Tribes of Native America

  
The  Mandan Nation
By Amanda C. and Megan C.

  
General Overview:
The Mandans lived along the Missouri and Knife Rivers, and settled in present day North Dakota. They were farmers, and grew vegetables.   They lived in earth lodges. They don't look like most Native Americans.  Many Mandans had blond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes.

  
Food
The Mandans mainly ate fruit, vegetables, and meat.  Their corn was not the normal size of America's corn.  It was the size of a man's thumb.

The way they preserve their meat is quite a bit different from the way we preserve our meat because they don't use salt of any kind, and they dry their meat on scaffolds in the sun away from wolves and small children for 3 or 4 days, and they "assign" some of the older children to swat the flies away. This way of drying their meat keeps it from molding, and because they cut the meat into thin strips, somewhat like how bacon is cut, they can pack it and travel easily.

          The Mandan men, like all other tribes, sit either cross-legged or resting on one elbow when they are eating.. The women, who are not allowed to eat and talk with the men during meal-times or other special occasions,  squat, with their knees together, and lean back so they appear to be sitting down entirely (but aren't) and they tilt their heads forward so they don't drop anything on their clothes. So they don't have to use their hands to get up. They do this because it looks more graceful and since they sit with their children, they are carrying their bowls as well as their children's' and that means that their hands are full and it is disgraceful to them if you bend over to pick something up without bending their knees.
Clothing
 Small boys wore shirts, moccasins, and leggings, as well an occasional breechcloth. The girls wore dresses. The dresses were loose-fitting. Porcupine quillwork was a popular   decoration on their dresses.  Elk teeth were also used.   Sometimes, there were more than 600 teeth on a woman's dress. They decorated their shoes and moccasins. 

Moccasins were made of the top of a tipi cover. The smoke from the fire made this material waterproof.The top of the moccasin  was made from of elk, deer, or sometimes antelope . The upper part was decorated in quills and beads. Awls made from sharpened bones, were used to punch holes for stitches. Sinew was used for thread.
 

 
Shelter
  The type of house the Mandans built was the earth lodge This was a solid structure of rafters carried on a strong central framework. The wall and roof rafters were covered with willow branches and over these were placed grass, the sod and finally a layer of earth. The whole dwelling might have had grass laid over it, sometimes tied in bundles.
 

 
Culture
Entertainment
   The Mandan raced the horses on Plains. The only rule that they had was they couldn't wear clothes when they raced. Women weren't allowed to race. The children had little dolls and toys made from corn husks or clay. They had certain holidays were they didn't eat until the occasion had arrived.
Religion
The Mandans believed in several gods, (one for the rains, one god ruled the dead, etc., etc.,) but their most prominent god wasn't really a god at  all, but rather what they called the "Big Canoe" that carried their forefathers to the land they lived in now. Archaeologists believe that this "Big Canoe" is related to the Christians' Noah's Ark, because the story is very much the same, with a white bird who carried an olive branch to the people on the boat to show that there was land that was dry. A ritual that I found very intriguing was that they do not bury their dead, but dress them and wrap them in a new buffalo buffalo hide, and set them on scaffolds, a little higher than anybody there could reach, with the feet of the deceased facing east. Then, when the scaffolds collapse from wear, the family will pick up the skull of the skeleton, which has  and place it among other skulls, in a circle 8 or 9 inches apart from each other and you could see the women with their sewing or a hide that needs tanning, going out to the plain and will spend a better part of the day conversing with the bones of their deceased like they were really there in person. Then when dark falls, or when they are done conversing, they go back to their lodge to come back another day.
 

Arts
Painting was often used to decorate their belongings. They mixed natural materials like clay, blood, juices from plants and trees, berries, bark, and fruit with animal fat to form paint. Their paintbrushes were bones that could absorb the pigment. Sometimes the women got colors from cloth that they got by trading by boiling it, then they used it to color different materials (like porcupine quills). Almost all of their possessions that were decorated also served a purpose in their daily lives. Porcupine quills were widely used until the introduction of glass beads replaced them. They switched to glass beads because they could make the same designs, and more colors were available, and the quills no longer had to be gathered, washed, sorted, and dyed before the women could use them. The Mandan women also made baskets called "burden baskets" that were used to carry garden produce, firewood, or dirt. The baskets were made from elm, ash, or box elder woven onto a framework of willow sticks. Then the weavers would alternate dark and light colored pieces between the sticks to create a checkerboard pattern. The Mandans made pottery dating as far back in time as their villages can be traced. Pottery making was a protected right of  certain women. They were made by layering coils of clay mixed with water, sand, crushed granite, clam shells or broken bits of old pottery to keep the pots from cracking when they were fired. 

Family Life
  The women and children did most of the housework, and they grew the food. They weren't allowed to eat with men. The men hunted and fished. In the village the people would develop clans and were not allowed to marry people from other clans.