Many Mandan and Hidatsa people had their interactions with mortality at birth. Infant and maternal mortality were high as disease and post-natal care fluctuated with the seasonal movement during hunts and village relocations. Gilbert Wilson, an anthropologist who interviewed indigenous individuals at the Fort Berthold Reservation recorded, “women often died in childbirth when overtaken in labor while on a deer hut or where assistance was not readily available.” Even when women were home in their earthlodges surrounded by their mothers and experienced midwives, hard labor and complications often claimed women’s lives, as was the case for Chief Four Bear’s wife. During a morning coffee meeting, Four Bears told Henry Boller, “My heart is in
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Although the Mandan and Hidatsa were primarily farming peoples living in settled villages along the Missouri River, they relied on the bison hunts for their major source of protein. During the hunt, the village traveled together to slaughter, prepare, and transport the bison. From mauling by injured bison to death in childbirth because of the lack of rest or adequate care, hunting deaths were expected and gave rise of an adapted burial ritual. When individuals died on the hunt, their female relatives wrapped the deceased in in buffalo hides or blankets and placed the body in a tree or crevasse in a rock, or were buried in a shallow grave and covered with rocks on a hill. The following year, the deceased’s paternal aunt traveled to the grave to bring her nice or nephew’s skull back to the village to join the clan’s skull circles. When she retrieved the skull, she wrapped it in sacred white sage and carried it back to the village in a soft leather bag. By retrieving the skull and adding it to the skull circle, women reunited her relatives with their clan. Not only did it provide closure for mourning relatives, but this practice demonstrated the significance of physical connections within the can and the ongoing spiritual belonging of clan members even after death. This ongoing belonging was exemplified in the construction of skull
Although the Mandan and Hidatsa were primarily farming peoples living in settled villages along the Missouri River, they relied on the bison hunts for their major source of protein. During the hunt, the village traveled together to slaughter, prepare, and transport the bison. From mauling by injured bison to death in childbirth because of the lack of rest or adequate care, hunting deaths were expected and gave rise of an adapted burial ritual. When individuals died on the hunt, their female relatives wrapped the deceased in in buffalo hides or blankets and placed the body in a tree or crevasse in a rock, or were buried in a shallow grave and covered with rocks on a hill. The following year, the deceased’s paternal aunt traveled to the grave to bring her nice or nephew’s skull back to the village to join the clan’s skull circles. When she retrieved the skull, she wrapped it in sacred white sage and carried it back to the village in a soft leather bag. By retrieving the skull and adding it to the skull circle, women reunited her relatives with their clan. Not only did it provide closure for mourning relatives, but this practice demonstrated the significance of physical connections within the can and the ongoing spiritual belonging of clan members even after death. This ongoing belonging was exemplified in the construction of skull