Like-a-Fishhook Village was a Native American settlement next to Fort Berthold in North Dakota, United States, established by dissident bands of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa. Formed in 1845, it was also eventually inhabited by non-Indian traders, and became important in the trade between Natives and non-Natives in the region.

The village was founded eight years after a disastrous epidemic of smallpox in 1837. The numbers of the dissident Mandan in the region had been reduced to approximately 125; the population of the Hidatsa was also affected, though not as severely.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 97. These Mandan and Hidatsa bands were later joined by the Arikara 18 years after the village was constructed.

The village, consisting of earthen lodges and log cabins, was abandoned in the mid-1880s. The site of Like-a-Fishhook Village was lost when the construction of Garrison Dam flooded the area to create Lake Sakakawea in 1954.Gilman, Carolyn and Mary Jane Schneider: The Way to Independence. Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920. St. Paul, 1987, p. 315.

Decision to move "Enemies gave our tribes much trouble after the smallpox year, my grandmother said. Bands of Sioux waylaid hunting parties...", said Buffalo Bird Woman (Hidatsa).Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, pp. 11-12. Another concern for the Hidatsa and the Mandan was the dwindling amount of wood where they lived in Big Hidatsa at Knife River.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 100. The majority of the tribes agreed to build a new settlement in common some place up the Missouri.

A few Mandan stayed behind with the Arikara at the former Mandan head village Mitutanka. Some miles away existed a small Mandan village and the life went on here as usual until the early 1860s.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, pp. 99-100. A number of the Hidatsa ceased farming and joined the River Crow at the Yellowstone River.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 24.

Migration The migration started in the spring of 1844, led by Hidatsa chief Four Bears and Missouri River, a Hidatsa medicine man.Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, pp. 11-12. Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 100. The people raised a camp on the north banks of the Missouri at a point called Like-a-Fishhook. The name was due to a peculiar bend of the river. The Hidatsa also knew the place as "Dancing Bear".Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 100.

Groundwork and site

"Soon after they came to Like-a-Fishhook bend, the families ... began to clear fields, for gardens."Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, p. 9. The vegetable plots were located on the river bottomland nearby.Gilman, Carolyn and Mary Jane Schneider: The Way to Independence. Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920. St. Paul, 1987, p. 11. The village founders prepared for building round, dome shaped earth lodges with an inner frame of wood during the autumn. They spent the cold season in winter camps. The heavy work of construction began the next year.Howard, James H.: Butterfly's Mandan Wintercount: 1833-1876. Ethnohistory, Vol. 7 (Winter 1960), pp. 28-43, pp. 31-32.

Four Bears marked the borders of the village.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 38. Missouri River walked over the area and sang songs connected to his sacred bundle. "I want to have the village here so that my people will increase and be safe", he told.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 472.

Village leaders In addition to ceremonial leader Missouri River and war leader Four Bears,Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 38. four "Protectors of the People" were chosen. Each selected a place for their earth lodge so there would be a powerful protector in each quarter of the village.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 275. Bear Looks Out took care of a Corn bundle and selected the southern quarter of the village for his home.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 343. Big Cloud protected the east, while the west would be guarded by Bobtail Bull. Bad Horn, also Hidatsa, had a Bear bundle and would have his home to the north.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, p. 38.

The new village

A central plaza in the village was an innovation for the Hidatsa, but a tradition among the Mandan. Their sacred cedar had its place in the center. They made a ceremonial lodge next to the plaza and used both during ceremonies like the .Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 101. The medicine lodge was usually detectable by its size and flat façade,Bowers, Alfred W.: Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Moscow, 1991, p. 112. but a visitor described the one in Like-a-Fishhook Village as being "round".Matthews, Washington: Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 14 (1969), No. 45, pp. 1-72, p. 9. The Hidatsa would from time to time rent the lodge for ceremonies of their own.Bowers, Alfred W.: Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 194. Washington, 1965, pp. 352, 383 and 419.

The new village consisted of roughly 70 earth lodges,Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, p. 44. with the homes of leading men facing the plaza.Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, p. 15. Drying frames for produce from the gardens were visible everywhere. Hidden in the ground were caches for storing the harvest of the summer. The caches could be dug inside the lodge as well as outside. " ... they are often left open [when empty] ... and may entrap the unwary stroller."Matthews, Washington: Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 14 (1969), No. 45, pp. 1-72, p. 8.

The people traded with the recently established Fort Berthold just outside the northern palisade.Gilman, Carolyn and Mary Jane Schneider: The Way to Independence. Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920. St. Paul, 1987, p. 10. Occupied by the better part of the Mandan and the Hidatsa, Like-a-Fishhook Village held more people than any of the nearest white towns.Gilman, Carolyn and Mary Jane Schneider: The Way to Independence. Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920. St. Paul, 1987, p. 8.

1850s

Grasshoppers and hailstorms devastated the crops in 1853 and 1856.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 107.

By the end of the decade, the new times had reached the Upper Missouri. Henry A. Boller, a young fur trader, noted how the panes of glass in Four Bears' residence broke one night.Boller, Henry A.: Journal of a Trip to, and Residence in, the Indian Country. North Dakota History, Vol. 33 (1966), pp. 260-315, p. 288.

Arikara arrival The Arikara moved out of Mitutanka with the closing of the nearby trading post Fort Clark in 1860. They build a new village, named Star Village by archaeologists, in the spring of 1862. The settlement was located in view of Like-a-Fishhook Village, but on the south side of the Missouri.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 108. A trading visit by some Sioux in August erupted into a fight. Suffering severe losses, the Arikara fled across the river and enlarged Like-a-Fishhook Village with a new, northern district.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 108. Like the Mandans, they constructed a ceremonial lodge, but larger. Assisting Surgeon Washington Matthews reports the lodge bordering an open space, which was more or less in form of a square.Matthews, Washington: Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 14 (1969), No. 45, pp. 1-72, p. 9. According to tradition, the "tribal temple" should have been built in the center of the plaza with open space all around it.Gilmore, Melvin R.: The Arikara Tribal Temple. Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, No. 14 (1930), pp. 47-70, p. 48. The influx of the Arikara nearly doubled up the population in the village, so more than 2,000 people lived there.Matthews, Washington: Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 14 (1969), No. 45, pp. 1-72, p. 16. (This may be compared to the total of 2,405 citizens in North Dakota in 1870.)

Burning of the village Every winter the people moved to temporary quarters in the river bottomland,Wilson, Gilbert L.: Waheenee. An Indian Girl's Story told by herself to Gilbert, L. Wilson. Lincoln and London, 1981, p. 44. which were better sheltered against chilly storms. Some Sioux set fire to (Fort Berthold II) and Like-a Fishook Village caught fire as well. After heavy fighting the men at the fort got reinforcement from some of the Natives in the winter villages.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 119. " ... the Sioux came against our village in the winter time and stole our corn and burned down my father's lodge", remembered Buffalo Bird Woman.Wilson, Gilbert L.: Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. As told to Gilbert L. Wilson. St. Paul, 1987, p. 95.

New neighbors A year before the burning of the village, some Yankton Sioux killed chief Four Bears.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 108. In 1864, Like-a-Fishhook Village got new neighbors with the arrival of armed forces at the former trading post Fort Berthold II. They remained to 1867.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 111. The next year the army constructed Fort Stevenson some 14 miles away.Gilman, Carolyn and Mary Jane Schneider: The Way to Independence. Memories of a Hidatsa Indian Family, 1840-1920. St. Paul, 1987, p. 129. It was the new center of military power in the Department of Dakota's Middle District, although it lacked the capacity to stop the Sioux's raiding.Meyer, Roy W.: The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri. The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln and London, 1977, p. 115.

Late 1860s