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76-725: The river is named after the Arikara Native Americans, whose name refers to "horn". The source of the Arikaree River is in extreme eastern Elbert County, Colorado on the western edge of the High Plains region of the Great Plains . From there, the river flows generally northeast across the High Plains in eastern Colorado . It then crosses the extreme northwestern corner of Kansas before entering far southwestern Nebraska . At

152-556: A National Historic Landmark , is an archeological site from this period, containing the remains of a fortified village with more than 44 lodges. An Arikara village, near where present-day Pierre, South Dakota developed, was visited in 1743 by two sons of the French trader and explorer La Vérendrye . In the last quarter of the 17th century, the Arikara came under attack from the Omaha / Ponca and

228-692: A historically black college , in Virginia for schooling, in 1878. The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation got a new shape and size by agreement in 1886 (ratified in 1891). In 1910, the Three Tribes gave their consent to sale of land, so the reservation was reduced once more. The Arikara drifted away from Like a Fishhook Village. They raised and branded cattle instead of hunting buffalo. With the Dawes Act and "allotment in severalty" passed as another attempt at assimilation to European-American culture, each Arikara family

304-572: A smallpox epidemic, resulting from contact with Europeans, swept the area, reducing the tribe's population dramatically by killing approximately one-third of its members. Chief Blackbird was among those who died that year. Blackbird had established trade with the Spanish and French, and used trade as a security measure to protect his people. Aware they traditionally lacked a large population as defense from neighboring tribes, Blackbird believed that fostering good relations with white explorers and trading were

380-520: A chief, the Omaha did not. They used him as an interpreter; he was of mixed-race with a white father, so was considered white, as he had not been adopted by a man of the tribe. Today the Omaha host an annual pow wow . At the celebration, a committee elects the Omaha Pow Wow Princess. She serves as a representative in the community and a role model for younger children. In the rite of passage of

456-655: A hereditary chief, through the male lines, as the tribe had a patrilineal kinship system of descent and inheritance. Children were considered to be born to their father's clan. Individuals married persons from another gens , not within their own. The hereditary chiefs and clan structures still existed at the time the elders and chiefs negotiated with the United States to cede most of their land in Nebraska in exchange for protection and cash annuities. Only men born into hereditary lines through their fathers, or formally adopted by

532-456: A land sale. The Omaha elders refused to delegate the negotiations to their gens chiefs, but came to an agreement to sell most of their remaining lands west of the Missouri to the United States. Competing interests may be shown by the draft treaty containing provisions for payment of tribal debts to the traders Fontenelle, Peter Sarpy , and Louis Saunsouci. The chiefs at council agreed to move from

608-502: A large circle in the order of the five clans or gentes of each moitie , to keep the balance between the Sky and Earth parts of the tribe. Eventually, disease and Sioux aggression from the north forced the tribe to move south. Between 1819 and 1856, they established villages near what is now Bellevue, Nebraska and along Papillion Creek . By the Fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1831,

684-560: A letter written by John F. A. Sanford, an Indian agent, in a July 1833 letter to William Clark, superintendent of Indian Affairs. Landry includes the excerpt in his article."They scalped them and left part of the Scalps of each tied to poles on the grounds of the murder[.]" Years of indecision followed. The rootless Arikara lived near their southern "kinfolk," the Skidi Pawnee, for some years. They also tried their luck in hostile country far up on

760-487: A male into the tribe, as Joseph LaFlesche (Iron Eye) was by the chief Big Elk in the 1840s, could become chiefs. Big Elk designated LaFlesche as his son and successor chief of the Weszinste . LaFlesche, a man of mixed race , was the last recognized head chief selected by the traditional ways, and he was the only chief with any European ancestry. He served for decades from 1853. Although whites considered Logan Fontenelle

836-614: A peace treaty with the United States (US) on July 18, 1825. In the winter/spring of 1833 members of the Arikara Tribe ambushed Hugh Glass, Hilain Menard and Colin Rose. "A hand-written notation made on the credit side of Menard's account book page states, 'Killed by the Rees near Fort Cass Spring 1833,'" Landry wrote in his article. "The word 'Rees' was mountaineer slang for the Arikara tribe." According to

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912-622: A person. It was kept in a Sacred Tent in the center of the village, which only men who were members of the Holy Society could enter. An annual renewal ceremony was related to the Sacred Pole. In 1888 Francis La Flesche , a young Omaha anthropologist, helped arrange for his colleague Alice Fletcher to have the Sacred Pole taken to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University , for preservation of it and its stories, at

988-401: A timber frame and a thick sod covering. At the center of the lodge was a fireplace that recalled their creation myth. The earthlodge entrance was built to face east, to catch the rising sun and remind the people of their origin and migration upriver from the east. The Huthuga , the circular layout of tribal villages, reflected the tribe's beliefs. Sky people lived in the northern half-circle of

1064-499: A time when the tribe's continuity seemed threatened by pressure for assimilation. The tribe was considering burying the Pole with its last keeper after his death. The last renewal ceremony for the pole was held in 1875, and the last buffalo hunt in 1876. La Flesche and Fletcher gathered and preserved stories about the Sacred Pole by its last keeper, Yellow Smoke, a holy man of the Hong'a gens. In

1140-489: Is a sanctuary for many bird species, including burrowing owls , ferruginous hawks , and greater prairie chickens . The habitat is near-pristine and there are high-quality riparian and native prairie plants. Arikara The Arikara ( English: / ə ˈ r ɪ k ər ə / ), also known as Sahnish , Arikaree , Ree , or Hundi , are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota . Today, they are enrolled with

1216-520: The Iowa near the end of the Omaha/Ponca migration to Nebraska. With peace established later, the Arikara influenced the newcomers. The Omaha still credit the Arikara women for instructing them in the art of building earth lodges. The Arikara lived as a semi- nomadic people on the Great Plains . During the sedentary seasons, the Arikara lived primarily in villages of earth lodges . While traveling or during

1292-677: The Iroquois in the Ohio Valley. After pushing out other tribes, the Iroquois kept control of the area as a hunting ground. About 1770, the Omaha became the first tribe on the Northern Plains to adopt equestrian culture. Developing "The Big Village" ( Ton-wa-tonga ) about 1775 in current-day Dakota County in northeast Nebraska, the Omaha developed an extensive trading network with early European explorers and French Canadian voyageurs . They controlled

1368-668: The Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation . The Arikara's name is believed to mean "horns", in reference to the ancient custom of wearing two upright bones in their hair. The name also could mean "elk people" or "corn eaters". The Arikara language is a member of the Caddoan language family . Arikara is close to the Pawnee language , but they are not mutually intelligible . As of 2007,

1444-608: The Ohio and Wabash rivers around year 1600. As the tribe migrated west, it split into what became the Omaha and the Quapaw tribes. The Quapaw settled in what is now Arkansas and the Omaha, known as U-Mo'n-Ho'n ("upstream") settled near the Missouri River in what is now northwestern Iowa . Another division happened, with the Ponca becoming an independent tribe, but they tended to settle near

1520-421: The "Corn Mother" can be found in many Native American mythologies. The myth is said to reflect the migrations of the Arikara from East to West. In the late 18th century, the tribe suffered a high rate of fatalities from smallpox epidemics , which reduced their population from an estimated 30,000 to 6,000, disrupting their social structure. The smallpox epidemic of 1780-1782 reduced the Arikara villages along

1596-401: The $ 20,000/year which was part of the treaty. Instead, he supplied goods: harrows, wagons, harnesses and various kinds of plows and implements to support the agricultural work. He told the tribe that Washington, DC officials had disapproved the annuity. The people had no recourse, and struggled to raise more produce, increasing the harvest to 20,000 bushels. The Omaha never took up arms against

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1672-584: The 1823 attack on Andrew Henry 's trapping expedition is accurate. Furthermore, the production was noted for its efforts to reproduce Pawnee and Arikara speech as accurately as possible. Omaha people The Omaha Tribe of Nebraska ( Omaha-Ponca : Umoⁿhoⁿ ) are a federally recognized Midwestern Native American tribe who reside on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa , United States. There were 5,427 enrolled members as of 2012. The Omaha Reservation lies primarily in

1748-588: The Bellevue Agency further north, finally choosing the Blackbird Hills, essentially the current reservation in Thurston County, Nebraska . The 60 men designated seven chiefs to go to Washington, DC for final negotiations along with Gatewood, with Fontenelle to serve as their interpreter. The chief Iron Eye ( Joseph LaFlesche ) was among the seven who went to Washington and is considered the last chief of

1824-503: The East into the West, but after a time she returned to Heaven and in her absence the people of the earth began to kill one another. She returned to the earth with a leader who taught them how to fight their enemies rather than one another. This is an "emergence" style creation myth, depicting the "Corn Mother" as giving birth to the planted seeds (the remaining good giants after the flood). The figure of

1900-653: The French cartographer Guillaume Delisle mapped the tribe as "The Maha, a wandering nation", along the northern stretch of the Missouri River. French fur trappers found the Omaha on the eastern side of the Missouri River in the mid-18th century. The Omaha were believed to have ranged from the Cheyenne River in South Dakota to the Platte River in Nebraska. Around 1734 the Omaha established their first village west of

1976-720: The Henry/Ashley Company. The trappers were camped near an Arikara village at the mouth of Grand River (north of present-day Mobridge, South Dakota). Fourteen trappers died and 10 were wounded, including Hugh Glass , memorialized in the 1954 biographical novel Lord Grizzly by Frederick Manfred , the 2002 historical fiction novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke , and the 2015 film The Revenant , an adaptation of Punke's book. Colonel Henry Leavenworth left Fort Atkinson (now in Nebraska) with 220 men. More than 700 Yankton, Yanktonai and Lakota Indians joined him in

2052-640: The Lakota, the Cheyenne and more southern plains tribes during short-lived truces. The amount of trading items passing through the Arikara villages made them a "trading center on the Upper Missouri". Before smallpox epidemics hit the three village tribes, they were the "most influential and affluent peoples in the Northern Plains". Traditionally an Arikara family owned 30–40 dogs. The people used them for hunting and as sentries, but most importantly for transportation in

2128-467: The Mississippi River for white development. In 1846 Big Elk made an illegal treaty allowing a large group of Mormons to settle on Omaha land for a period; he hoped to gain some protection from competing natives by their guns, but the new settlers cut deeply into the game and wood resources of the area during the two years they were there. For nearly 15 years in the 19th century, Logan Fontenelle

2204-420: The Missouri River on Bow Creek in present-day Cedar County, Nebraska . Around 1775, the Omaha developed a new village, probably located near present-day Homer, Nebraska . Ton won tonga (or Tonwantonga , also called the "Big Village"), was the village of Chief Blackbird . At this time, the Omaha controlled the fur trade on the Missouri River. About 1795, the village had around 1,100 people. Around 1800,

2280-423: The Missouri from 32 to 2. The effects of the epidemic may have been so terrible that it could not be comprehended but in allegorical form. All-out war hit the weakened and often divided Arikara. In a burned-down village, (later studied as Larson Site ), archaeologists found the mutilated skeletons of 71 men, women and children, killed in the early 1780s by unknown Native American attackers. Groups of Sioux were

2356-593: The Omaha boys enter the wilderness alone they fast and pray and should they dream of a woman's burden- strap (a tool used to help carry things), they feel compelled to dress and live in every way live as women. Such men are known as mixugo. As the tribe migrated westward from the Ohio River region in the 17th century, they adapted to the Plains environment. They replaced the Woodland custom of bark lodges with tipis (borrowed from

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2432-497: The Omaha ceded their lands in Iowa to the United States, east of the Missouri River, with the understanding that they still had hunting rights there. In 1836 a treaty with the US took their remaining hunting lands in northwestern Missouri. During the 1840s, the Omaha continued to suffer from Sioux aggression. European-American settlers pressed the US government to make more land available west of

2508-534: The Omaha had to rely increasingly for survival upon their cash annuities and supplies from the United States Government and adaptation to subsistence agriculture. Jacob Vore was a Quaker appointed as US Indian agent to the Omaha Reservation under President Ulysses S. Grant . He started in September 1876, succeeding T.S. Gillingham, also a Quaker. Vore distributed a reduced annuity that year, just before

2584-402: The Omaha left on their annual buffalo hunt; according to his later account, he intended to "encourage" the Omaha to work at more agriculture. They suffered a poor hunting season and severe winter, so that some were starving before late spring. Vore gained a supplement to the annuities which he had distributed, but for the remaining years of his tenure through 1879, distributed no cash annuities of

2660-537: The Omaha reclaimed more than 100 ancestral skeletons from Ton-wo-tonga , which had been held by museums. They had been excavated during archaeological work of the 1930s and 1940s, from grave sites with burials before and after 1800. Before having ceremonial reburial of the remains on Omaha lands, the tribe's representatives arranged for research at the University of Nebraska to see what could be learned from their ancestors. Researchers found considerable differences in

2736-411: The Omaha under their traditional system. Logan Fontenelle served as their interpreter, and whites mistakenly believed he was a chief. Because his father was white, the Omaha never accepted him as a member of the tribe, but considered him white. Although the draft treaty authorized the seven chiefs to make only "slight alterations," the government officials forced major changes when they met. It took out

2812-507: The Omaha. The first European journal reference to the Omaha tribe was made by Pierre-Charles Le Sueur in 1700. Informed by reports, he described an Omaha village with 400 dwellings and a population of about 4,000 people. It was located on the Big Sioux River near its confluence with the Missouri, near present-day Sioux City, Iowa . The French then called it "The River of the Mahas." In 1718,

2888-608: The Platte (now Nebraska), where Colonel Henry Dodge met them in 1835. Harassed by the numerous Sioux, the Arikara finally buried old enmity and befriended the Mandan and the Hidatsa in the late 1830s. The manager in the trading post Fort Clark observed in June 1838, how "the Rees, Mandans and Gros Ventres [Hidatsas] started out early" in a common bison hunt. Smallpox had struck the Upper Missouri tribes

2964-561: The Sioux in raids on Mandan and Hidatsa Indians. Later they negotiated for peace with both village tribes. Due to their reduced numbers, the Arikara started to live closer to the Mandan and Hidatsa in the same area for mutual protection. They migrated gradually from present-day Nebraska and South Dakota into North Dakota . The remainder of the group was encountered in 1804 by the Lewis and Clark Expedition . The first Arikara delegation left for

3040-459: The Sioux", declared chief White Shield in 1864. Like a Fishhook Village was not safe from devastation, strikes or raids for horses (and neither was the nearby trading post Fort Berthold II). Just before the end of 1862, some Sioux burned a part of the village. The affiliation of the Sioux is not always clear: Lakota, Yanktonai and "refugee" Santee Sioux from the Minnesota uprising sometimes attacked

3116-557: The Sioux) for the buffalo hunting and summer season, and built earth lodges (borrowed from the Arikara , called Sand Pawnee, ) for the winter. Tipis were used primarily during buffalo hunts and when they relocated from one village area to another. They used earth lodges as dwellings during the winter. Omaha beliefs were symbolized in their dwelling structures. During most of the year, the Omaha lived in earth or sod lodges, ingenious structures with

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3192-459: The Three Tribes. As always in intertribal warfare, there were interludes with peace - and conflicts with other Indian foes, as for example the Assiniboine . In 1869, the Three Tribes asked the United States for guns as protection against hostile Sioux, and they finally received 300 pieces. The Three Tribes sold a part of their southern treaty land, more or less already annexed by the Lakota, to

3268-578: The U.S. Several members of the tribe fought for the Union during the American Civil War, as well as each subsequent war through today. Beginning in the 1960s, the Omaha began to reclaim lands east of the Missouri River, in an area called Blackbird Bend . After lengthy court battles and several standoffs, much of the area has been recognized as part Omaha tribal lands. The Omaha established their Blackbird Bend Casino on this reclaimed territory. In 1989,

3344-516: The United States in the Laramie Treaty of 1851 was to establish a permanent peace on most of the northern plains and to define tribal territories. The basic treaty area of the Arikara, the Hidatsa and the Mandan was a mutual territory north of Heart River, encircled on the east and north by the Missouri and on the west by Yellowstone River down to the mouth of Powder River. The Lakota had continued to press north after 1823, so they got treaty rights on

3420-492: The United States on April 12, 1870. At the same time, they got treaty on the area where Like a Fishhook Village was located. In June 1874, Colonel George Armstrong Custer in Fort Abraham Lincoln (now North Dakota) received an order to delay his Black Hills Expedition and stop a large war party of Lakota on its way to attack Like a Fishhook Village. "The Rees and Mandans should be protected same as white settlers", read

3496-424: The United States' first Indian war west of the Missouri. The Arikara retreated to their fortified village. Soon the disappointed Sioux left the battlefield. The Arikara escaped at night, and angry fur traders set their empty lodges ablaze the next morning. "This was the only time in history that any of the Three Tribes fought in open warfare against the United States". The Bloody Hand and other Arikara chiefs signed

3572-413: The age of 30. But they also had larger roles in the tribe's economy. Researchers have found through archeological excavations that the later women's skeletons were buried with more silver artifacts as grave goods than those of the men, or of women before 1800. After the research was completed, the tribe buried these ancestral remains in 1991. When Lewis and Clark visited Ton-wa-tonga in 1804, most of

3648-621: The area along Grand River as well as other land south of Heart River. Peace was short-lived. As drawings collected by W. J. Hoffman of Hunkpapa Chief Running Antelope showed, in 1853 he already had killed four Arikara Indians. The next year the Three Tribes called for the U. S. Army to intervene; that request was repeated the next two decades. Arikara hunters were waylaid and had difficulties securing enough game and hides. A lengthy battle between an Arikara camp on hunt and several hundred Lakota took place in June 1858. The Arikara camp lost ten men, with 34 wounded. The Arikara built Star Village in

3724-404: The body of a man. The name by which it is known, a-kon-da-bpa , is the word used to designate the leather bracer worn upon the wrist for protection from the bow string (of the weapon of bow and arrow). This name demonstrates that the pole was intended to symbolize a man, as no other creature could wear a bracer. It also indicated that the man thus symbolized was one who was both a provider for and

3800-512: The capital, Washington, DC, in April 1805, urged by the Lewis and Clark Expedition . Chief Ankedoucharo became ill during his stay and died in Washington. The delegates blamed the whites for the chief's death. That was one reason why the Arikara for the next decades were "notoriously hostile to white Americans". On June 2, 1823, the Arikara attacked a group of 70 trappers led by William Henry Ashley of

3876-564: The centuries before the Plains tribes adopted the use of horses in the 1600s. Many of the Plains tribes had used the travois , a lightweight transportation device pulled by dogs. It consisted of two long poles attached by a harness at the dog's shoulders, with the butt ends dragging behind the animal; midway, a ladder-like frame, or a hoop made of plaited thongs, was stretched between the poles; it held loads that might exceed 60 pounds. Women also used dogs to pull travois to haul firewood or infants. The travois were used to carry meat harvested during

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3952-576: The combination of revenge and self-defense would constitute a powerful motivation" for joining the whites in actions like that. Custer's favorite scout, an Arikara known as Bloody Knife , fell during the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation (now Montana) in 1876. "Mandans, Arickarees and Gros Ventres" were among the first Indian children to arrive at Hampton Institute ,

4028-483: The community before and after 1800, as revealed in their bones and artifacts. Most significantly, they discovered that the Omaha were an equestrian Plains culture and buffalo hunters by 1770, making them the "first documented equestrian culture on the Northern Plains." They also found that before 1800, the Omaha traded mostly in arms and ornaments. Men had many more roles in the patrilineal culture than did women: as "archers, warriors, gunsmiths, and merchants," including

4104-403: The creation myth of the neighboring Mandan people. It begins with the great sky chief Nishanu creating giants . The giants did not respect Nishanu who had created them and most of the giants were destroyed by a great flood . The good giants who were saved became corn kernels under the earth. Nishanu planted corn in the heavens yielding Mother Corn, who went to the earth to lead the people out of

4180-721: The distinction of being the highest low point of any U.S. state , higher than the highest points of 18 states and the District of Columbia . Along the river is the site of the 1868 Battle of Beecher Island . The Arikaree River has been made one of the designated areas under the Colorado Natural Areas Program because it is "part of the largest and best remaining example of a naturally functioning Great Plains river system in Colorado." It has several species of reptiles, fish, and amphibians that are native and uncommon. The area

4256-534: The fur trade and access to other tribes on the Upper Missouri River. Omaha, Nebraska , the largest city in Nebraska, is named after them. Never known to take up arms against the U.S., the Omaha assisted the U.S. during the American Civil War . The Omaha tribe began as a larger Eastern Woodlands tribe comprising both the Omaha, Ponca and Quapaw tribes. This tribe coalesced and inhabited the area near

4332-558: The inhabitants were gone on a seasonal buffalo hunt. The expedition met with the Oto people, who were also Siouan speaking. The explorers were led to the gravesite of Chief Blackbird before continuing on their expedition west. In 1815 the Omaha made their first treaty with the United States, one called a "treaty of friendship and peace." No land was relinquished by the tribe. Semi-permanent Omaha villages lasted from 8 to 15 years. They created sod houses for winter dwellings, which were arranged in

4408-683: The keys to their survival. The Spanish built a fort nearby and traded regularly with the Omaha during this period. After the United States made the Louisiana Purchase and exerted pressure on the trading in this area, there was a proliferation of different kinds of goods among the Omaha: tools and clothing became prevalent, such as scissors, axes, top hats and buttons. Women took on more manufacturing of goods for trade, as well as hand farming, perhaps because of evolving technology. Those women buried after 1800 had shorter, more strenuous lives; none lived past

4484-480: The major ceremonial roles. Sacred bundles from religious ceremonies were found buried only with men. In pre-settlement times, the Omaha had an intricately developed social structure that was closely tied to the people's concept of an inseparable union between sky (male principle) and earth (female); it was part of their creation story and their view of the cosmos. This union was viewed as critical to perpetuation of all living forms and pervaded Omaha culture. The tribe

4560-467: The ones who gained most by the weakening of the Arikara. They attacked the vulnerable Arikara and increased "the pace of Sioux expansion" west of the Missouri . The Arikara faced many challenges during the first quarter of the 19th century: Reduced numbers, competition from white traders, and military pressure from the Lakota and other groups of Sioux. Alliances shifted constantly. The Arikara joined old foes

4636-454: The order from General Phil Sheridan. Custer failed and the Lakota killed five Arikara and one Mandan. During the Great Sioux War of 1876 , some Arikara served as scouts for Custer in the Little Bighorn Campaign . The Arikara "supplied some of the most faithful and effective Indian scouts " for the Army during the war against the bands of Lakota roaming other peoples' territories in 1876-1877. "For tribes subject to Sioux pressure for decades,

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4712-406: The payments to the traders. It reduced the total value of annuities from $ 1,200,000 to $ 84,000, spread over years until 1895. It reserved the right to decide on distribution between cash and goods for the annuities. The tribe finally removed to the Blackbird Hills about 1856, and they first built a village in its traditional pattern. By the 1870s, bison were quickly disappearing from the plains, and

4788-480: The seasonal bison hunts, they erected portable tipis as temporary shelter. They were primarily an agricultural society, whose women cultivated varieties of corn (or maize). The crop was such an important staple of their society that it was referred to as "Mother Corn." An early European, a botanist, praised the Arikara women as excellent cultivators. He had not seen finer crops anywhere in America. The surplus corn and other crops, along with tobacco, were traded to

4864-479: The seasonal hunts; a single dog could pull a quarter of a bison . The Arikara played a central role in the Great Plains Indian trading networks based on an advantageous geographical position combined with a surplus from agriculture and craft . Historical sources show that the Arikara villages were visited by Cree , Assiniboine , Crow , Cheyenne , Arapaho , Sioux , Kiowa , Plains Apache and Comanche . The Arikara creation myth shows similarities with

4940-436: The southern part of Thurston County and northeastern Cuming County , Nebraska, but small parts extend into the northeast corner of Burt County and across the Missouri River into Monona County, Iowa . Its total land area is 307.03 sq mi (795.2 km ) and the reservation population, including non-Native residents, was 4,526 in the 2020 census . Its largest community is Pender . The Omaha people migrated to

5016-399: The spring of 1862. They had to abandon it after a fierce fight with the Sioux a few months later. The Arikara crossed the Missouri and built new earth lodges and log houses near the common Mandan and Hidatsa village Like-a-Fishhook Village . The village was built outside the Three Tribes treaty area. "We, the Arikara, have been driven from our country on the other side of the Missouri River by

5092-419: The total number of remaining native speakers was reported as ten, one of whom, Maude Starr, died on 20 January 2010. She was a certified language teacher who participated in Arikara language education programs. Linguistic divergence between Arikara and Pawnee suggests a separation from the Skidi Pawnee in about the 15th century. The Arzberger site near present-day Pierre, South Dakota , designated as

5168-438: The town of Haigler , the Arikaree joins with the North Fork Republican River to form the Republican River . The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and into Cheyenne County, Kansas , located at 39°58′41″N 102°03′06″W  /  39.97806°N 102.05167°W  / 39.97806; -102.05167 , is the lowest point in Colorado at an elevation of 3,317 feet (1,011 m). It holds

5244-408: The tribe removed to the Omaha Reservation about 1856, they initially built their village and earth lodges in the traditional patterns, with the half-tribes and clans in their traditional places in the layout. The Omaha revere an ancient Sacred Pole, from before the time of their migration to the Missouri, made of cottonwood . It is called Umoⁿ'hoⁿ'ti (meaning "The Real Omaha") and considered to be

5320-401: The twentieth century, about 100 years after the Pole had been transferred, the tribe negotiated with the Peabody Museum for its return. The tribe planned to install the Sacred Pole in a cultural center to be built. When the museum returned the Sacred Pole to the tribe in July 1989, the Omaha held an August pow-wow in celebration and as part of their revival. The Sacred Pole is said to represent

5396-460: The upper Missouri area and the Plains by the late 17th century from earlier locations in the Ohio River Valley. The Omaha speak a Siouan language of the Dhegihan branch, which is very similar to that spoken by the Ponca . The latter were part of the Omaha before splitting off into a separate tribe in the mid-18th century. They were also related to the Siouan-speaking Osage , Quapaw , and Kansa peoples, who also migrated west under pressure from

5472-411: The village, the area that symbolized the heavens. Earth people lived in the southern half, which represented the earth. The circle opened to the east. Within each half of the village, the clans or gentes were located based on their members' tribal duties and relationship to other clans. Earth lodges were as large as 60 feet (18 m) in diameter and might hold several families, even their horses. When

5548-469: The year before (and would again in 1856). It decimated the Mandan. The surviving Arikara took over the almost empty Mandan village Mitutanka next to Fort Clark. The earth lodges stood until Yankton Sioux set them on fire in January 1839. The village was rebuilt by the Arikara, who lived there until 1861. Another Sioux attack—and the need for a trading post—made them leave the settlement for good. The goal of

5624-615: Was allotted a homestead of 160 acres in the early 1890s. The Arikara Indians were considered citizens of the United States—and no more tribal village dwellers. The three tribes are settled on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. In the 2015 film The Revenant , Arikara warriors act as major antagonists in the early part of the film. Trappers refer to them both by their proper name and as Ree, and

5700-532: Was divided into two moieties or half-tribes, the Sky People ( Insta'shunda ) and the Earth People ( Hon'gashenu ), each led by a different hereditary chief, who inherited power from his father's line. Sky people were responsible for the tribe's spiritual needs and Earth people for the tribe's physical welfare. Each moiety was composed of five clans or gente, which also had differing responsibilities. Each gens had

5776-456: Was the interpreter at the Bellevue Agency, serving different US Indian agents . The mixed-race Omaha - French man was trilingual and also worked as a trader. His mother was Omaha; his father French Canadian. In January 1854 he acted as interpreter during the agent James M. Gatewood's negotiations for land cessions with 60 Omaha leaders and elders, who sat in council at Bellevue. Gatewood had been under pressure by Washington headquarters to achieve

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