Crying Hill, An Endangered Historic Site

"Crying Hill," or "Mandan Hill" can be seen in the middle of this photo, the Missouri River down below, city development behind in the distance. 

Crying Hill Endangered

Site Overlooks River, City, Interstate

By Dakota Wind

Mandan, N.D. (TFS) – A hill rolls above the floodplain where the Heart River converges with the Missouri River. It divides the city of Mandan from traffic of I-94. It loudly proclaims “MaNDan” on its east face in bright white concrete lettering; the south face of this same plateau says the same but with trees spelling the city's name.

It’s the home of the Mandan Braves, named after the indigenous people who lived there on the banks of the Heart River as traders, fishers, and farmers. The Nu’Eta, as they call themselves, could defend themselves when called for as well. They lived in fortified villages in the Heart River area from about 1450 to about 1781.

Each village had a civil chief and a war chief to advice and look after their interests. The Nu’Eta were productive and hard-working. They must have been doing something right; their villages possessed no jails.

Welch's notations on a 1911 US Geological survey map. Bismarck and Mandan have grown considerably in the hundred+ years since. 

The village along the banks of the Heart River in present-day Mandan, ND was large, with a population of perhaps as many as 3000. Its identified mainly as a Nu’Eta site, but the Hidatsa claim the populace as their own. The Hidatsa became neighbors of the Nu’Eta sometime around 1600 C.E., and inter-married with them over the centuries that today one isn’t Nu’Eta without having Hidatsa relatives.

This large village was known by many names. The Nu’Eta called it Large and Scattered Village. The Hidatsa called it the Two Faced Stone Village for the sacred stone feature atop the plateau overlooking their village. Crows Heart, a principle leader of the Nu’Eta, informed Colonel Alfred Welch that that they called the village there in present-day Mandan, “The Crying Hill Village.” Crows Heart also essayed to Welch that they called it so because their women went to the top of the hill to mourn for lost relatives.

Another village there, south of the Crying Hill Village, called Motsif today, was known by the Nu’Eta as Youngman’s Village. According to Welch’s informants, the Nu’Eta of both these two villages would gather together and inhabit a winter camp in the timber on the floodplain of the Missouri River[1].

According to the late Mr. Joe Packineau, the Crow separated from the Hidatsa at the Crying Hill Village, adding that the village was also called the Tattoo Face Village, and further, that it was Hidatsa, not Nu’Eta. In the time of Good Fur Robe, he had a brother whom they called Tattoo Face. A hunt concluded with a dead bison recovered from the middle of the river. Good Fur Robe divided the kill and took the paunch, which infuriated Tattoo Face and his people, who picked up and moved west. According to Packineau, the Hidatsa called them not Crow, but “The Paunch Jealousy People.” Where the Crow broke away from their Hidatsa relatives was at the Crying Hill Village[2].

Welch drew this diagram mapping the features of Crying Hill. Visit the Welch Dakota Papers site.

At the top of Crying Hill were stone features (including a stone turtle effigy measuring twelve feet across), sacred to the Nu’Eta, upon which were images or pictographs, which changed, and were said to be able to tell the future. One oracle stone in particular, was said known as the “Two Face Stone.” When diviners gathered ‘round to interpret the stone’s musing for the future, they would lift the stone, which seemed to them to be very light. Upon putting it down, they would lift again, and the stone mysteriously weighed more than one could lift. They called this stone Two Face because of its dual nature, and according to Welch’s informant, the village below was called “Two Face Village.” Enemy Heart, an Arikara man, estimated the side of the Two Face Stone to be a diameter of about 18 inches[3], it’s location, at least in 1912, was lay just east of the Morton County Courthouse in Mandan, ND[4]. Enemy Heart insisted that the Crying Hill Village’s proper name was Two Face Village.

In the 1870’s, as the city of Mandan developed on the remains of the Large and Scattered Village, or Crying Hill Village, or Tattoo Face Village, Two Face Village, homes and streets encroached on Crying Hill itself. One day, a prospective home owner, took dynamite to the sacred stone on the hillside of Crying Hill and blew it up[5]. Welch contends that the greater oracle stone was drilled and split by white settlers for building stone. One resident, Mr. G.W. Rendon built the basement of his house from fragments of this holy stone[6].

There used to be a burial ground at Crying Hill. In 1933, laborers of the city of Mandan were expanding development of the city for two new houses, and disturbed the graves of eleven Nu’Eta men and women, including a baby. Col. Alfred Welch was called on to offer his assessment of the findings, and he estimated that the size of the Crying Hill Village at about 3000 souls, and was occupied for about 300 years[7], from ~1500 C.E. to about ~1800 C.E. The bodies were hastily buried, possibly due to the haste in which the survivors departed the Heart River villages in 1781 following the smallpox epidemic which struck them.

This reconstruction of the 1863 Apple Creek Fight is overlaid on 1850's Warren survey map. 

Crying Hill overlooks one of the largest conflicts in Dakota Territory history. In 1863, General Sibley led ~2200 soldiers into Dakota Territory on a punitive campaign from Camp Pope in Minnesota. The campaign concluded at the mouth of Apple Creek, on Aug. 1, 1863, when Sibley withdrew from the field of conflict, unable to pursue the Lakȟóta across the Missouri River. The Húŋkpapȟa, led by Black Eyes, crossed the Missouri River where the Northern Pacific Railroad Bridge spans the river, and thence up the Heart River to escape pursuit.

A week after the Apple Creek conflict, Black Eyes brought the Húŋkpapȟa back across the Missouri River and re-crossed the Missouri at the northern most mouth of the Heart River (which had three mouths at that time), and camped above the floodplain opposite Crying Hill. During the night, miners from Fort Benton, MT came down and camped on a sandbar. The next morning the miners tried forced themselves on a Lakȟóta woman who had gone down to the river to refresh herself. She died at the miners’ hands; Black Eyes retaliated and the Húŋkpapȟa warriors awoke and hurried to the river’s edge and exchanged gunfire with the hostiles. During the fight, the boat’s swivel gun misfired into the boat itself causing a fire to break out. The miners were killed to the last man, and there precious gold was scattered about the sandbar[8].

The Mandan Historical Society features this photo of the "Mandan Hill" in the summer of 1959. Visit the Mandan Historical Society today.

In 1934, a local Boy Scouts troop arranged forty-seven truckloads of local stone into giant letters which spelled out “MaNDan,” on what became renamed “Mandan Hill.” It was maintained by the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the Mandan Jaycees over the years, then in 1968, after Interstate 94 (I-94) was complete, the “MaNDan” sign was reconstructed in concrete. In the late 1990’s, pine trees were planted on the south face of Crying Hill arranged to spell “MANDAN[9].”

Sometime in 2003, Mr. Patrick Atkinson, acquired 4.7 acres of what remained of Crying Hill, to save it from development. Atkinson heard that the property was going to be put on the market, and he dashed up to Crying Hill after hearing a little about the lore, and provoked by his own winter memories of sledding down the face of Crying Hill. He took his son to the site to talk about what it meant to them. They concluded to save what they could. Atkinson maintains that the Crying Hill preservation effort is ecumenical and non-political, preserving the site for the sake of the sacredness and inspiration found there by native and non-native alike[10]. Visit Atkinson's site about Crying Hill.

In 2008, Preservation North Dakota declared that Crying Hill was endangered. To be declared endangered, a site must be of historical, cultural, or architectural significance and in danger of demolition, deterioration, or substantial alteration due to neglect or vandalism. Preservation North Dakota acknowledged the preservation efforts of Atkinson and the Crying Hill preservation coalition for saving Crying Hill for the edification and gratification of future citizens.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

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[1] Welch, Alfred, Col. "Good Fur Blanket Was Mayor Of Mandan In 1738 - Proof Is Found Of Ancient City On Present Site." Mandan Daily Pioneer (Mandan), April 14, 1924.

[2] Welch, Alfred, Col. "Joe Packineau's Verson of The Split and Formation of Crows." Welch Dakota Papers. November 15, 2011. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://www.welchdakotapapers.com.

[3] Welch, Alfred, Col. "Arikara Hide Their Sacred Stone From The Sioux." Welch Dakota Papers. November 15, 2011. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://www.welchdakotapapers.com.

[4] Welch, Alfred, Col. "More About The Two Face Stone." Welch Dakota Papers. November 15, 2011. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://www.welchdakotapapers.com.

[5] Welch, Alfred, Col. "The Minnitari Stone." Welch Dakota Papers. November 15, 2011. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://www.welchdakotapapers.com.

[6] Welch, Alfred, Col. "Stone Idol Creek Journey." Welch Dakota Papers. November 15, 2011. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://www.welchdakotapapers.com.

[7] "Spades Of Workers Rudely Disturb Last Resting Place Of Ancient Gros Ventres Warriors." Mandan Daily Pioneer (Mandan), May 11, 1933.

[8] Dakota Wind. “The Apple Creek Fight.” The First Scout. Nov. 17, 2014. Accessed Aug. 4, 2017. http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com.

[9] "Mandan Hill 501 N Mandan Ave." Mandan Historical Society. 2006. Accessed August 2, 2017. http://mandanhistory.org.

[10] Crying Hill Heritage Site. 2003. Accessed August 3, 2017. http://www.cryinghill.com. 

Mandan Woman Turned Into Stone

A lichen covered red granite stone rests in the earth about halfway up the plateau at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Not evident in this photo of this stone, but a rut runs through the half which is exposed to the elements.
Mandan Woman Turned Into Stone
Trees Grew To Honor Her Bravery
As told by Capt. Henry Marcotte (ret.)
Bismarck Tribune, Reprinted Dec. 15, 1922 as “The Clump of Trees on The Hogback”
Mandan, N.D. (TFS) - Fifty years after the construction of Fort McKean and Fort Abraham Lincoln, Captain Henry Marcotte (ret.), shared a story of sacrifice and remembrance regarding a Lakȟóta war party leader, a Nu’Eta (Mandan) man, and a beautiful Nu’Eta woman.

In 1872, Marcotte was serving at Fort McKeen as the Chief of Scouts. In his first summer of service he witnessed many ambuscades carried out on the north side of the newly constructed fort. Marcotte also witnessed the brave responses of the Fort McKeen Detachment of US Indian Scouts - namely, the Sahnis (Arikara). On the evening of November 3rd, Marcotte was invited to sit and smoke with the Sahnis, Hidsatsa, and Nu’Eta, and heard the tale of Black Hare, a Nu’Eta woman.

They had gathered just outside the north side of the palisades of Fort McKeen. It was the custom of Plains Indian men and women to sit on the ground in treaty, in council, at home, and in prayer. Men sat with straight backs and legs crossed; women sat with their knees together, legs tucked under and back, heels to one side. On this day, however, only men were present, and Marcotte undertook to sit on a rock that had been rolled into the circle.

At this gathering, though all spoke different first languages, Marcotte watched and listened to the men speak carefully and deliberately, testing the friendship of all gathered. Sergeant Young War Eagle began the afternoon with a pipe and passed it onto each man calling out his name, who responded in the affirmative. 

By 1910, five trees remained on the top of the plateau, where once was Fort McKeen.

When it was Marcotte’s turn, Young War Eagle recognized him as an officer, then pointed at the rock upon which Marcotte sat. Young War Eagle explained that Marcotte sat on the petrified remains of the Nu’Eta woman known to them as Black Hare. It was to recount her story that brought them together that day. Marcotte doesn’t mention whether or not he removed himself from his perch, but it would have been good manners to do so, and to apologize for his faux pas. Young War Eagle and the men gathered apparently took no offense, and the sergeant recounted the story of Black Hare, as Marcotte noted, “in pleasing tones.”

Black Hare, a young woman, was renowned by many nations near and far for her great beauty. She turned down all her suitors for the simple reason that she didn’t want to leave her village there overlooking the floodplain of the Heart and Missouri Rivers. According to the Sitting Rabbit map of the river, this village was called Watchman’s Village, which today is known as On-A-Slant.

A Thítȟuŋwaŋ (lit. “Dweller On The Plains”; Teton; Lakȟóta) man whom the Nu’Eta knew as Crow Necklace, a leader amongst his people, approached the Nu’Eta and wanted Black Hare for his woman. She declined. Crow Necklace then threatened the Nu’Eta leader with death, to be carried out by sundown, if Black Hare wasn’t brought to him.

The Mandan leader, “To’sh” according to Marcotte’s memory and spelling, induced Black Hare to go walking with him, and on this walk, he took her to where Crow Necklace was lodged, and turned her over to the Xa’Numak (Nu’Eta: lit. “Grass Man”; the Nu’Eta word for the “Sioux”). When To’sh returned to the safety within his palisaded village, he contrived to tell his people that Crow Necklace abducted Black Hare.

The Nu’Eta suspected To’sh’ insincerity, and the other leader of the village - for each village each had a civil chief and a war chief - ordered To’sh to be buried on the spot up to his neck for his disingenuity. The other Nu’Eta leader then made the very threat to To’sh that Crow Necklace made earlier that day, saying that if Black Hare wasn’t here by sundown, To’sh would die. 

By 1922, only one tree remained on the plateau. This photo was taken in the 1930s following the CCC's reconstruction of the three blockhouses. A last tree, dead, can be seen in this image.

From a distance, To’sh saw Black Hare returning to the village, her feet wounded and bleeding. Marcotte’s recollection didn’t tell readers why Black Hare would return in this condition, but other first nations of the Great Plains knew by cultural understanding that when a Lakȟóta man stole a woman from another tribe with the intention of making her his wife, he removed her háŋpa (her moccasins) so that she would be less likely to return to her people. Makȟóčhe Wašté (lit. “The Beautiful Country”; the Great Plains, and by extension, North America) is fraught with uŋkčéla ( little cacti). In this story, Black Hare was a strong-willed young woman to leave her captor and return.

To’sh feared that Black Hare’s return would reveal his falsehood, and earnestly prayed for her to turn into stone. Lo! Black Hare turned into a red calcined stone (as Marcotte described his seat)! A bird sang out during this transformation, and a spirit planted seeds in Black Hare’s bloody footprints. Winter spread its mantle of purity over the stone of Black Hare and her seeded tracks. The sun warmed the land and from Black Hare’s innocent blood grew trees to shade and shelter her stone memorial.

The stone is near Watchman’s Village, within present-day Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, about halfway up the plateau. When the 17th Infantry arrived, they cut all but eight trees, which were transplanted in front of the officers’ quarters at Fort McKeen. Black Hare’s stone lay on the hillside, bereft of shade and shelter. The water wagons used the stone to check and hold the rear wheels to afford the mules momentary rest.

In 1922, one last tree remained on the hilltop.

Marcotte's narrative appeared as "The Clump of Trees on The Hogsback" in The Bismarck Tribune, Dec. 15, 1922. 

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

Grandmother Flower, First Flower Of Spring

The Prairie Crocus opened her petals as the sun broke through the overcast. 

First Flower Of The Spring
Grandmother Flower Returns
By Dakota Wind
Mandan, ND (TFS) – I awoke to the distinctive call of Tȟašiyagmuŋka, the Western Meadowlark, outside my window this morning. Last weekend I went out looking for what the settlers called the Pasque Flower, or the Prairie Crocus. The Lakȟóta have two names for the same flower: Hokšíčhekpa, or A Child’s Navel; Uŋčí Waȟčá, or Grandmother Flower. My search was unsuccessful until today.

I hiked on a trail located at a recreation area in the rolling hills of Heart River Country. The sky overhead was overcast with gray clouds and teased the possibility of rain. A light wind blew in from the west and picked the cold up off a lake yet frozen. Last year’s grass was matted from the weight of this winter’s snow; banks of snow lie scattered about the prairie steppe in protest of the coming spring. 

It's easy to see the Prairie Crocus against last year's brown grass.

I stepped off the trail and ascended the north face of a hill, stepping between brush and broken sandstone outcroppings, until I stood on the top. The scree of Čhetáŋ, a hawk, and the honking of a lonely Maǧá, a goose, echoed off the icy lake. I imagine their conversation for a moment, the solitary Maǧá honked, “Tuktél huwó?” and Čhetáŋ screed out into the sky, “WótA!” Maǧá asking where his flock was, Čhetáŋ replying that it’s time to eat.

Škipípi, Chickadee, flitted among the trees and brush whistling, “Alí,” an inquiry if spring has indeed arrived. Wakíŋyela, Mourning Dove, cooed an announcement to all that surely a rain was due. Ištáničatȟaŋka, the Horned Lark, sang out, “Optéptečela, optéptečela!” thinking that perhaps another snow was coming instead. Of all the birds to sing in the spring, it is Tȟašiyagmuŋka whos whistle rises above all, “Oíyokiphi! Ómakha Théča!” or, “Take pleasure! The new year [season] is here!” 

I had to manually focus my camera on the Prairie Crocus' golden heart. 

I reached the top of the hill and fell into step with another trail that took me along the plateau edge and straight to Uŋčí Waȟčá. Her purple robe is outstanding amongst last year’s brown grass and shattered sandstone. Last year’s prickly pear shown bright red against the grass, little bulbs of Missouri Pincushion sat in little round clumps, barbs from both still sharp, but it wasn’t cactus that brought me to the hills.

They say, a long time ago, that a young man went to pray on the hill at the end of winter. It was cold, lonely, and dark, and the young man drew his robe tight about himself. As he did so, a little voice called out in gratitude for the extra warmth. Over the course of the young man’s time on the hill, the flower assured him that he would have his vision. The young man eventually left after his quest was finished, and the flower shivered in the cold. Creator looked down on the flower, and offered gifts of her choice. She wanted a robe of her own, and said that she enjoyed the colors of the mornings and the warmth of the sun. 

From the side, one can see the "fur" of the Prairie Crocus. 

Creator bestowed upon Uŋčí Waȟčá a purple robe and painted her heart gold. She’s the first flower of the new year and as the first moon passes, her robe opens less and turns gray. The first flower sings courage to all the other flowers of the new season and reminds them not to fear their time, but to rejoice because their spirits will go on to color the rainbows. Once in a while, however, the robe of Uŋčí Waȟčá is white, which indicates that a bison drew its last breath in that spot.

The urge to pluck the soft fuzzy flowers is strong, but I can’t take from the earth without leaving a gift in return, so I leave all the Uŋčí Waȟčá as I found them. Long ago, the Lakȟóta gathered and used the whole flower from root to petal in treating arthritis. Someday, as the pain increases in the knuckles of my hands, I may return for these gentle flowers. 

One of many Prairie Crocus growing on a south-facing bluff.

The sun broke through the clouds as I prepared to leave the south-facing hillside, and the flowers began to open. I snapped a few more pictures as I made my way back to the trail. A Kaŋǧí, or Crow, let loose a raucous laugh I felt was at my expense. I was dressed as though it were a summer day, and it was still spring. Kaŋǧí laughed out, “Kȟá!” as if to say, “[You] should have [dressed for the weather]!” I stood and stretched, stiff from the cold, and walked back to my car wishing for my coat.

I thought I was by myself this morning, but in the midst of creation, Makȟóčhe Wašté, the Beautiful Country, was laughter, whistles, and songs that filled the air, and even the wind let up when I passed by the frozen lake.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

New Moon, New Year In The Moon Counting Tradition

Settlers called the first flower of spring "Prairie Crocus" or "Pasque Flower," but the Lakota people know it as Hoksicekpa, A Child's Navel, or "Wanahca Unci, Grandmother Flower. 

Moon Counting Tradition
New Moon, New Year: 2017-2018
By Dakota Wind
Great Plains, N.D. & S.D. (TFS) – Waná wétu ahí, Spring as arrived. Maǧá, the geese, have returned over the past month from their sojourn in the south, Wakíŋyela, the Mourning Doves, greet the mornings in the Missouri River valley with their queries of possible snow, and Škipípila, the Chickadees, whistle their queries into the wind if spring has indeed returned. Tȟašíyagmuŋka, the Western Meadowlark sings to all, “Oíyokiphi! Ómakȟa Tȟéča yeló!” “Take Pleasure! The New Season [Year] is here!”

The Lakȟóta moon counting tradition calls for incising a notch on a willow switch, a stick would suffice, with the passing of each moon (month). At the end of the year, one should have thirteen notches. The new month in this new cycle is known by a few names: Pȟeží Tȟó Alí Wí (The Green Grass Moon), Maǧá Aglí Wí (Moon When Geese Return), or Wakíŋyaŋ Aglí Wí (Moon Of Returning Thunder).

The 2017 spring equinox occurred on Monday, March 20. Many Lakȟóta journeyed to a special place in Ȟesápa, the Black Hills, to participate in an annual tradition reaching back thousands of years to welcome the Thunder. Some Lakȟóta call this special place Hiŋháŋ KáǧA Pahá, the Making Of Owls Peak. For many years, this highest peak of Ȟesápa, was known as Harney Peak, which some now call Black Elk Peak, in honor of the Oglála holy man.

When spring arrived, not all Lakȟóta made the journey to Ȟesápa. When winter camps broke, many took to the open Great Plains to engage in the first big game hunt of the Ómakȟa Tȟéča. This kind of hunt is called WanásA. Spring was also the time when the Húŋkpapȟa journeyed east to Čaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá, Creamy White Tree River (White Birch River; the James River), to trade with the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna (Yanktonai). One rendezvous point was where the Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá, Talking Stone River (the Cannonball River) converges with Mníšoše, another rendezvous point where the Oglála met with the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ (Yankton), where the Čaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá converged with the Mníšoše.

In the Lakȟóta calendar tradition, the year is referred to as Waníyetu, or Winter. It was called such because winter was the longest season of the year, typically lasting five moons. Wétu, or Spring, lasted two months. Blokétu, or Summer, lasted four months. Ptaŋyétu, or Fall, lasted two months. The Lakȟóta calendar tradition may need to be revised in the future to reflect a change in weather. Deny climate change or acknowledge it, the growing season in North Dakota since 1879 has lengthened twelve days.

Since the equinox, a light rain fell, even as blankets of snow still linger on the landscape. Some might even say that the Thunders stayed on over the winter. Indeed, lightning and thunder was present at Standing Rock. The Mníšoše, the Water A-Stir (the Missouri River), has been breaking for a month now. Geese gather on and around the sandbars to feed before taking flight north.

This morning, in Heart River country, where the Heart River converges with Mníšoše, light wisps of clouds stretched across the eastern horizon and caught fire in the first rays of morning. Fog enveloped the Missouri River valley over a still Mníšoše, so still as to be a perfect mirror. The air is cool and crisp enough to leave whorls of frost on car windows, and a wind so light as to be barely a whisper.

One more sign by which the Lakȟóta know and celebrate Ómakȟa Tȟéča is by the blossoming of Hokšíčhekpa, A Child’s Navel (Prairie Crocus; Pasque Flower), also called Wanáȟča Uŋčí, Grandmother Flower. It is the first flower to appear and the first to take her journey. She sings songs to the other flowers, that their time will come, and not to worry when it does, for their spirits come together to make the rainbow. The entire flower is medicine, used to treat dry skin and arthritis. Her petals are purple and furry like a bison robe, and her heart is golden like the sun, though once in a while Wanáȟča Uŋčí emerges with a white robe which indicates a spot where a bison breathed his or her last breath.

I hiked the rolling hills in Heart River country over the weekend searching for Wanáȟča Uŋčí, but my search bore no results. I found dried and weathered prairie aster from last summer, hard and wrinkled prairie rose hips my grandmother would have called SákA, and lichen ranging from grey and green to brilliant orange and bright red on sandstone jutting out of the hillsides. The Lakȟóta call lichen Ziŋtkála Ipátȟapi, which means "Bird Embroidery." I’ll check again in a week’s time.

The Lakȟóta waníyetu, year, will last until March 16, 2018, which is 354 days. Or, as some would have it, the new year began on Monday, March 20, 2017. Ómakȟa Tȟéča yeló!

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

Crying Hill: A Sacred Natural Landmark

A view of Crying Hill from above in the 1930s.

Crying Hill: A Sacred Natural Landmark

Where The Hidatsa Became Two Tribes

Edited by Dakota Wind

Mandan, N.D. - In 1919, Colonel Alfred Burton Welch, a World War I veteran came to call the city of Mandan, N.D. home. There in Mandan, Welch began a new life as a store keeper, he also served as the post master, and founded the El Zagel Shrine. He spent the remainder of his life in the rolling hills of Heart River country along the Missouri River valley, and became fast friends with many of the Indian tribes there.

Captain AB Welch, seen here in his uniform from the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Welch became good friends with Chief John Grass. Grass was a distinguished Sihásapa Lakȟóta leader and veteran of the Sioux campaigns of the 1870s such as the Little Bighorn. Grass was known to the Lakota as Matȟó WatȟákpA, or Charging Bear. He had attended the Carlisle Indian School and became fluent in English to help his people fight the government in the new battlefields, the courtrooms. In March 1913, Grass adopted Welch as his son and bestowed on him Grass’ own name of Charging Bear.

While Welch lived in Mandan he took in all the lore about the site and more, and recorded as much as he could. One of those site stories he recorded was about the village and people who lived in the Mandan village along the Heart River near to Crying Hill.

Andrew Knudson painted this scene of the Corps of Discovery entering Black Cat's village near Knife River. A similar village would have graced the banks of Heart River below Crying Hill. That village was known to the Mandan as Large And Scattered Village.

The Mandan Indians have lived along the Upper Missouri River for about a thousand years and longer if you take into account their emergence story south of Mandan.

According to Welch, or the stories he attributed to the Hidatsa, Crying Hill is where the Hidatsa split into two distinct tribes. Welch uses the term Gros Ventres to name the Hidatsa. Here’s the story, Feb. 24, 1925:

The Gros Ventre were divided into two bands, and each of these bands followed their own chiefs. One starving winter-time they were reduced, by the absence of game and the failure, or destruction, of their crops, to eating the red seed pods of the wild rose bushes.

But, at last, through the prayers of a holy man among them, one lone, rogue buffalo bull, lean and staggering, wandered close to the village. He was chased and fell in the exact middle of the Heart River. Upon being dragged to the shore, it was decided that the meat should be divided in two equal portions, each band obtain the same amount of meat, bone and hide. When the division was made, one band was aggrieved and claimed that the other party had obtained the fatty portion of the stomach, while they had only the lean part.

The aggrieved band then decided that they would leave the other and go into a country which they would discover, and where they would be their own hunters and use their kill as they saw fit to do. Consequently this band did leave, traveled southwest into the country west of the Black Hills and east of the Big Horn Range, which territory they secured and where they have maintained themselves ever since that day.

These are the people known today as the Crows. They frequently come to visit the Gros Ventre; speak the same language and accept each other as cousins or relatives, but the real Gros Ventre call the crows the “Jealousy People,” on account of the separation, long ago.

Crow Indians Firing Into The Agency by Frederic Remington.

A variation of the story about the separation of the Hidatsa into two tribes came a few years earlier by way of Joe Packineau, Dec. 3, 1923:

“Crow Indians are Gros Ventre. I will tell you how it came about that they do not live together now. “That Indian village site in Mandan, we call it “Tattoo Face.” It is not Mandan village, but Gros Ventre or Hidatsa.

“There were two brothers born in that place a long time ago. One had a tattoo mark on his face like a quarter moon. It started on the cheek and ran down across the chin and up on the cheek on the other side of his face. So the people called him Tattoo Face. He became a very famous man among the Gros Ventre.  His brother was all right, and he was named Good Fur Robe. He also became a very great man and a wise man.

“Good Fur Robe was the one who had the corn seeds first. He gave one grain to each person and told them how to plant and look after the plant. Tattoo Face had tobacco before anyone else.

“Now the best part of a buffalo is his paunch. It is nice to eat. One time there was one buffalo which they killed right in the river there. He dropped dead in the middle of the Heart River when he was killed. The people drew him out for they were hungry. Good Fur Robe was the biggest chief, so he took the paunch when they divided the buffalo up between the two bands.

“That made [the] Tattoo Face people mad so that band decided that they would go away. They did go, and made their home in the country west of the Black Hills after that time.

“People call that people Crows now. But the Hidatsa do not. We call them “The Paunch Jealousy People.”

So the place where these people separated from the Hidatsa, is the Heart River at the Crying Hill (or Tattoo Face Village) which was Gros Ventre. The Mandan lived there too after that, I think.”

Crying Hill is located within the city of Mandan, ND. In 2003, Patrick Atkinson purchased Crying Hill in efforts to save the heritage site from further development. Read about Atkinson’s efforts to preserve Crying Hill.