410 - On A Slant Indian Village

Welcome to the On-a Slant Indian Village, once a home to Mandan Indians. In order to understand the Mandan People, one must understand their origin stories. While there are two well-known origin stories for the Mandans, geography is central to both. It is said that ancestral Mandans emerged from the earth at the mouth of the Mississippi River. With them, they carry corn. Their chief, Good Furred Robe, bears the spiritual gift of “Corn Medicine.” Thanks to his efforts, the Mandan forebears become accomplished farmers. Migrations follow. Good Furred Robe and his companions travel up the Mississippi River. They reach a land of fine evergreen trees and learn to make bows and arrows and to set rawhide-loop snares in deer trails. They now have meat to enjoy with their maize. In the southwestern corner of what is present-day Minnesota, one group stays in the pipestone quarries, while another ventures northwest, making camps along the Red River and its tributaries. The lure of the sacred bison draws the ancestral Mandans still farther westward. Eventually, both groups come to the point at which you are standing—to the Missouri river at the point where the Heart River flows into it from the west. It is here where the two bands of Mandan converge to plant their corn in the rich black soil of the bottomlands, at the heart of the continent.

The second origin story of the Mandan people tells the story of the First Creator and Lone Man.

First Creator makes Lone Man, the story says, when the earth is still nothing but water. Lone Man walks across the waves for a long time. “Who am I?” he wonders. “Where did I come from?” Turning around, he follows his own tracks backward to find out.

On the way, Lone Man encounters his mother in the form of a red flower. He also meets a duck. “You are diving so well,” he says to the duck, “why do you not dive down and bring up some soil for me?” The bird does so and the Lone Man scatters the earth about so there is land, albeit desolate land without any grass on it.

Then Lone Man encounters First Creator, a person like himself. The two men argue until First Creator proves that he is older than Lone Man—in fact, his father. Once they resolve their dispute, they decide to improve the countryside around them. From the Heart River confluence, Lone Man goes north and east, creating flat grasslands with lovely lakes, spots of timber, and many animals. First Creator goes south and west, making rugged badlands with streams, hills, and herds of bison. Returning to the point you are standing now, they make medicine pipes together. This would henceforth be “the heart—the center of the world,” First Creator said. And so they made women and men to populate the land.