NOTES FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN" BY ES CURTIS

VOLUME-5 THE ARIKARA

LANGUAGE: Caddoan

LOCATION:North Dakota-Along the Missouri River, near the mouth of the Platte (near the Mandan and the Hidatsa on a more permanent bias, but typically wandering through their history) .

DRESS: Men wore a loin cloth, deerskin leggings and moccasins. A buffalo robe took the place of a shirt. Women were clad in a one piece garment reaching to the ankles and made of two deerskins, one for the front and one for the back and fringed at the bottom. Leggings and moccasins of deerskin were also worn by women.

The above gravures are ARIKARA MAIDEN and MEDICINE CEREMONY-BEARS

DWELLINGS: The Arikara lived in hemispherical earthen lodges (the same as the Hidatsa and Mandan), from forty to seventy five feet in diameter. In the center, four forked pillars twenty feet high stood from fifteen to eighteen feet apart in a square, supporting four cross timbers. Shorter forked logs about eight feet high were set around the circumference of the lodge, supporting a series of stout poles from which the rafters extended to the centre-timbers. Willow branches were tied horizontally and covered with dry grass, than followed a layer of sod and earth.

RELIGION /CEREMONIES: The distinctive right of the Arikara was that of the medicine fraternity "Shunuwanuh", Magic Performance, lasting from midsummer into the fall, with singing and dancing and performances of legerdemain in the lodge every afternoon and night. Other distinctive ceremonies included, "Sun Dance", similar to surrounding tribes, and "Child", ceremony of adoption.

The above gravures are CONTENTS OF A TRIBAL MEDICINE BUNDLE and IN THE MEDICINE LODGE

QUOTES FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN":"The Arikara, popularly termed Rees )an abbreviated form of the incorrect spelling, Arickaree), are the northernmost fragment of Caddoan stock....The Arikara are an offshoot of the Pawnee, and more directly of the Skidi band of that tribe."

"The tribal enemies of the Arikara following the separation (from the Pawnee) and during their migration north were the Wichita, Comanche,Kiowa, Cheyenne, Apsaroke, and of course the Sioux. At times they were on peaceful terms with the Mandan and Hidatsa, but more often at war. They say that prior to the establishment of the final peace with these two sedentary tribes, they could not claim a friend or an ally-every man, Indian and white, was an enemy."

The above gravure is THE ALTAR

"The Arikara are a semi-agricultural people, and have apparently been such from an early period, many myths and ceremonies bearing relation to growing corn and other products of the soil. The variety of corn raised is characteristic of the agricultural tribes in the Southwest-dwarf-like but very leafy stalks with many small ears of varicolored grains growing near the ground."

"The basket common to these three tribes is claimed by the Arikara as originally a product of their own art, and writers acquainted with the basketry of southern Caddoan tribes assert this is a Caddoan pattern."

The above gravures are AT THE WATERS EDGE and THE BUFFALO MEDICINE

"The soul, called "Sishu", is responsible for all acts of man during life: it resides in the breast, and appears in the spoken word, in the look of the eye, in the movement of the muscles. It is the sishu that rattles in the throat of the dying in an attempt to escape... All animals have sishu, but not trees and inanimate objects."

The above gravure is THE CORN DANCE CEREMONY

"The Arikara developed the legerdemain of their all summer medicine ceremony to such an extent that other tribes, far and near, learned of their wonderful and potent magic. the superstition and credulity of the Indian are such that medicine-men living afar, as well as the tribesmen of the performers, believed these tricks to be the mysterious tricks of supernatural powers.