486 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 194 



Buttes. Old Awatixa site on the south bank of the Knife River was 

 their principal residence. 



Traditional, historical, and archeological evidence indicate that the 

 Awaxawi were the next group to settle on the Missouri River, coming 

 there from the western tributaries of the Red River of the North by 

 way of Devils Lake. They were agricultural Indians with a knowledge 

 of the earth lodge and a culture that had already been strongly influ- 

 enced by their distant overland contacts with the Mandan and the 

 Awatixa Hidatsa. They settled in the Square Butte to Washburn 

 area in closer association with the Mandan than with the Awatixa. 

 The Hidatsa and River Crow came to the Missouri River as nomadic 

 hunters and took over the unoccupied area upstream from the mouth 

 of the Knife River. Some of these people adopted agriculture from 

 the Mandan and their closely related linguistic neighbors, the Awatixa 

 and Awaxawi, to become the Hidatsa-proper. Those who remained 

 nomadic moved upstream and onto the lower Yellowstone River to 

 become the River Crow. 



Once established on the Missouri River, the more numerous Hidatsa 

 and River Crow would not permit the other Hidatsa groups to settle 

 above them on the river. War once broke out between the Hidatsa- 

 proper and the Awaxawi when the latter attempted to move upstream 

 beyond the Knife River and the Awaxawi, for a while thereafter, lived 

 near Fort Yates with the agricultural Cheyenne. 



When the smallpox epidemic of the last part of the 18th century 

 broke out in the earth lodge villages on the Missouri River, the Hidatsa- 

 proper and Awatixa were at the mouth of Knife River, the Awaxawi 

 and Awigaxa Mandan were in the Painted Woods region, and the 

 Nuptadi and Nuitadi Mandan were in the vicinity of the Heart River 

 in six or more large villages. The combined Mandan-Hidatsa popu- 

 lation must have been well in excess of 12,000 people, the Hidatsa 

 groups constituting about one-third of the combined population. 

 The combined Arikara population, apparently twice as numerous as 

 the combined Hidatsa-Mandan population and living in twice as many 

 villages between the Grand River on the north and the Big Bend to the 

 south, suffered even greater losses than their neighbors to the north 

 where the epidemic wiped out approximately 75 percent of the 

 population. 



Prior to this time, with the exception of the Mandan near the 

 mouth of Heart River, this agricultural population on the Missouri 

 River had been widely dispersed. Reorganization of the native pop- 

 ulation was hastened by the invasion of the Sioux in large numbers 

 to the area. The Arikara concentrated near Grand River, the three 

 Hidatsa groups concentrated at the mouth of the Knife River, and the 

 Mandan moved upstream and settled a few miles below the Hidatsa 



