elizabeth fenn encounters at the heart of the world

Other than that ceremony, not much is known about the tribe, especially in its earlier days. Especially striking were Catlin’s paintings of a Sun Dance-like ritual called Opika, complete with self-torture and sexual exploits. Most of us know the Mandans through the sketches and paintings of 19th-century artist George Catlin that were made just before the smallpox epidemic hit.

The Mandans still exist but only as one of three tribes that make up the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. Some 90 percent of the Mandans were wiped out by measles, whooping cough and smallpox in the 1830s. Worst of all, they fell victim to the white man’s diseases.

They were attacked by warrior tribes and beset by Norway rats transported to America on European ships, which decimated their grain stores. If the designs spoke true, the Mandans must have been horrified at what they saw, because their future was the worst of any tribe along the Missouri River. Each spring, they spent days washing the stone, smoking, singing and fasting, as they waited for designs to appear in the lichen that would predict the future. In long-ago times, the Mandan Indians had an oracle stone, a rock outcropping about 20 feet across, that was covered with lichen. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured.Ī riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research, but by her own encounters at the heart of the world.Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. By 1500, more than 12,000 Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History.Įncounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe.

Elizabeth fenn encounters at the heart of the world