192 DAKOTA GRAMMAR, TEXTS, AND ETHNOGRAPHY. 
the celebrated Indian portrait painter, takes this view of their parentage, 
and affirms that their language bears more than a likeness to the Welsh.' 
The Mandan tradition of their origin is, that ages ago they lived 
underground by a great lake. The root of a grapevine pushed itself down 
through the crust of the earth. One by one they took hold of it and 
climbed up by its help, coming out into the light of day. By and by a 
very fat woman took hold of it and the vine broke, leaving the remainder 
of the Mandans by the lake underground. Could this legend have any 
connection with a passage over the ocean? 
Ever since they have been known to the whites they have lived on 
the Upper Missouri. In the winter of 180304, Lewis and Clarke wintered 
near their villages, only a short distance below where they now are. 
The Hidatsa are better known by the names Minnetaree and Gros 
Ventres.”. There is no apparent reason why the latter name should have 
been given them by the French. Minnetaree means ‘‘over the water,” and 
was given to them when they crossed the Missouri, coming as they did from 
the northeast and crossing to the southwest. They number about 500. 
These Hidatsa have often been confounded with the ‘“Minnetaree of the 
Plains,” or “Gros Ventres,” who belong to another linguistic family. 
Both the Hidatsa and Mandan belong to the Siouan or Dakotan family. 
Whether it is from the common likeness to the tongue of their enemies, or 
for some other reason, it is a remarkable fact that many persons of each 
tribe can speak Dakota. 
ABSAROKA OR CROW. 
This tribe and the Hidatsa speak dialects of the same language. It is 
said that the Amahami, now extinet, were a branch of the Absaroka. 
When the Ponka reached the Black Hills country, several hundred 
years ago, they found it in the possession of the Absaroka, whose habitat 
included the region now known as the western part of Dakota (south of the 
Missouri River) and the eastern part of Montana. 
'T have made a careful examination of the Mandan vocabularies of Kipp, Hayden, Wied, and 
others. The following conclusions have been reached: (1) The Mandan is closely related to the 
Winnebago, Lowa, Oto, and Missouri dialects. (2) The fancied resemblance to the Latin, based on 
what was thought to be ‘‘sub” in three compound nouns, has no foundation. Suk, suke, kshuk, or 
kshuke means small.—J. 0. D. 
* Big Paunch (Gros Ventre) must have referred to a buffalo paunch over which a quarrel arose 
resulting in the separation of the Hidatsa and Crow. See Kihatsa in Matthews’s Ethnog. and Philol. 
of the Hidatsa Indians,—J, 0, D. 
