

 a time when the Crow had moved so far west as to afford little aid. 

 Although permanent ties with the Crow were now severed, Hidatsa 



