There were supposed to be two parts to today: A tour of the Mandan Village and then a tour of Custer's House, both in the State Park. However, as will be revealed there was a third part to the day.
In the morning we set out from the trailer and were given a personal tour of the Manday Village by young Johann, who we had met in the coffee shop the day before.
The Mandan Village is a replica of the original, which was built around 1700 and lived in until around 1781, when so many (80%) of the Mandan people were struck down by smallpox, strangely enough brought from the south by Comanche Indians. The Mandan appear to be unusual in that they were not a single tribe, but a group from an number of tribes, none of them the more numerous Sioux or Crow, who lived in this area. In fact there are many unusual things about the Mandan. The most obvious being that they lived in Earthlodges, rather than teepees. These are large, circular buildings constructed from a square cottonwood framework, covered and surrounded by cottonwood logs, covered by a willow lattice, covered by a grass lattice, covered in turn by earth, which is why they are called Earthlodges. Each Earthlodge was owned by a senior woman and usually housed an extended family of about a dozen people. The Earthlodges we saw were circular and about 10 metres across, quite big.
The village was made up of almost a hundred such lodges and was surrounded by defensive hillsides and palisades,as well as the Missouri River. Such a large village requires quite sophisticated technological and social systems. Each family had land outside the village to grow food, they also had their own store pits. They had a central meeting lodge which was more than 25 metres in length, which was built communally.
The remains of the village were discovered by Lewis and Clarke in 1805 when they travelled up the Missouri and stopped nearby.
This was a fascinating tour, further reinforcing what we had found out the previous day at the Bismarck Cultural Center.
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What made it rally fun was that the tourguide acted the role of a sergeant of that time period, when we stepped into the house we were transported back to 1875. He would not recognise any question post 1875. So he was basically setting himself up for a fall, as some people looked for ways to trick him into answering outside of that time frame. I think he actually did very well. He was able to account for Custer not being there and also able to tell us about almost everything we asked about that was in the house. It was a bit like the old 'Yes/No Interlude' from Michael Miles 'Take Your Pick' quiz show, where Michael Miles would stand and talk to the contestants, who could not say 'Yes' or 'No', if they did then Bob Danvers Walker would by standing by with a gong to disqualify them. I too felt that we were standing there with an imaginary gong waiting for him to make a blooper.
My biggest laugh (though we didn't really try to put him down) was when we were looking at a copy of General Custer's Insurance policy, taken out in june of 1874. I told the sergeant that I was clairvoyant and offered to tell the General's future for a price, but gave a freebie that he would meet an unhappy end - soon. the sergeant would not believe me. Great fun. When the tour ended we thanked him for the good time we had.
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| Getting the campfire going |
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| Sally with Noah |
