Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 485 



a peripheral linguistic group, also maintained friendly ties with the 

 northern Arikara until the smallpox epidemics and the encroachment 

 of the Sioux forced them to enter into new alliances for mutual defense. 



The other two earth lodge groups, the Arikara to the south and 

 the Hidatsa to the north, seem not to have achieved the characteristics 

 of a tribal organization until after the smallpox epidemics of the 18th 

 century. There is archeological evidence that some of the original 

 Arikara communities attempted consolidation at the Fort Sully site 

 during protohistoric times, building one huge village of several hundred 

 lodges and multiple ceremonial lodges. The next major Arikara con- 

 solidation did not occur until about A.D. 1800. Lewis and Clark, 

 1804, found them in the two Cottonwood (Leavenworth) sites and a 

 third community on Ashley Island at the mouth of Oak Creek, It 

 appears that even at that time there was no particular tendency on 

 the part of the Arikara to set up a unified tribal organization from 

 among the survivors of the many abandoned villages mentioned by 

 Lewis and Clark. One group of Arikara, representing the survivors 

 of the northern branch living near the Grand River in close associa- 

 tion with the Awigaxa Mandan, made numerous resettlements of the 

 old Greenshield site opposite Washburn, N. Dak,, as close neighbors 

 of the Awigaxa Mandans who had settled near there. Peace could 

 not be maintained between these northern Arikara and the Nuitadi 

 and Nuptadi Mandan; old animosities were revived and conflicts soon 

 arose. As a result, these Arikara came to the Greenshield site to 

 rebuild their homes several times between 1785 and 1820, They 

 then moved in with the other two Arikara groups at the Cottonwood 

 sites where they were found during the Leavenworth campaign. The 

 Awigaxa Mandan eventually joined with the Nuitadi Mandan at 

 Fort Clark and, after one final quarrel when they moved back down- 

 stream only to be reunited at Fort Clark a few years later, were 

 absorbed by the latter. 



The Hidatsa settlements on the Missouri upstream from their 

 culturally related neighbors were, by and large, accepted by the 

 Mandan without friction. There is no memory of any intertribal 

 conflict. The Awatixa, who have longest traditions of residence on 

 the Missouri, acted as a buffer against aggression by nomadic groups 

 from the north, and their close linguistic and friendly ties with the 

 Mountain or Western Crow gave the Mandan protection from that 

 direction. The long association of this group with their southern 

 Mandan neighbors is reflected in their culture as described above; 

 in trait after trait they more closely resembled the Mandan than the 

 other Hidatsa groups. With the single exception of temporary resi- 

 dence at Scattered Village with the Mandan where the present city 

 of Mandan stands, they have generally lived upstream from Square 



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