Arikara
Arikara (also Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree) refers to a group of Native Americans that speak a Caddoan language. They were a semi-nomadic group that lived on the Great Plains of the United States of America for several hundred years. They lived primarily in earth lodges, used tipis while traveling from their villages, and were an agricultural society. Their primary crop was corn (or maize), and it was such an important aspect of their society that it was often referred to as "Mother Corn."
The Arikara moved from South Dakota into North Dakota, now on the Fort Berthold reservation.
Their culture was decimated by smallpox in the late 1830s, and due to their reduced numbers, they started to work closer to the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes who lived in the same area. Today the three tribes are still closely associated and are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.
During the Black Hills War, Arikaras served as scouts for Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer on the Little Bighorn Campaign.
Arikara is now spoken in North Dakota by a very few elders. Only 20 speakers remain, in the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Arikara is very close to the Pawnee language, but they are not mutually intelligible.
Arikara Economy
The Arikara were among the first people to successfully move to the Dakota Missouri River area and utilize the bison as a food source, probably around 1150 AD. They did not live in tipis, except in certain circumstances. They originated in what is now central Missouri, and were essentially a Woodlands culture. They were hunters of the lowland river fauna, but their economy centered around hunting, gathering, fishing,and especially horticulture. During the move to the Dakotas, the Arikara brought this economic preference with them, focusing on the river bottoms for sustenance. In addition to their horticultural practices in the river bottoms, they became successful bison hunters. As with many Plains bison hunters, they hunted by several means. One technique was the use of a funnel-shaped triangular fence into which the herd or portions of it were herded into an ever smaller area, allowing the animals to be killed by bow or spear. The Arikara also drove the animals over jumps, panicking the herd to run over a cliff. They also set fire to the prairie grasses, creating a new crop of succulent shoots that could be detected by the bison for miles. Once the herd gathered, warriors in wolf skins would crawl among the herd and take an animal. Upon the introduction of the horse by the Spanish, many Arikara adopted a more equestrian form of bison-hunting, or a horse culture.
See also
- Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation
- Arikara War
Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Arikara". Image Credit.
